Italian kamikaze

[Xilon_x]

as the Japanese, the Italians had committed suicide squads.
usanvano a special weapon called the MAIALE(pig in eglish lenguagge) here are the pictures.



Italia u boat whit MAIALE on board


this suicide squadron call FLOTTIGLIA X MAS

[EJGr.Ost_Caspar]

Not suicide! They detached the warhead and used it as a mine with a time counter ... and drove away.

[Asheshouse]

This was not a suicide weapon. It was guided to its target by the divers who then attempted to escape, often successfully.


Hah! --- beaten to the post.

[EJGr.Ost_Caspar]

... although I edited it two times.

Does anyone know, if this type of vessels was used against the british BB in Alexandria?

[Maver-68]

Sorry, but you don't understand how has gone the History and how has gone with the Italian's Maiale-missions.

Read this about the XMas:
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/X%C2%AA...o_d'Italia)

I'm Italian and I know how this piece of History as gone, I am a member of the ANMI (Italian - Men of Sea Association: retired military sea-man basicly) and I see the PIG, really called "SLC -Siluro a Lento corsa" (Slow-running Torpedo in English) and the "Barchino Esplosivo" (Exploding Boat in English), both at Arsenal-Museum in La Spezia (Italy).

The X MAS-Pigs missions was similar to this one:
The SLCs uses a 2 military divers-crew and they gone slowly below the enemy ships anchored in a bay, "attach" the SLC to one primary-big target ship (yes, they works for a lot of time and attach litteraly the SLC to the ship with a big screw...) set the timer, then both divers swim-away and after 1 or 2 hours.... You can hear A REAL BIG BOOM !!! And the SLC crew was sit on a hill, well far away from the sea, on theyr escape-route..

The "Barchino Esplosivo" was a little high-speed motor boat, full of explosives, for running into the side of an enemy ship BUT don't stop here !!
The pilot, a diver, sits on an rudimental Escape-system, with a simple metal-bar he can recline-back the seat and exit from the boat, before the BIG BOOM !!

As I know, and I speak and listen the hystories from various retired sea-man, it's NOT a Kamikaze-unit the Decima MAS !!!
It was famous as a Special-Unit,a special-divers unit for Special-Incursions !!

Please, read before write....

HI, Maw-68.
Reggio Emilia, Italy.

[Aracno]

And dont forget the gamma man like Luigi Ferraro, spy in Alessandretta he was used to swim during night, with a mine with him, to the vessels parked out of the city, often more than 1 miles out.
Then he applied the mine to the rudder of the ship and when the ship started moving the mine got activations and explode like a torpedo .....
He sunk 3 ships this way.
After the war he founded the Technisub.

[Pursuivant]

More to the point, I don't think that there were any instances of aircraft destroying a SLC or Barchino Esplosivo.

There's plenty of Italian equipment which still needs to get into the game which was more dangerous to, and more in danger from, aircraft.