Motoscafo Armato Silurante

MAS-96 in the Vittoriale degli italiani museum

The Motoscafo Armato Silurante , usually abbreviated to MAS , was a small, fast and torpedo- armed motorboat of the Italian Navy ( Regia Marina ) from the First to the Second World War . The name "MAS" originally stood for Motobarca Armata SVAN ("Armed Motorboat SVAN"), whereby SVAN in turn referred to the Società Veneziana Automobili Navali , the manufacturer of the first such boats. The Italian Navy used MAS in large numbers as early as the First World War . At the end of the war, 244 MASs were in service. Their design was based on the civilian motor boats. They were equipped with reliable petrol engines and used to secure against submarines and for daring attacks on ships of the Austrian Navy . During the Second World War, MAS boats were built until 1941 and used until 1943.

Technical development

The development of the boats, known as MAS in Italy , began even before the First World War. In the beginning there were motor boats of little more than 10 tons, armed with two torpedoes (without tubes) and one or more machine guns. The crew consisted of about 7 or 8 men. Over the years, the boats gradually got bigger, especially to improve their seaworthiness and range. The Baglietto 12t type boats built in the last year of the First World War were 16 m long and 2.66 m wide, had a 1.1 m draft and displaced 13.4 tonnes . They had two engines with a total of 480 hp and two propellers and reached a speed of 26 knots . Her fuel supply of 1.25 tons allowed a range of 230 nautical miles at 16 knots cruising speed. In addition to their two 45 cm torpedoes, they were armed with a 5.7 cm gun and a 6.6 mm machine gun. For mine laying tasks, they could transport up to 10 mines . The crew consisted of 8 men.

After the end of the war, the technical development of the MAS concentrated mainly on the engines, while the basic design remained basically unchanged. The of the shipyard Cantieri Navali Baglietto in Varazze developed in 1931 type Baglietto 1931 had a box cover , was stable, seaworthy and manoeuvrable, reaching with its two 750-PS gasoline engines by Fiat and two screws during test drives in calm water at a maximum speed of 45 knots . The boat was 16 m long and 3.95 m wide, had a 1.3 m draft and displaced 15.9 tons. The official maximum speed of the boats built was 41 knots. With their fuel supply of one ton, they could travel 200 nautical miles at 40 knots. The armament consisted of two 45-cm torpedoes and two 6.5-cm guns, the crew of 7 men.

The attempt to solve the problem of the risk of explosion of gasoline by using diesel engines could not be solved satisfactorily. The Stefano Tur , built as a prototype by the company Costruzione Meccaniche Aeronautiche in Marina di Pisa , was with its 59 t standard or 64 t maximum, much larger than the previous boats and was equipped with four 750 HP diesel engines from Fiat. The boat was 32 m long and 5.49 m wide and had a 0.84 m draft. It reached a speed of 34 knots. The hull was no longer made of wood like the previous boats, but made of aluminum . The armament consisted of four 45 cm torpedo tubes, three 13.2 mm machine guns and 12 depth charges. The engines proved to be unreliable, however, and the boat, which the navy commissioned as a patrol boat or torpedo boat, was scrapped as early as 1941.

The further development was therefore based on the Baglietto 1931 . From 1936 to 1941 four slightly improved series (26, 25, 14 and 11 boats) of somewhat larger boats of generally the same shape were built. They were equipped with different variants of the excellent Asso 1000 engine from Isotta Fraschini in Milan and reached 40–42 knots when fully loaded. They displaced between 23 and 30 tons and each had two 45 cm torpedo tubes and one or two machine guns of 13.2 or 20 mm caliber. The Baglietto Velocissimo type boats , for example, were 18 m long and 4.78 m wide, had a 1.56 m draft and displaced 24.5 tons. Its two engines developed 2200 hp and gave a speed of 42 knots. Their fuel supply was 3.2 tons and they could travel 330 nautical miles at top speed. The armament consisted of two 45 cm torpedo tubes and a 13.2 mm machine gun, the crew of 11 men. The third series of the Velocissimo 500 class boats last put into service displaced 29.4 t, were armed with two 45 cm torpedo tubes and a 20 mm machine gun, achieved 43 knots and had a crew of 13.

However, the experiences in the early years of the Second World War also revealed the weaknesses of the MAS boats, which were mainly due to the almost one-sided emphasis on high speed. The lightweight construction and the box deck impaired the seaworthiness of the boats in rough seas . When six German-made S 1 speedboats were captured in Kotor during the invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941 , the Italian Navy ordered the new boat class "CRDA 60" based on these boats from the Cantiere Riuniti dell'Adriatico (CRDA) shipyard in Monfalcone t. " which were almost identical to the German model and of which a total of 18 boats were already in service in April 1942. The boats were no longer designated as MAS, but as "MS" ( Moto Siluranti = torpedo boats). With this the construction of MAS boats came to an end.

The MAS 15 used in the sinking of the SMS Szent István, exhibited in the Museum of Vittoriano in Rome

First World War

The boats were mainly used in the Adriatic and operated there against the Austrian kuk Kriegsmarine . In 1918 the number of boats in the Adriatic was 75. Since the Austrians had no similar speedboats, the plan was made to steal a MAS in a commando operation in order to recreate it. This operation was carried out on April 5, 1918. A squad under the command of an Italian-speaking kuk officer managed to enter the cordoned off naval port in Ancona with false papers . Since the action had been betrayed beforehand, there was no MAS in the port and all intruders were taken prisoner.

The most significant success of a MAS was the sinking of the Austrian battleship SMS "Szent István" on June 10, 1918 in the Adriatic Sea off the island of Premuda by MAS 15 under the command of Luigi Rizzo . Already on 9/10 December 1917, MAS 9, also under the command of Rizzo, sank the old liner of the Monarch class SMS "Wien" in the port of Trieste .

Second World War

The MAS also achieved several notable successes in World War II.

Mediterranean Sea

On April 6, 1941 MAS 213 torpedoed the British light cruiser HMS Capetown off Massaua in the Red Sea , which was badly damaged.

On July 24, 1941, MAS 532 torpedoed the British cargo ship Sydney Star , which was badly damaged and reached Malta .

On July 26, 1941, the two boats MAS 451 and MAS 452 took part in the failed attack on the Grand Harbor of Valletta ( Malta ), the Operazione Malta Due , together with nine explosive vessels MT and two manned torpedoes SLC of the Decima MAS and were lost in the process .

On August 13, 1942, during the concentrated attack by German and Italian air and naval forces on the British convoy Operation Pedestal , MAS 553 and MAS 564 sank the British freighter Almeria Lakes , MAS 554 the British freighter Wairangi and MAS 552 the British freighter Rochester Castle . MAS 557 torpedoed the American freighter Santa Eliza , which was abandoned by its crew and then sunk by German bombers. (The sinking of the British light cruiser HMS Manchester at the same company is sometimes attributed to MAS boats, but it was caused by a torpedo hit by one of the two Italian speedboats MS 16 or MS 22. )

Black Sea

At the German request, several MAS boats and other small combat vehicles, combined in the 101st Flotilla, were relocated overland from La Spezia to Vienna and from there across the Danube into the Black Sea to Yalta and Feodosia in order to attack Support Sevastopol . They had to fend off violent attacks from Soviet planes and torpedo boats, but they did their job. They not only sank a number of Soviet barges and transport boats, but also the 5000 GRT freighter Abkhazia (Абхазия) ( MAS 571 ) on June 11, 1942 and damaged the 10,000 GRT freighter Fabritius ( MAS 568 ) on June 13, 1942 which was then destroyed by German Stukas . On June 19, MAS 571 sank the submarine SHCH-214 , and on July 2, the submarine hunter SKA-021 was destroyed in an attack by the four boats MAS 570 , MAS 571 , MAS 572 and MAS 573 after he'd been beached. On 2/3 August was the cruiser Molotov in a coordinated attack by MAS-boats and German Heinkel He 111 - bombers demolished by a torpedo part of the stern; however, the cruiser could be repaired. During a heavy air raid on the port of Yalta on September 9, 1942, MAS 571 and MAS 573 were sunk and MAS 567 , MAS 569 and MAS 572 were badly damaged. These and other losses were compensated by the addition of more boats from Italy. From October 1942 onwards, the weather conditions, the Soviet winter offensive and the increasing shortage of fuel made the use of the boats, which became less frequent, more and more difficult. On March 12, 1943, MAS 568 and MAS 570 succeeded in sinking the Soviet motor torpedo boat TKA-092 . From April 18, 17, during the German counter-offensive near Novorossiysk , seven MAS boats were used with the German speedboats of the 1st Schnellbootflotille, at Anapa against the Soviet supply traffic for the bridgehead at Cape Myskhako (Мысхако) along the coast, but after a few unsuccessful attempts, all surgery in this section were discontinued on April 25th. After the bases in Feodosia and Ivan Baba about 10 km further south had to be abandoned due to the Soviet air superiority , the boats left Yalta on May 13, 1943 for the last time. The Italian naval command had previously decided to let its MAS crews return home in May 1943. Their seven boats were handed over to the Navy in a ceremony on May 20th , which had had some of the new crews briefed in Pola and at the engine manufacturer Isotta Fraschini in Milan. The boats were combined in the 11th Schnellbootflotilla.

Lake Ladoga

In July 1942, two boats, MAS 527 and MAS 528 , were transported by truck in 26 days from La Spezia to Lake Ladoga north of Saint Petersburg . There the two operated as the 12th MAS flotilla until November. On August 28, MAS 528 sank a 1000-ton tank that was carrying troops. Their last use was on October 22nd when they fought with three gunboats. As the lake froze over afterwards, the two boats were handed over to the Finnish Navy in November and their crews returned to Italy.

Notes and individual references

↑ Naval Weaponry: Italy's MAS Torpedo Boats

↑ Later the abbreviation MAS also had the meanings M otoscafo A nti S ommergibile (anti-submarine motorboat) and M ezzi d ' As salto (attack agent ) in the name of the so-called Flottiglia MAS (attack agent flotilla ), of which the Decima MAS , the 10. Schnellboot-Flotilla “, which was the most famous.

↑ http://www.regiamarina.net/classes.asp?nid=121&lid=1&class=Baglietto 12 ton

↑ The first boat of this type was MAS 431 .

↑ http://www.regiamarina.net/classes.asp?nid=121&lid=1&class=Baglietto 1931

↑ http://www.regiamarina.net/classes.asp?nid=121&lid=1&class=Tipo Biglietto Velocissimo

↑ http://xoomer.virgilio.it/ramius/Militaria/motosiluranti-motovedette-mas.html

↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original dated November 9, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.

^ Arte report torpedoes at dawn. Program information ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.

↑ Only two days later, all five boats of the 21st Schnellbootgeschwader ( MAS 204 , MAS 206 , MAS 210 , MAS 213 , and MAS 216 ) were sunk in Massaua by their crews themselves .

↑ David Brown: The Royal Navy and the Mediterranean: November 1940-December1941, Volume 1 . Routledge, 2002, ISBN 0-7146-5205-9 (pp. 147-148)

↑ Jack Greene & Alessandro Massignani: The Naval War in the Mediterranean, 1940-1943 , Chatam Publishing, 1998, ISBN 1-86176-057-4 (pp. 253-255)

^ Jürgen Rohwer: Chronology of the War at Sea 1939-1945: The Naval History of World War Two (3rd edition). Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, 2005, ISBN 1-59114-119-2 (p. 184)

↑ ^a ^b http://s-boot.net/sboote-km-schwarzmeer.html

↑ http://www.regiamarina.net/detail_text.asp?nid=34&lid=1

↑ They received the numbers S 501 (ex MAS 566 ), S 502 (ex MAS 567 ), S 503 (ex MAS 568 ), S 504 (ex MAS 569 ), S 505 (ex MAS 570 ), S 506 (ex MAS 574 ) and S 507 (ex MAS 575 ). One boat, S 506 (ex MAS 574 ), however, was badly damaged by a bomb hit and was not ready for use. Because of their bad sea behavior, the boats were not particularly beneficial for the Navy in the Black Sea. ( http://s-boot.net/sboote-km-schwarzmeer.html )

↑ After that only a few Italian mini-submarines of the type CB operated in the Black Sea, which carried out a total of 21 enemy voyages from Sevastopol from June to August 1943, of which only one was successful: On 25/26. August a Soviet submarine was sunk. After that the boats were laid up in the Romanian Constanta , after the Italian surrender they were captured by the Romanian Navy and in August 1944 they were spoiled by Soviet war booty.

↑ MAS and Midget Submarines in the Black Sea 1942–1943 ( Memento of the original from November 9, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2

Web links

[1] Naval Weaponry: Italy's MAS Torpedo Boats