Taranto Naval Base (Arsenale Militare Marittimo di Taranto)

Taranto is one of the two principal bases of the Italian Navy, with La Spezia, and covers the central and eastern Mediterranean. It lies in Apulia, southern Italy, on the Gulf of Taranto. Its installations are spread across the city's two basins: the Mar Piccolo, an inner lagoon of two circular inlets, and the Mar Grande, the roadstead on the open sea. A navigable channel crossed by a swing bridge links the two. The naval installations are separate from the commercial and industrial port of Taranto.

Surface warships are normally based at the Chiapparo naval station on the Mar Grande, about five kilometres south of the arsenal. The station covers roughly 60 hectares and berths about 20 warships. Ships move into the Mar Piccolo only for longer stays, usually for work in the arsenal. The submarine base remains in the Mar Piccolo: the arsenal houses the Submarine Flotilla Command and the navy's submarine school, which took new premises in 2005 and whose simulators are also available to allied navies.

The Arsenale Militare Marittimo stands on the southern shore of the western Mar Piccolo, between the Castello Aragonese and the channel in the west and the Aldo Moro bridge in the east. It covers more than 90 hectares inside a perimeter wall and is organised into four areas: general directorate, combat systems, platform and services. A workforce of about 200 naval personnel and 850 civilians carries out maintenance, modernisation and conversion work, from structural steelwork and fitting to the overhaul of missile systems, radar, telecommunications equipment and electronic modules. An apprentice school has trained arsenal staff since 1913.

The navy keeps an ammunition depot on the northern shore of the eastern Mar Piccolo, and a training centre at San Vito, at the southern end of the Mar Grande.

The Italian Parliament authorised the base on 29 June 1882, works began on the Mar Piccolo in September 1883, and the arsenal was inaugurated on 21 August 1889 together with the widened navigable channel. The arsenal built warships from 1894 until 1967, when the navy restricted it to fleet support and maintenance. Construction of the Chiapparo station began in 1989 and it opened on 25 June 2004.