Italian submarine Enrico Toti (S 506) explained

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Ship Image:Enrico Toti submarine.jpg
Ship Country:Italy
Ship Laid Down:15 April 1965[1]
Ship Launched:12 March 1967
Ship Commissioned:22 January 1968
Ship Fate:Transported to Museo della Scienza e della Tecnologia "Leonardo da Vinci", in Milan.
Ship Status:Museum ship
Ship Displacement:
  • 524abbr=onNaNabbr=on surfaced
  • 582abbr=onNaNabbr=on submerged
Ship Length:46.21NaN1
Ship Beam:4.71NaN1
Ship Draught:5.71NaN1
Ship Propulsion:
  • 2 × Fiat MB 820 N/I Diesels,
  • 1× electric motor
  • Diesel-electric drive
  • 2200hp
Ship Speed:
  • 14kn surfaced
  • 15kn submerged
Ship Range:3000nmi at 5kn (surfaced)
Ship Complement:4 officers and 22 men
Ship Armament:4 × 533 mm (21 inch) torpedo tubes

Italian submarine Enrico Toti (S 506) was the first of a new class of Italian submarine, with Enrico Toti being laid down in 1965, launched in 1967, decommissioned in 1992 and preserved as a museum ship at thea Museo della Scienza e della Tecnologia "Leonardo da Vinci", in Milan. The ship, and class, are named after the Italian war hero Enrico Toti.

History

Toti was built by Fincantieri in Monfalcone, between 1965 and 1967, and given to the Italian Navy in 1968; Soon after that three more identical units were added to the Toti class. They are small submarines (so small that they were called “pocket sized submarines”), employed from the late 1960s until the end of the 1990s. They were conceived to work inside the Mediterranean Sea. They had two main tasks:

Museum ship

Enrico Toti arrived at the Museo della Scienza e della Tecnologia "Leonardo da Vinci" in August 2005 with a trip in two steps:

  1. 2001: From Augusta to the Cremona port, towed through the Adriatic Sea and the Po (14 days)
  2. 2005: From Cremona to Milan, on top of a specially built convoy, on a road trip lasting four nights.

As museum ship Enrico Toti is unusual, because Milan has no direct access to the sea or a significant river. Moreover, the museum is in the inner part of the city. The transportation of the sub to the museum was made overnight in mid-August, to minimize inconvenience to the population. Another Toti-class unit is on exhibition at the Arsenale in Venice, while the remaining two are scheduled for scrapping.

A stray female cat was found near the museum and personnel brought her in the Enrico Toti, where she lives and is called "the last captain of the Toti".

Technical data

See also

45.4617°N 9.1711°W

Notes and References

  1. Moore 1979, p. 271.