WW2 Italian Submarines

A rather vague subject for me.
How effectively did the Italians use their Sub-fleet in the Second World War?
What were their greatest victories/sinkings?

Tim

 

A friend of mine, a former officer in the Italian Navy, referred to the WWII subs as "offensive buoys."

 

LMAO

 

What does LMAO means?

The Italians shifted some submarines to Bordeaux (France) to assist the germans with the Battle for the Atlantic.

 

LMAO = Laugh My Ass/Arse Off

 

The Italians pioneered the use of divers using forms of powered underwater vehicle to attack shipping and were very good at it. See the links I put in this thread -

http://www.fun-online.sk/forum/view...=&sid=5db49f922be88adad3393261298d8d33#100915

 

hey tim,

the best site if you are interessted in italian subs, you will find anything from profiles to all sinkings and Betasom. BETASOM was the codename for
italian operations in the antlantic. 32 it. subs fight alongside with the german Ubootwaffe and ther were some CO´s, who sunk 30.000 to 50.000 BRT, some achieved even larger numbers, like 100.000 tons.

http://www.regiamarina.net/subs/actions ... sub_us.asp


the british cruiser HMS Calypso was sunk in 1940 by the Italian submarine Bagnolini.In August 1942 the italian sub Axum sunk the british AA-cruiser HMS Cairo, which took part in the Operation Pedestal. The italian subs Guglielmotti, Tricheco, Granito, Bianchi, Pier Capponi, Salpa, Jantina, Porfido, Ammiraglio St.Bon, Medusa, Remo, Acciaio, Pietro Micca, Vellela were sunk by british subs in the MTO.

It´s only a small part of their history




Regards,
Che.

 

Nice Pic. Those subs are quite big.

 

Great photo Che.
Impressive-looking submarines at a glance. 'Sounds as though they did inflict some damage to the Allies, eh?
I appreciate the responses...

Tim

 

in a book i read once it says most italian sub crews wouldnt attack a convoy if it had a few escoert ships

 

There's a tiny bit of info here -



http://www.sharkhunters.com/book1.htm

 

in addition, the ital. sub Ambra sunk the british cruiser HMS Bonaventure in 1941 south of Crete (139 lost).




Regards,
Che.

 

And poor BONAVENTURE was, IIRC, the only British warship to be sunk by an Italian sumarine. Kinda adds insult to injury.

 

I took a quick look and found the following RN combatants destroyed by Italian subs: Escort, Triad, Cairo, Algerine, Samphire, MGB 641. Also, the grounded Havock was finished off.

 

I know it's been a while but I've found some more stuff here -

http://www.comandosupremo.com/Submarines.html

There's a spreadsheet on there somewhere too.

Great site BTW - all sections well stocked.

 

here's also another list with the technical details of each class

http://warships.web4u.cz/tridy.php?language=E&stat=ITA&typ=SS

 

Also - as is mentioned in the link I just posted - the silhouette of these subs over the waterline is very high compared to - say - a U-Boat - they stick out like a sore thumb. Unless there is some other reason why these are so high in the water - anyone ?

 

Maybe they are unloaded. Lets take that they can take 16 torpedo's, each torpedo weighing 800 kilo's that makes almost 13 tons of weight. Do the same for fuel, shells, and food supplies and you get a couple tons more weigh when they are loaded.

 

A lot of Italian subs were modified with smaller towers to reduce their obvious silhouettes.

 

I wonder what the Germans who did the work thought of the Italian subs?