S.L.C. Maiale with crew    1/35

Maiale (also called SLC) is the name of a type of Italian human torpedo of World War II. The torpedo length was 6.7 meters, diameter - 533 mm, the maximum speed was only 2.5 knots. The people responsible for creating the Maiale torpedo were the Regia Marine officers: Teslo Tesei and Elios Toschi. Live torpedoes of this type were used (from 1941) in the 10th MAS flotilla, that is, a special, strike and subversive flotilla of the Italian Navy, consisting of troops of combat divers, explosive motorboats and Maiale live torpedoes. The latter was built on the basis of the standard Italian 533 mm torpedo. It was powered by electric motors, and its main weapon was a detachable warhead with a time fuse, initially weighing 220 kg, and later 300 kg. The most famous action in which Maiale was involved was the December 1941 raid on the British port of Alexandria, in which the battleships HMS Valiant and HMS Queen Elizabeth were badly damaged. Interestingly, all of the Maiale pilots involved in this raid survived, but were captured.