Watch: Ferocious Italian warship ITS Doria named after famous general sails from Royal Navy's Portsmouth base
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A fresh face that previously worked alongside British sailors left Portsmouth’s Royal Navy base this morning.
ITS Doria was spotted sailing past The Round Tower in Old Portsmouth just after 9am (February 23). A cluster of photographers set up along The Hot Walls to catch a glimpse of the Nato vessel.
She previously worked alongside the Royal Navy in 2022 as part of Operation Joint Warrior. Thousands of sailors, soldiers and aviators faced submarines, swarm attacks, drones, air raids, and missile strikes from the Hebrides to the South Coast. ITS Doria worked alongside the Type 23 frigate HMS Kent, with the Duke-class ship acting as the role of a submarine hunter in a realistic combat exercise.
Italian ships are known to visit HMNB Portsmouth on various occasions. The most striking was the huge aircraft carrier Giuseppe Garibaldi in February 2024.
Facts and figures about ITS Doria
The destroyer is the fifth ship in the Italian Navy to bear its name. She honours a Renaissance Genoese admiral and general Andrea Doria, with the condottiero most famous for ruling the Genoa republic in the Middle Ages.
The ship was commissioned in 2007 - 152.9m long and weighing just over 7,000 tonnes. She’s powered by four diesel generators as well as gas turbines. Able to house a crew of over 200 personnel, she is armed with various pieces of artillery, two torpedo tubes, a Principal Anti-Air Missile System, and other equipment.
Her flexible design means she can act as an escort in a carrier strike group, be used as an air-defence platform, and conduct various operations from disaster relief and crisis response to counter-piracy missions.
Italian sailors last worked alongside the Royal Navy during Operation Highmast. HMS Prince of Wales joined forces with the fellow carrier ITS Cavour for Exercise Neptune Strike. The Nato operation saw the Royal Navy flagship reach Full Operational Capability.