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In stark contrast to the rather modest performance of its large surface fleet in the Second World War, the Italian Navy’s smallest units achieved its most spectacular successes. This book is the first complete history of these craft, both the details of the technology and the history of their deployment.
In stark contrast to the rather modest performance of its large surface fleet in the Second World War, the Italian Navy’s smallest units achieved its most spectacular successes. It made a speciality of unconventional methods of attack – explosive motor boats, human torpedoes and miniature submarines – that were employed with ingenuity and daring to surprise, discomfort and baffle the enemy. In December 1941 the whole balance of the naval war in the Mediterranean was altered by six frogmen riding three of the SLC craft they called maiale (‘pigs’) who penetrated Alexandria harbour to cripple the battleships Valiant and Queen Elizabeth, surely one of the most impressive ratios of results to resources in naval history.
This book is the first complete history of these craft, both the details of the technology and the history of their deployment. Beginning in the Great War with the extraordinary ‘jumping’ boats designed to scale harbour boom defences, the story takes in the inter-war development of both lightweight surface craft and underwater systems from small submarines to ‘Gamma’ assault divers. By way of comparison, equivalent developments in other navies are analysed, including the British ‘chariots’ which were little more than copies of the Italian SLCs.
Every operation by these craft is described, cataloguing the forces involved and the results, from high-profile successes like the sinking of the cruiser York by explosive motorboat to lesser-known incidents – the use of such craft by the Israelis as late as 1948 for example. Many were carried out by the famous Decima MAS, a unit as legendary in Italy as the SAS in Britain, and this book provides a comprehensive chronicle of their activities.
Originally commissioned by CABI Cattaneo that designed and built most of these craft, Italian Assault Craft benefited from unrestricted access to the company’s archives, technical drawings, and photo collection so it is replete with rarely seen illustrations. Very much secret weapons in their day, they are here revealed in full detail for the first time.
ISBN: 9781399056083 Format: Hardback Author(s): Erminio Bagnasco First Publishment Date: 30 August 2023
This excellent book now tells their full story and is thoroughly recommended.
While the Italian Navy’s main surface fleet was, in all fairness, kept on a tight rein by Mussolini, who never really understood sea power, its specialist surface and underwater attack arm was another matter. Comprehensively researched and extensively illustrated throughout, Erminio Bagnasco’s excellent book covers every aspect of his subject in meticulous detail, enhanced by a substantial appendix, bibliography and index. Its particularly absorbing first part covers the origins and use of all the types of surface and sub-surface assault craft developed and used by the Italians in WW2, while the second describes in detail their physical and technical character and much more besides.
It explains that their development and successful use of small attack craft actually began in WW1, when adapted and skilfully-handled small, fast torpedo boats and specially-developed semi-submersible craft achieved notable success against the Austro-Hungarian navy in the Adriatic, including famously sinking the dreadnoughts Szent Istvan and Viribus Unitis. Post-war advances in design and construction and in self-contained diving equipment led to further development of the concept, so that by 1940 two main types of assault craft were in service: the Silura a Lenta Corsa (SLC), crewed by 2 men in diving suits and nicknamed the Maiale (“Pig”), later copied and used by the RN as the Chariot Mk1 and, secondly, the Explosive Motor Boat (EMB), a weapon requiring both great courage and steely nerves by its solo operator who, having aimed the boat at its target and locked the rudder, had to then throw himself backwards from the speeding craft and take his chances from there!
Operated by the 10th Flotilla, the Decima, the assault craft soon made their mark. All 32 main actions, both successful and unsuccessful, plus the 5 from WW1, are fully chronicled and summarised by Bagnasco - and what an interesting read they are, covering operations in both the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. Among those perhaps already known are the attack by EMBs on the heavy cruiser HMS York in Suda Bay, Crete, in March 1941, permanently disabling her, and the crippling by SLCs of the Mediterranean Fleet flagship Queen Elizabeth and her sister ship Valiant in Alexandria harbour in December 1941, both battleships put out of action for several months. There were also several operations against targets at Gibraltar by Maiale operating from the Olterra, an Italian tanker interned in Algeciras Bay and used as an SLC base, the fascist Spanish government looking the other way. These operations are portrayed in the 1950s film “The Silent Enemy” which, even allowing for film-maker’s licence, is worth seeing for the craft, kit and counter-tactics used.
The Armistice of 8 September 1943 then adds a new dimension to the story, the core of the 10th Flotilla in the north giving its loyalty to Mussolini’s puppet Italian Socialist Republic, while in the south, the original Kingdom of Italy now a co-belligerent with the Allies, a Mariassalto force was formed from Decima members still loyal to it. Based initially at Taranto, an initial shortage of trained and experienced men was overcome by the Allies agreeing to release all the assault craft men captured and held as PoWs since 1940, a request readily agreed to because we wanted to learn from them! Both the Decima and Mariassalto continued to operate with respective successes until the end of the war and then formed the core of the post-war Regruppemento Subacquei e Incursoei (Divers and Raiders Group), an elite unit of the Italian Navy to this day.
Italian assault craft, their crews and support never more than 100 strong on average, posed a significant and wholly disproportionate threat throughout the war causing, as they did, direct Allied losses of more than 205,000 tons of naval vessels and merchant ships sunk or damaged, 95% of them by Maiale and attack divers, the rest by surface craft. This excellent book now tells their full story and is thoroughly recommended.
