Cos.Mo.S, officially Costruzione Motoscafi Sottomarini s.a.s, was an Italian submarine and submersible manufacturer.

History

250px, Carlos Cardoen meeting with former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein Cos.Mo.S was started in 1954 by Sergio Pucciarini, a former Italian

combat diver A frogman is someone who is trained in scuba diving or swimming underwater in a tactical capacity that includes military, and in some European countries, police work. Such personnel are also known by the more formal names of combat diver, comb ...

. Development of their initial offering, Ippocampo (Sea Horse), predates the establishment of the company and was built/tested in 1950/51. The American

Underwater Demolition Teams Underwater Demolition Teams (UDT), or frogmen, were amphibious units created by the United States Navy during World War II with specialized non-tactical missions. They were predecessors of the navy's current SEAL teams. Their primary WWII fun ...

purchased their first Sea Horses in the late 1950s and the US Navy made a formal order for Sea Horse IIs in the mid-1960s. In US service the Sea Horse and Sea Horse II are not known to have ever been used for any purpose besides training. The Cosmos CE2F series of

Swimmer Delivery Vehicle A diver propulsion vehicle (DPV), also known as an underwater propulsion vehicle, sea scooter, underwater scooter, or swimmer delivery vehicle (SDV) by armed forces, is an item of diving equipment used by scuba divers to increase range underw ...

s enjoyed significant export success. The follow on CE4F series was first exported to

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

and they remain the only known customer. In the 1950s and 1960s there was a shift to longer range special operations missions enabled by running swimmer delivery vehicles on the surface for most of the journey. In secret Cos.Mo.S began developing a submersible boat called Nessie (after the

Loch Ness Monster The Loch Ness Monster ( gd, Uilebheist Loch Nis), affectionately known as Nessie, is a creature in Scottish folklore that is said to inhabit Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands. It is often described as large, long-necked, and with one or mor ...

), probably based on requirement issued by the Italian Navy. The Nessie was forty feet long and had a crew of eight. The hull was designed by Renato ‘Sonny’ Levi who based the design on an unbuilt offshore racing powerboat. His design was prototyped as the Dart-38 in the early 1970s and this prototype achieved 80 knots in tests. The design was never acquired by the Italian Navy who chose a competing design. From 1966 to 1972, Cos.Mo.S was an important defense contractor for the

Government of Pakistan The Government of Pakistan ( ur, , translit=hakúmat-e pákistán) abbreviated as GoP, is a federal government established by the Constitution of Pakistan as a constituted governing authority of the Administrative units of Pakistan, four provin ...

and it manufactured the SX-404-class midget submarine, primarily for the

Pakistan Navy ur, ہمارے لیے اللّٰہ کافی ہے اور وہ بہترین کارساز ہے۔ English language, English: Allah is Sufficient for us - and what an excellent (reliable) Trustee (of affairs) is He!(''Quran, Qur'an, Al Imran, 3:173' ...

. From 1983 to 1985, the company was again awarded federal contract by Pakistani administration and designed the

Cosmos-class submarine The Cosmos-class submarine, officially Cos.Mo.S MG-110 locally designated as X-Craft, are the class of midget submarines designed by the Italian firm Cos.Mo.S, in Karachi Naval Dockyard in Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan. The Cosmos-class submarines a ...

, later built by KS&EW shipyard in

Karachi Karachi (; ur, ; ; ) is the most populous city in Pakistan and 12th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 20 million. It is situated at the southern tip of the country along the Arabian Sea coast. It is the former cap ...

. In 1989 Ing. Pucciarini sold the firm to Chilean arms dealer Carlos Cardoen. In the late 1990s Cardoen began negotiating the sale of submarines to

Saddam Hussein Saddam Hussein ( ; ar, صدام حسين, Ṣaddām Ḥusayn; 28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolution ...

’s regime in

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...

. The deal eventually grew into a full sale of the company to the Iraqis and the Italian government put a stop to the deal when it was revealed in the press. The cancellation of the Iraqi deal combined with the failure of a number of other deals drove the company to insolvency. An international arrest warrant was issued for Carlos Cardoen for his part in the Iraqi scandal but he was never brought to justice. After their demise their physical and intellectual property was transferred to a number of competitors and startups including DRASS. None of their products are known to have ever entered into service with the Italian armed forces.

References

{{reflist Defence companies of Italy Shipbuilding companies of Italy Italian companies established in 1954 Cos.Mo.S

History

See also

References