Archimede-class submarine
The Archimede class were a group of four submarines built for the Regia Marina in the early 1930s. The boats fought in the Spanish Civil War and in World War II. Under Spanish colors, these boats were known as the General Mola class, and remained in service until 1959.
Design
The ships were designed by the firm Cavallini and were a partially double hulled design. They were an enlarged version of the with ballast tanks rearranged, greater range, fuel and torpedo capacity for ocean service. Like most of the later ocean-going submarines of the Italian navy, their deck armament consisting of two 100 mm guns was conceived to deal with armed merchantmen in surface combat. That was the case of the submarine, which between 5 and 14 January 1941 sank the British steamers Shakespear and Eumaeus off Cabo Verde after a protracted gunfire action. Another example occurred when the Torricelli faced three British destroyers and a sloop while surfaced in the Red Sea. Before being sunk, the submarine hit the sloop and damaged the destroyer. Khartoum exploded near Perim after a torpedo fault set a fire that reached her magazines later that day. They also mounted two Breda Model 1931 Machine Gun| anti-aircraft machine guns. The number of torpedoes was increased from 12 on the Settembrini class to 16.Boats
All boats were built by the shipyard of Franco Tosi at Taranto, between 1930 and 1934.Torricelli and Archimede took part in the Spanish Civil war under the Italian flag since 1936, carrying out undercover operations. Eventually both submarines were secretly delivered to the Spanish rebel navy on April 1937.
| Ship | namesake | Launched | Fate |
| /General Mola | Archimedes/Emilio Mola | 10 December 1933 | During the second half of 1936 she operated in Spanish waters covertly as Archimede. Transferred to the Spanish nationalist navy in April 1937, renamed General Mola. She sank the Republican transport Cabo Palos on 26 July 1937 and the Dutch freighter Hanna on 2 January 1938. She also damaged beyond repair the Greek Lena on 30 March. Stricken in 1959 |
| Galileo Ferraris | 11 August 1934 | Sunk 25 October 1941 off Gibraltar by the combined action of a RAF PBY-5A Catalina flying boat and the destroyer at the position | |
| Galileo Galilei | 19 March 1934 | On 16 June 1940, she sank the Norwegian tanker James Stove off Aden, in the Red Sea. Captured two days later by the British armed trawler. Commissioned into the Royal Navy as, scrapped in 1946 | |
| /General Sanjurjo | Evangelista Torricelli/Jose Sanjurjo | 27 March 1934 | She torpedoed and disabled the Republican Miguel de Cervantes in 1936, still under Italian flag as Torricelli. Transferred to the Spanish nationalist navy in April 1937, renamed General Sanjurjo. She sank the Republican troop transport Ciudad de Barcelona on 30 May 1937 and the British near the position on 21 January 1938. Involved in an incident with HMS Torbay on 7 February 1943, during WWII, after the British submarine misidentified her as Italian. Stricken in 1959 |