Interesting note to these ships, the Italians were the only fleet in the interwar refit period to make major main battery modifications. While other fleets' ships saw radical modifications in terms of fire control, AA protection, aircraft carriage, etc. (and enormous changes physically, at a glance), the core elements of the ships usually went unchanged. Ships might upgrade from coal to oil (like the British 'R'-class ships), gain some speed from changes, etc., but the armor and main weaponry tended to remain the same. Putting images from WWI vs. the beginning of WWII next to each other of the Warspite, the Arizona, the Fuso, etc. show very different looking ships at a glance, but if you look at their core elements everything is unchanged- it's funnels, secondary weapons, fire control, etc. that changed.
Italy though? Yeah, no. Removing midships turrets was always a good idea for a number of reasons (no magazine in the midst of your engine areas anymore, no big hole in the middle of the ship to compromise structural integrity, etc.), but it also means a significant loss in raw broadside strength. Boring out the remaining guns a little and drastically increasing their elevation helped mitigate that problem. Was it worth it? Hard to say since they didn't really see a ton of frontline battleship-style action to test them, but certainly 'A' for effort.
