 In 1936, the Italian Regia Marina placed an order for twelve examples of a new destroyer design, the Soldati class.The design was essentially a repeat of the previous "Oriani" destroyer design, which was itself a development of the .The design featured an identical main gun armament of four 120 mm/50 calibre guns in two twin turrets, one forward and one aft, while torpedo armament was two triple torpedo tubes.