Ship Modelers Database
Italian submarine Scirè (1938)
Sunk (1942); surviving bow section preserved as a memorial in Italy
Scirè was an Italian Adua-class (600-series) coastal submarine of the Regia Marina, famous above all as the mothership for Decima Flottiglia MAS manned-torpedo (maiale) raids during World War II. She is one of the most celebrated Italian submarines of the war for her covert attacks on British harbors at Gibraltar and Alexandria.
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Resources
+ Submit a resourceHistory & specifications
- Naval Encyclopedia: Adua class Submersible (1936)Article
Class overview covering the Adua-class design, treaty-limited displacement, and a summary of Scirè's famous raids; also lists available scale model kits.
- Wikipedia: Italian submarine Scirè (1938)Website
Full design, specification and career history of the Adua-class submarine, including her human-torpedo missions and loss off Haifa.
Photos
- Wikimedia Commons: Remains of submarine Scirè at the VittorianoPhoto
Photo of the preserved bow/forward section of Scirè, repatriated to Italy in 1984 and displayed at the Altare della Patria memorial in Rome.
History
Specifications
Built by OTO at Muggiano/La Spezia, laid down 30 January 1937 and launched 6 January 1938. She displaced about 680 long tons surfaced and 844 long tons submerged, was 60.18 m long with a 6.45 m beam and roughly 4.6-4.7 m draught. Propulsion was two FIAT diesel engines for surface running and two Marelli electric motors submerged, giving 14 knots surfaced and 7.5 knots submerged; original armament comprised six 533 mm torpedo tubes (four bow, two stern) with twelve torpedoes and a 100 mm/47 deck gun, plus 13.2 mm machine guns for light AA defense.
Service history
Commissioned 25 March/April 1938, Scirè initially served on conventional patrols, sinking the French steamer Cheik in July 1940. From mid-1940 she was modified to remove her deck gun and carry three watertight cylinders on deck for SLC human torpedoes. Under Junio Valerio Borghese she mounted missions against Gibraltar (1940-41) and, most notably, the raid on Alexandria of December 1941, in which her six "maiale" riders disabled the British battleships HMS Valiant and Queen Elizabeth. She was eventually sunk on 10 August 1942 off Haifa by the British trawler HMS Islay while preparing another manned-torpedo mission.
Notable facts
Her wreck lies at about 32 m depth off Haifa and became a popular dive site; in 1984 an Italian-Israeli naval ceremony removed her forward section, which was sent to Italy and now forms part of a war memorial. For modelers, her mid-war silhouette — reduced conning tower, no deck gun, and three large cylindrical SLC containers on the casing — is the distinctive configuration most kits (e.g. Kagero's 1938-1942 release) depict rather than her original 1938 fit-out.