Galileo Ferraris was one of four s built for the (Royal Italian Navy) during the early 1930s. She played a minor role in the Spanish Civil War of 1936âÂÂ1939 supporting the Spanish Nationalists.
The Archimede class was an improved and enlarged version of the earlier . 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 55 officers and enlisted 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 Archimede class had a range of at ; submerged, they had a range of at .
The boats were armed with eight torpedo tubes, four each in the bow and in the stern for which they carried a total of 16 torpedoes. They were also armed with a pair of deck guns, one each fore and aft of the conning tower, for combat on the surface. Their anti-aircraft armament consisted of two single machine guns.
Gaileo Ferraris was laid down by Cantieri navali Tosi di Taranto at their Taranto shipyard in 1931, launched on 11 August 1934 and completed the following year. On 9 February 1937, the boat hit and sank the mail steamer off Tarragona with two torpedoes. Killed aboard the ship was the French Communist Deputy Marcel Basset. On 15 August she sank the 4,602 GRT cargo ship off Tenedos in the Eastern Mediterranean with a pair of torpedoes and 12 shells. Three days later, she hit the 2,762 GRT cargo ship with a single torpedo. The ship was beached to prevent her from sinking and became a constructive total loss.