Kantai Collection character personification of the Italian light cruiser Giuseppe Garibaldi, second of the Duca degli Abruzzi-class cruisers and 12th and final ship of the Condottieri super class. Her namesake is General Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807-1882), a founding father who contributed to Italian unification and the creation the Kingdom of Italy. Like all of the Italian shipgirls before her, she was created by Jiji. She is the game's second ever foreign light cruiser and the first from either Axis or Allied sides (the first ever, Gotland, belonged to a neutral navy).
Appearance
She is depicted with shortpink hair, purplish pink eyes, and medium breasts. She wears a mostly red shirt that exposes her armpits, a redpleated skirt, red knee-high boots, white gloves, and a white hat. Her mostly red outfit is a historial reference: According to some popular stories, the soldiers in General Garibaldi's volunteer army, the Garibaldini, wore red shirts in lieu of uniforms.
Her machinery includes among others four turrets carrying her 10 6-inch (152-mm) guns.
Due to similar spellings in both the Latin alphabet and in Japanese kana, Garibaldi's name (ガリバルディ) has a tendency to be mispronounced as "Galbaldy" (ガルバルディ) with several of these mecha from the Gundam universes (Galbaldy Beta for instance) being associated with her as a result.
History
The historical light cruiser is one of a few ships (the only one in the game so far) to have served in both sides during World War II. Commissioned in 1937 for the Regia Marina, Giuseppe Garibaldi saw active service in the Mediterranean Sea against the Allies, participating in several major battles such as the Battle of Calabria, the Battle of Cape Matapan, and the siege of Malta. When Italy surrendered to the Allies with the signing of the Armistice of Cassibile in 1943, Giuseppe Garibaldi served together with Allied ships in patrol duty in the South Atlantic. She was decomissioned in 1953 and reconstructed into Europe's first guided missile cruiser by 1961 with the ability to launch nuclear ballistic missiles, the only surface ship to do so. With the reconstruction, she was supposed to carry UGM-27 Polaris missiles to be provided by the United States, but never did due to political reasons amidst Cold War tensions. She was again decomissioned in 1971 and scrapped the year after. General Garibaldi's name would then be applied to Italy's first aircraft carrier, currently in active service.
