2 man mini submarine with torpedo at a military museum in Argentina
or
manned torpedoes are a type of rideable
submarines that were used as secret naval weapons in
World War II. The basic design is still in use today. The name is most commonly used to refer to the weapons that Italy, and later Britain, deployed in the
Mediterranean and used to attack ships in enemy harbours. They are a type of
diver propulsion vehicle.
They were electrically propelled
torpedoes, with two crewmen in
diving suits riding astride. They steered the torpedo at slow speed to the enemy ship. The detachable
warhead was then used as a
limpet mine. They then rode the torpedo away.
In operation, the torpedo was carried by another vessel (usually a normal submarine), and launched near the target. Most manned torpedo operations were at night and during the
new moon to cut down the risk of being seen. The idea was successfully applied by the Italian navy (
Regia Marina) early in World War II and then copied by the British when they discovered the Italian operations. The official Italian name for their craft was
Siluro a Lenta Corsa (SLC or "Slow-running torpedo"), but the Italian operators nicknamed it
maiale (Italian for "pig"; plural
maiali) because it was difficult to steer. The British copies were named "chariots".
Construction
A typical manned torpedo has a propeller and
hydroplanes at the rear, side hydroplanes in front, and a control panel and controls for its front rider. It usually has two riders who sit facing forwards. It has
navigation aids such as a
compass, and nowadays modern aids such as
sonar and
GPS positioning and
modulated ultrasound communications gear. It may have an air (or other
breathing gas) supply so its riders do not have to drain their own apparatus while they are riding it. In some the riders' seats are enclosed; in others the seats are open at the sides as in sitting astride a horse. The seat design includes room for the riders'
swimfins (if used). There are
flotation tanks (typically four: left fore, right fore, left aft, right aft), which can be flooded or blown empty to adjust
buoyancy and
attitude.
Timeline
- 1 November 1918: Two men of the Regia Marina, Raffaele Paolucci and Raffaele Rossetti, in diving suits, rode a primitive manned torpedo (nicknamed Mignatta or "leech") into the Austro-Hungarian Navy base at Pola (Istria), where they sank the Austrian battleship Viribus Unitis and the freighter Wien using limpet mines. They had no breathing sets and they had to keep their heads above water, and thus they were discovered and taken prisoner.
- 1938: In Italy the "1a Flottiglia Mezzi d'Assalto" (First Fleet Assault Vehicles) was formed as a result of the research and development efforts of two men - Major Teseo Tesei and Major Elios Toschi of the Italian Royal Navy. The pair resurrected the idea of Paolucci and Rossetti.
- 1940: Commander Moccagatta of the Italian Royal Navy (Regia Marina) reorganised the 1st Fleet Assault Vehicles into the Decima Flottiglia MAS (Tenth Light Flotilla of assault vehicles) or "X-MAS", under the command of Ernesto Forza. It secretly manufactured manned torpedoes and trained war frogmen, called nuotatori (Italian: "swimmers").
- 1941: An attack on Valletta Harbour was a disaster for the X MAS and Major Teseo Tesei lost his life.
- 7 December 1942: The Decima Flottiglia MAS attacked the port of Alexandria with three maiali. An 8,000-ton tanker, and the battleships HMS Valiant and Queen Elizabeth were damaged in shallow water putting them out of action for months. The attack was performed by diver Sergeant Salvatore Leone, from Taormina, Sicily. He was killed when the British "reacted furiously" to the attack, his body never being recovered. Sgt Leone was awarded the 'Silver Medal of Military Merit' and a memorial to commemorate his bravery, erected in the Community Gardens in Taormina on the 50th anniversary of the attack. The memorial includes a rebuilt "PIG" and a description of the events, in three langauges.
- October 1942: Two British chariots were carried aboard the Shetland Bus fishing-boat Arthur to attack the Tirpitz on Operation Title. They were swung overboard once in Norwegian waters but both became detached from their tow-hooks in a gale and the operation was a total failure.
- 1–2 January 1943: British submarines Thunderbolt, Trooper and P311 took part in Operation Principal. P311 was lost en route to La Maddelena but the other two boats had some success at Palermo, launching two and three Chariots respectively. The Ulpio Traiano was sunk and the stern torn off Viminale. However the cost was high with one submarine and one chariot lost and all but two charioteers captured.
- 18 January 1943: Thunderbolt took two chariots to Tripoli for Operation Welcome. This was to prevent blockships being sunk at the harbour mouth, so denying access to the Allies. Again, partial success was achieved. This was the last operation in which chariots were carried in containers on British submarines, although some others followed with the chariots on deck without containers.
- 2 October 1943: A bigger Italian frogman-carrier, long and carrying four frogmen, called Siluro San Bartolomeo, or SSB, was going to attack Gibraltar, but Italy surrendered and the attack was called off.
- 21 June 1944: A British-Italian joint operation was mounted against shipping in La Spezia harbour. The chariots were carried on board an MTB and the cruiser Bolzano was sunk.
- 27–28 October 1944: The British submarine Trenchant carried two Mk 2 Chariots (nicknamed Tiny and Slasher) to an attack on Phuket harbor in Thailand. See British commando frogmen#1944 for more information about this attack. No manned torpedo operations in combat in any war are known with certainty of after this date.
- Immediate post-war period: The British Chariots were used to clear mines and wrecks in harbours.
For other events, see
Operations of X Flottiglia MAS and
British commando frogmen.
Some nations including Italy have continued to build and deploy manned torpedoes since 1945.
Types
Italy
World War II
cockpit of a Maiale.
- Siluro San Bartolomeo (Italian, St. Bartholomew Torpedo, also called SSB). It was never used in action. .
For information on Italian manned torpedo operations, see
Decima Flottiglia MAS.
After 1945
- CE2F/X100 is a make of chariot made after 1945. There is an image of it . They are made in Italy. Range . 2 riders. The Pakistan Navy has several of them. India and Argentina also have some. Recent upgrades include:
- *control module with a GPS
- *Digitized on board electronics
United Kingdom
World War II
- Chariot Mark 1. 6.8 m (22 feet 4 inches) long, 0.9 m (2 feet 11 inches) wide, 1.2 m (3 feet 11 inches) high, speed , weight: 1.6 tonnes , maximum diving depth: 27 m. Endurance 5 hours (distance would depend on water current). Its control handle was -shaped.
- Chariot Mark II, had two riders, who sat back to back.
For information on British manned torpedo operations, see
British commando frogmen.
was taken at a military parade in
Cairo in 1963. It shows two chariots, each two-seat, and their riders' legs are enclosed.
Germany
World War II
- Neger. Used in World War II. An extreme form of a genuine manned torpedo that carried the weapon, a second torpedo, underneath which was launched at the target. Speed: . One seat. The torpedo was named after its inventor Richard Mohr. (Mohr and Neger are German words for "negro".)
- Marder and Biber. Very small submarines which carried two torpedoes and one or two men.
There were other types which never ran into production.
Japan
thumb|Captured Kaiten torpedo at the USS Bowfin museum in Hawaii World War II
- Kaiten. It was a steered fast torpedo and in practice was a suicide weapon. As such their operations differed substantially from those of the Italian, British and German.
Russia/USSR
After 1945
United States
After 1945
There are pictures and descriptions of modern US Chariot-like underwater frogman-carriers used by
SEAL's and a fast surface boat that can submerge, here:
- http://www.specialoperations.com/Navy/SDV/ (SDV = Swimmer Delivery Vehicle)
- http://stiddmil.com/ (STD = Swimmer Transport Device)); (11 megabytes, prints to 16 A4 pages)
SFR Yugoslavia/Montenegro/Croatia
After 1945
The
Yugoslav Navy (JRM)
frogmen used the type R-1 manned torpedo for a variety of missions, including: mine clearance, infiltration, clandestine surveillance and security, and assault missions on enemy shipping and naval objects.
These apparatuses were relegated to the navies of
Croatia (HRM) (1991) and
Montenegro (2007).
Museums
- *A restored original British Mark II, which was found in Portsmouth. In this design, the two riders sat back to back.
- *A working chariot that was made in 1992 in Milton Keynes with approximately the outside appearance of a British wartime Mark I, but with differing internal working parts. It has been filmed in action for the television. It has a dummy warhead. . It was last used in 2006.
- Original SLC's are displayed at the Venice Naval History Museum.
Movies and fiction
- The film Above Us the Waves (released in 1955) concentrates on the midget submarine attack on Tirpitz battleship. The film has a scene of a fight between British and German frogmen at an anti-submarine net; this never happened in the real attack on the Tirpitz.
- The film The Silent Enemy (released in 1958) does not represent real events accurately. In particular, in the real world there was no attack on the Olterra, and no underwater hand-to-hand battle between Italian and British frogmen. The breathing sets used by the film actors representing the Italian frogmen seem to be British naval type rebreathers and not authentic Italian rebreathers. The three chariots seen in the movie, representing Italian maiali, were crudely-made film props.
- Ian Fleming who wrote the James Bond stories was in Naval Intelligence stationed at Gibraltar in the war, and was likely aware of the Italian operations.
- Underwater vehicles (not chariot-shaped) featured in the James Bond film Thunderball.
- Fictional chariot operations, set during and after World War II, have appeared in stories in many comics.
Chariots for sport diving
At least two makes of chariot-like diver-riders for sport divers were on sale in the diving gear trade for a while after 1960.
One of those makes was
tradenamed "Dolphin" and was made on the
Isle of Wight. In the 1960s or 1970s, both ends were tapered to a point.
Another type was USA-made and looked like a wartime chariot but its hull was thinner.
Torpedo was slang for a hitman in the 1920s.
Media
See also
