The battleship Roma in Trieste during the Summer of 1942. She has either just finished or just about finished her fitting out. Roma would be commissioned on June 24 of that year. Italy had to wait after the expiration of the Washington treaty ban to start its first modern battleship class, and accommodations by the treaty of London. The Littorio class was designed to answer another ship's class specifically, the French Dunkirk class, which themselves answered the German Deutschland class of 1929.