The RN Leone was the first of the Leone-class destroyers, laid down 23 November 1921, launched 1 October, completed and put into service on 11 July 1924. She was at first placed in the Divisione Leggera dell'Armata Navale, and then in the Divisione da Battaglia where it carried out the training of the crew. With the entry into service of the sisters RN Tigre and RN Pantera, the Gruppo Autonomo Esporatori Leggeri was formed. The RN Leone in its operative history continued to make training and navigation missions, until the beginning of the Ethiopian War where it participated escort and attack missions on the coast of Ethiopia. During the Second World War, it made a few missions in which it had to defend the Italian colonies, but in 1940 the situation was precipitating very fast and it had to abandon the Italian colonies. On 1st April 1941 at 00:30, the RN Leone collided with a reef not marked on the charts, creating a gash in the hull and a fire in boiler room 4, the RN Tigre and RN Pantera in the meantime began to rescue the crew of the RN Leone. The ship was unrecoverable and was scuttled.

Introduced in Update "Direct Hit", RN Leone is a premium Italian destroyer. Being a WWI design, she is very lacklustre when compared to other ships of the same battle rating. The main armament is also unique in that the ship has access to APHE rounds unlike any other destroyer armed with calibres smaller than 150 mm. However, the rate of fire of 7 rounds per minute is lower than contemporaries. The magazines of the ship are located above the waterline right under the turrets, making it very vulnerable to fatal detonation. The anti- air armament is mediocre, composed by only two 40 mm pom-poms. Her torpedoes are quite fast with average payload but very limited range of 4 km which make their use very situational.