Comandante Faà di Bruno, also referred to by its shortened name Faà di Bruno, was a Marcello-class submarine built for the Royal Italian Navy (Regia Marina) in the 1930s. It was sunk in 1940 by British and Canadian destroyers escorting a convoy.

Design and description

The Marcello-class submarines were designed as improved versions of the preceding Glauco-class submarine. They displaced 1043 t surfaced and 1290 t submerged. The submarines were 73 m long, had a beam of 7.19 m and a draft of 5.1 m. For surface running, the boats were powered by two 1800 bhp diesel engines, each driving one propeller shaft. When submerged each propeller was driven by a 550 hp electric motor. They could reach 17.4 kn on the surface and 8 kn underwater. On the surface, the Marcello class had a range of 7500 nmi at 9.4 kn, submerged, they had a range of 120 nmi at 3 kn. The boats were armed with eight internal 53.3 cm torpedo tubes, four each in the bow and stern. One reload were stowed for each tube, which gave them a total of sixteen torpedoes. They were also armed with two 100 mm guns and four 13.2 mm machine guns for combat on the surface.

Construction and career

It was sunk on 8 November 1940 by a combined effort from the destroyers HMCS Ottawa (H60) of the Royal Canadian Navy, and HMS Harvester (H19) of the Royal Navy after attacking Convoy HX 84 they were defending.