The RN Raimondo Montecuccoli was the first one of Raimondo Montecuccoli-subclass of Condottieri cruisers. She was laid down in October 1931 and commissioned in June 1935, marking a major shift for the class by evolving into a proper cruiser rather than a destroyer-hunter. To achieve this transformation, the designers doubled the mass allocated to armour, upgraded the boilers, and increased the anti-aircraft armament. Her first assignment was to protect Italian shipping and troops in Tianjin during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Her initial combat encounter occurred at the Battle of Punta Stilo in the early stages of World War II, where she did not achieve any notable success. It was not until the battle in mid-June that she attained her first combat success by inflicting significant damage on HMS Bedouin, destroying her superstructure. She then engaged in an intense gunfight with HMS Ithuriel, an I-class destroyer, closing to within 7 kilometres of each other. During this engagement, Ithuriel suffered multiple shrapnel damages, and Montecuccoli was hit directly in the officers' quarters, prompting her to disengage. This battle represented the greatest combat success of her career. Following the armistice, she served as a troop transport, and after the end of World War II, she continued in the Italian Navy as a training cruiser for the next 20 years.
Introduced in Update "Starfighters" along with the initial release of the Italian navy, RN Raimondo Montecuccoli is one of the best light cruisers of her battle rating. Her biggest flaw is a lacklustre torpedo armament and ammo rack protection, but in the right hands, she can be an exceptional warship, able to play with the enemy vessels on her own terms and easily destroy enemy destroyers and light cruisers in any duel.