The Foca class were a group of three minelaying submarines built for the (Royal Italian Navy) during the 1930s. All three sister ships played minor roles during the Second World War. One was lost to unknown causes while trying to lay a minefield off British Palestine in 1940, but the other two survived the war to be discarded in 1947. Design and description The Foca-class submarines were improved versions of the preceding Pietro Micca. They displaced surfaced and submerged. The submarines were long, had a beam of and a draft of . They had an operational diving depth of . Their crew numbered 60 officers and men. For surface running, the boats were powered by two diesel engines, each driving one propeller shaft. When submerged each propeller was driven by a electric motor. They could reach on the surface and underwater. On the surface, the Foca class had a range of at , submerged, they had a range of at . The boats were armed with six internal torpedo tubes, four in the bow and two in the stern, for which they carried eight torpedoes. They were also armed with one deck gun for combat on the surface. The gun was initially mounted in the rear of the conning tower, but this was re-sited on the forward deck later in the war in the surviving boats and the large conning tower was re-built to a smaller design. Their anti-aircraft armament consisted of two pairs of machine guns. The Focas carried a total of 36 mines. Twenty mines were stored in a central chamber, while the remaining 16 mines were kept in two aft chutes through which the mines were ejected. Boats Service The lead boat, Foca, was lost to unknown causeson 13 October 1940 while laying mines off Haifa. Atropo and Zoea, the second and third vessels of the class, were used after Italy's 1943 surrender by the Allies for anti-submarine training. Both were scrapped in 1947. See also Italian submarines of World War II Notes References External links Sommergibili Marina Militare website Submarine classes Foca