The Adua class paid heavily in contested waters

The Adua-class loss record turns the risk of forward basing into a concrete wartime balance sheet. British and Greek destroyers, cruisers, trawlers, flying boats, and combined hunting groups destroyed boats or forced them to scuttle, while chloromethane poisoning disabled Macallè's crew. Sixteen of the 17 completed boats were lost, a cumulative danger clearer than any single action. Mediterranean convoys and fleet operations concentrated trained anti-submarine forces into small areas, making the theatre exceptionally dangerous.