Italian ‘Human Torpedo’ – WalkAround

Two-man craft designed to penetrate protected harbours and atack enemy shipping.

The Siluro a lenta Corsa (SLC) or slow course torpedo, also know as the Maiale or Pig, was designed by the Italians in the late 1930s using the knowledge they had gained while pionnering midget submarines and special assault craft during the First World War. It was powered by an electric motor and had a charge-head containing 550lb (250Kg) on TNT. The early SLC served as a model for the British ‘Chariot’. Between 1941 and the Italian armistice of 1943 ‘human torpedos’ scored a number of successes against Aliied shipping. Their most famous attack came in 1941 in Alexandria harbour when three of them seriously damaged the British battleships Valiant and Queen Elizabeth. This is on of the later streamlined craft which fell into British hands after the occupation of Genoa in April 1945.