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NavSource Online: Submarine Photo Archive

Contributed by Mike Smolinski

Harder (SS-568)

Radio Call Sign: November - Delta - Foxtrot - Golf

Tang Class Submarine: Laid down, 30 June 1950, at the Electric Boat Co., Groton, CT.; Launched, 3 December1951; Commissioned, USS Harder (SS-568), 19 August 1952; Decommissioned, 10 July 1973; Struck from the Naval Register and transferred (sold) to Italy, under terms of the Security Assistance Program, 29 February 1974, renamed; INS Romeo Romei (S-516); Final Disposition, decommissioned and struck by the Italian Navy, 31 May 1988, fate unknown.

Specifications: Displacement, Surfaced: 2,100 t., Submerged: 2,700 t.; Length 287'; Beam 27' 3"; Draft 19'; Speed, Surfaced 20 kts, Submerged 18 kts; Complement 8 Officers 75 Enlisted; Armament, eight 21" torpedo tubes, eight MK-49/57 mines; Propulsion, diesel-electric, Fairbanks-Morse Type 3 diesel engines, HP 4500, two electric motors, HP 5600, single screw.

Size	Image Description	Source
31k	In March 1959, Harder (SS-568) participated in SUBICEX during which she cruised 280 miles beneath the ice packs off Newfoundland, further than any conventionally powered submarine had previously gone.	USN photo courtesy of Artic Submarine Laboratory, text courtesy of DANFS.
118k	Harder (SS-568) & Trout (SS-566) taken in 1965 thru 8B periscope of Redfin (SS-272) by John Hummel at the sub piers in Charleston SC, home of Submarine Squadron 4.	Photo courtesy of John Hummel.
52k	Harder (SS-568) with three shark-fin arrays, known as Puffs, passive fire-control system, BQG-4, circa 1968.	USN photo courtesy of ssn583.com., text courtesy of John Hummel.
50k	Harder (SS-568), being moved from floating dry dock #5 at Charleston S.C. Naval Base. She was in the final stages of a major overhaul that lasted twenty five months, the most complicated preformed. July, 1967.	USN photo courtesy of Robert Miller.
41k	Harder (SS-568), underway, date and location unknown.	Photo courtesy of John Hummel.
21k	Harder (SS-568), as INS Romeo Romei (S-516) at Philadelphia, 1974.	Photo courtesy of Harder web page.
245k	INS Romeo Romei (S-516), ex-Harder (SS-568), during a hoverhaul before being transfered to the Italian Navy. She is on the Marine Railway Site # 2.The Yard workers with the stripe on their hardhats are foremen, the other workers might be sand blasters.	Photo from the Erminio Bagnasco collection via Maurizio Brescia. Partial data submitted by Ron Reeves, HTC, USNR (ret.) Photo added 04/17/08.
227k	INS Romeo Romei (S-516), ex-Harder (SS-568), at Groton CT., in 1975 just before commissioning with the Italian Navy but already with the Italian hull number painted on.	Photo from the Erminio Bagnasco collection via Maurizio Brescia. Photo added 04/17/08.

View the Harder (SS-568)
DANFS history entry located on the Haze Gray & Underway Web Site.

Crew Contact And Reunion Information
U.S. Navy Memorial Foundation
Fleet Reserve Association

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