Italy “Almost” nuclear power. The story of the S521 “Guglielmo Marconi”, the Italian nuclear submarine
USS Skipjack the model that inspired the Guglielmo Marconi project
Italy was about to become a nuclear power, complete with a nuclear submarine. in the 1960s Italy was at the forefront of nuclear energy. Based on this scientific knowledge and to counterbalance the military development of the countries close to Moscow, such as Yugoslavia, Italy decided to design the first Italian nuclear attack submarine, the Guglielmo Marconi, which should have been the first of its own. class. The project involved using a Westinghouse-type reactor developed in Italy by the nuclear research center for military use by the armed forces.
However, as happened with the ALFA missile, the Italian strategic missile, the United States put a spoke in the wheel and blocked the project, blocking the export of the necessary technologies. This, together with the lack of conviction of the governments, led to the cancellation of the project in 1966. A subsequent conventional evolution of the project was the Nazario Sauro class.
Imagine an Italy with its own class of nuclear submarines equipped with missile launchers, as France now has. What different strategic weight could we have had? Here is a nice video of God Save the Vintage on the matter
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The article Italy "Almost" nuclear power. The story of the S521 "Guglielmo Marconi", the Italian nuclear submarine comes from ScenariEconomici.it .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/italia-quasi-potenza-nucleare-la-storia-del-s521-guglielmo-marconi-il-sommergibile-nucleare-italiano/ on Wed, 13 Apr 2022 10:00:58 +0000.