Human torpedo

An Italian maiale type manned torpedo, at the Royal Navy Submarine Museum.
Israeli manned torpedo. 1967.

Human torpedoes or manned torpedoes are a type of rideable submarine used as secret naval weapons in World War II. The basic design is still in use today; they are a type of diver propulsion vehicle.

The name was commonly used to refer to the weapons that Italy, and later Britain, deployed in the Mediterranean and used to attack ships in enemy harbours. A group of a dozen countries used the human torpedo, from Italy and the United Kingdom to Argentina and Egypt, and there are some museums and movies dedicated to this naval weapon. The human torpedo concept is used recreationally for sport diving.

Characteristics

The first human torpedo (the Italian Maiale) was electrically propelled, 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 Maiale 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 how powerful this new weapon was after three Italian SCL's successfully forced the harbour of Alexandria and sank the two British battleships "Queen Elizabeth" and "Valiant," and the tanker "Sagona." 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"), after their inventor Teseo Tesei angrily called the SLC thus, when it had just been difficult to steer. The British copies were named "chariots".

Construction

CGI image of human torpedo: British Mk 1 "chariot" ridden by two frogmen with UBA rebreathers

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

SLC displayed in the "Museo della Scienza e della Tecnica" in Milan

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.

Italy

A maiale in Taormina, Sicily
Cockpit of a Maiale.
Waterproof container for a maiale. The container could be attached to the deck of a submarine so that an attack could be made without being seen. In the Naval Museum (Museo storico navale), Venice.
World war I
World War II

For information on Italian manned torpedo operations, see Decima Flottiglia MAS. Media related to Maiale manned torpedo at Wikimedia Commons

After 1945

United Kingdom

World War II
Both types were made by Stothert and Pitt (crane makers) at Bath, Somerset.

For information on British manned torpedo operations, see British commando frogmen.

Germany

World War II
Neger
This extreme form of a genuine human torpedo[3] carried a second torpedo underneath, which was launched at the target. Speed: 4 knots (7.4 km/h), and about 10 hours at 3 knots. One seat. This manned torpedo was named after its inventor Richard Mohr.
Marder and Biber
These very small submarines carried two torpedoes and one or two men. There were other types that never ran into production.

In July 1944 Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine introduced their human torpedoes to harass allied positions at Normandy anchorages. Although they could not submerge, they were difficult to observe at night and inflicted several losses on allied vessels.[3]

Japan

A captured Kaiten torpedo at the USS Bowfin Museum in Hawaii
World War II

Russia/USSR

After 1945

United States

After 1945

There are pictures and descriptions of modern US Chariot-like underwater frogman-carriers used by SEALs and a fast surface boat that can submerge, here:

Other countries

Argentina

Argentine navy's CE2F/X100-T, designed for operations in cold waters

In Argentina there were developed manned torpedoes and special minisubmarines in the 1950s, the latter with a torpedo attached under the two-men crew. Their crews were trained by Eugenio Wolk, a former member of the Italian Decima MAS.

Poland

In Poland, in the months before the outbreak of the Second World War, a number of volunteers come forward to pilot torpedoes against German warships. A Bureau of Living torpedoes was set up to organize and train these volunteers, and prepare suitable equipment, but nothing had come to fruition before the German invasion and occupation.

Yugoslavia

The Yugoslav Navy did not have manned torpedoes, but frogmen used the underwater device called R-1 Diver for a variety of missions, including: mine clearance, infiltration, clandestine surveillance and security, and assault missions on enemy shipping and naval objects. These small apparatuses were relegated to the navies of Croatia (HRM) (1991) and Montenegro (2007).

Museums

A SLC, or "Maiale", exhibited in the Museo Sacrario delle Bandiere delle Forze Armate, in Rome, Italy.

Movies and fiction

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.

Media

See also

Notes

  1. Photographies of the "mignatta", the first human torpedo invented by Raffaele Rossetti, and the "Viribus Unitis" sinking
  2. Quick, D. (1970). "A History Of Closed Circuit Oxygen Underwater Breathing Apparatus". Royal Australian Navy, School of Underwater Medicine. RANSUM-1-70. Retrieved 2009-03-20.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Brown p. 115
  4. Image at this link. Pages 6–11, issue 39, Historical Diving Times has several large photographs of one recovered after an attack on Malta on 26 July 1941
  5. "Stealing the Sword: Limiting Terrorist Use of Advanced Conventional Weapons", p. 60
  6. pp 61 & 62, Chariots of War, by Robert W. Hobson, publ. Ulric Publishing, Church Stretton, Shropshire, England, 2004, ISBN 0-9541997-1-5

References

  • Brown, David. Warship Losses of World War Two. Arms and Armour, London, Great Britain, 1990. ISBN 0-85368-802-8.
  • C. Warren and J. Benson - Above Us The Waves (Harrap 1953)
  • Junio Valerio Borghese - Sea Devils (1954)
  • Robert W. Hobson - "Chariots of War" (Ulric Publishing 2004) ISBN 0-9541997-1-5
  • Jack Greene and Alessandro Massignani - The Black Prince and the Sea Devils: The Story of Prince Valerio Borghese and the Elite Units of the Decima Mas (2004) ISBN 0-306-81311-4
  • Mitchell, Pamela - Chariots of the Sea Richard Netherwood (1998) ISBN 1-872955-16-9

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Human torpedoes.
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