Pt boats After the war

I was reading that there was actually three builders of pt boats for the navy. Elco and Higgins built the majority. Huvkins built for two squadrons 18 boats total. Elco lost the first contract to Higgins because of design issues. They redesigned their boat snd got the second major order. It's smazing how many different deck plans there are two mg tubs four mg tubs 20 mm gun 40mm guns. 18 -21 inch torpedoes. Strange some have torpedoes on the deck on cradles rather than tubes how did those launch the torpedo pull a release and just dropped it the drag spins the prop and away she goes?? Is there an actual model of pt109 out there nowadays. I remember a model magazine saying how there were models saying they were the 109 but it then said how they were wrong because of this'll that things that needed to be changed and the biggie no 37 atg that Kennedy and his crew added to the fore deck for barge busting saying most of the troop barges were armored and needed the extra firer power to knock them out. Should think by now some company would have addressed that. I thought most pt boats were plywood but it said the elco boats were two layers of mahogany planks. After the war the navy just disposed of them on Samar alone 121 boats were beached stripped of anything usable and burned. They weren't cost effective to the navy high maintenance and expensive to run so bye bye. Hell they did so with destroyers some almost new. The Alaska class tried to sell them but no buyers. They were new, and lots of other ships sent to the scrap yards many still fairly new but we had too many even for mothballs. Pictures of ships in mothball after the war was crazy row after row of ships destroyers subs auxiliaries escort carriers etc. like no wonder we depleted the riches iron field in the us or world by the end of the war. We still have lots of iron but the ore is nothing to what we had. It's funny I've heard pt boats called mosquitos of the sea I think their more like sharks or barracudas. That sounds more approbriate

 

Could Italy's slow development of tanks be to its flegling new industries or a lack of engineers with s true understanding of tank construction. It's rather odd that all other countries had moved away from rivets and were welding. I'm sure they must have been welding their ships together. I read they revited as it was faster and cheaper but revites did bad things when the tank got hit. By the end of the war they started to build half way decent tanks but the war was over for them too little too late. Also how effective was their Air Force. Doesn't seem they were. Rey effective since the British on Malta were sending out planes shooting down transports and sinking cargo ships. The Germans didn't have much of s merchant fleet snd depended on the itslians for cargo shipments. But couldn't protect themselves from the British aircraft even the Germans couldn't eliminate the threat of Malta. They bombed it strafed it snd the Brits wouldn't give up barely hanging on just getting enough supplies to be able to keep fighting. Another of those just when all looked lost they get those few ships to make it thru and get ammo and the one thing they need the most fuel for their planes. Like wow the tanker had to be towed in and then sinks right atthedock but most of her tanks held and they pump out the fuel. Like that would have been the end of malts attacks but would they have surrendered I think not and would have remained a thorn in the axis side not knowing when the might grtresplied and back into action.

 

...what did Italy do well?
..I didn't think the US PTs made much of a difference, overall ....

 

I've read they made a significant enough impact that the navy built as many of them as they did. The armament configuration on many were pretty varied. Most had the two mg tubs and one or two 20s or one 40. Saw a pic of one that had a 20 just after the last mg tub and a 40 on the stern and fore deck. Like wow must have been set up for maximum barge busting. Pt 109 had lashed a 37 ATG just for that barge busting. The Japanese were sending troops and supplies using these troop barges they were armored and hard for the 50s to take out so many boats added whatever fire power they could find. Wonder if they tried mortars as well or rockets. One of the problems the pts had was very few had radar so they had to visually find the enemy and hard when most of their patrols were at night. That was the main blame for Kennedy not knowing the Japanese destroyer was there. Funny how something the British invented became one of the vital instruments of all militaries during the war and today

 

...they didn't stop the big ships too much , I thought....did wacking the barges really influence campaigns? I never saw that....they might've stopped some small unit reinforcement/positioning/etc
...--especially post Solomons--where the US made much more distant movements -making the coastal PTs ''worthless'', except for the anti-barge stuff.....you're putting in a lot of personnel and supplies---was it worth it?

 

I think they must have thought they were making an impact otherwise they wouldn't have built so many. Those boatyards could have been building corvettes like the Canadian fish boat yards, those had proven their value. I'm disappointed that no model of pts are in 144 , 350,72,48,35, found a 160. Corvettes 350, 72,35,144. Maybe if I can find that 160 I can use it as a start. Would be good with the lvcp list and others.

 

Well John Wayne in they wee expendable, interesting I read that each squadron was 30 boats but in the movie they're a new squadron of six. I know they were built to be expendable but the disposal of them seemed such a waste like couldn't sell them as war surplus. Lol probably pirates would have bought them most pirates used small fast boats. The navy after the war had lots of them to deal with. Had a hard time taking them out as the 50 and 20mm would go thru making small holes so someone got the idea to make 20mm ammo with a flat nose the round tumbled and would rip the hull up and sink them faster. I had one in my shell casing collection a buddy of my in procurement gave me said they had an old storage room they finally cleaned on old projects, got some old damping dies for garand ammo clip, a 40 mm hand lathe casing, made for ammo tests for an experimental 40mm Gatling gun that was to replace the A10s 30, the military had figured newer tanks were getting thicker deck armor and the 30 would become ineffective at some point so a heavier hitter was going to be needed. I never heard how that project turned out, my friend Jim passed away from a heart attack. He was a interesting dude hated dealing with the state on gun registration and bought a lot of guns in Arizona and other states were they had personal sales. Can't do that here anymore passed a law here making all sales thru a licensed gun dealer and all sales registered. When they had private sales I use to buy guns at sales well under retail and clean them up or add accessories and resell for profit. Was fun I liked refinishing sanding wood getting the scratches and scuffs out hand fun oil Finnish touch up the blueing. Not really ale to do that nowadays. I did miss out never res.ly liked the nine mm they had a sale on the hk94 when they first got here 150 bucks but then I didn't think much of it then the dang gun hit 5000 when he said the import laws were too much of a hassle and discontinued sales to the US. All hk gun shot up in price. Had three hk91s sold them all didn't like what they did to the brass I was into reloading then. Got an L1A1 brass comes out clean, dinged a little sometimes but pretty clean got a brass catcher sit throws the cartridge pretty far.

 

..I would think they started the building program long before they would know if they were worth it or not.....they started and ramped up the production long before even the Solomons, yes? so they couldn't stop it even if they wanted to

 

There must have been some merit as the British and Germans built their own. The British used theirs to race out to rescue down flyers the Germans the same both sometimes fighting to save or capture downed flyers. The sea shall not have them a war movie about a mtb squadron in England. If they were ineffective like I said those boat yards could have built corvettes England Canada USA Australia and New Zealand all built different classes but all similar. The Australians and New Zealanders classified theirs as minesweepers may have also laid mines. Early in the war we seemed never to have enough escorts till later with the US building all those escort classes, liked our new destroyers with the low bridge structures. I will redo my flower class one day thought of lots I can improve it wa my first for navalworks, also always wanted to do some of the other corvettes like the castle class. Maybe finish my Texas.

 

..sure...but, the Pacific was truly a '' gut bustin', mother-lovin' Navy war.'''.....the European Theater was nothing like the Pacific ....merit, sure...
bold mine..quote is from In Harm's Way
In Harm's Way (1965) quotes.

 

Yeah the pacific was a lot more surface combat, we sure got hit hard at Samar. I liked that story about that Australian minesweeper that survived and would run at night and pull right up to the shore of an island and camouflage with bushes trees and palms to blend in with the island during the day. The made it back, but said they watched planes and ships pass by.

 

Motor torpedo boats began with the British Coastal Motor Boat (CMB) in WWI. By WWII many navies had them. They were literally motor boats, with gasoline or diesel internal combustion engines, usually of wooden construction, sometimes with metal frames. The largest were a bit over 100 tons and 100' long.

The first, steam powered, torpedo boat, HMS Lightning (1876) was about the size of a WWII MTB or PT, 87' long:



Torpedo boats became progressively larger and eventually gave rise to torpedo boat destroyers, later called simply destroyers. Several WWII navies still operated torpedo boats up to about 1000 tons, steel-hulled, steam-powered, with guns around 4". These are often confused with motor torpedo boats, which are more familiar to modern readers or authors.

MTB was a Royal Navy term but is also used generically for the type. For example US PT boats operated in Motor Torpedo Boat Squadrons.

The advent of radar-controlled gunfire made MTBs less viable, but some such as the German Jaguar or Swedish Spica classes continued to be built into the 1960s. Ultimately they were replaced by missile boats.

 

There were no more major naval battles in European waters after the Italian capitulation, but PTs, MTBs, and MGBs (Motor Gunboats) saw considerable action against German coastal shipping. Some of their craft like the F-lighters and Siebel ferries were quite heavily armed. There were S-bootes and R-bootes, and the Germans took over a number of Italian torpedo boats, corvettes, etc.

 

I was surprised to learn the original torpedoes were explosive charges more like mines, wonder how they were detonated I know some by dynamite fuse others by a cap triggered by a pull line.

 

Some were detonated electrically from shore, but there was a danger of the wire leaking or being broken. During the bombardment of Charleston in 1863, the ironclad frigate New Ironsides anchored over a 3000lb torpedo which, to the Confederates' chagrin, would not detonate when activated.

The "automobile" torpedo was devised by Captain Giovanni Lupis of the Austrian Navy and perfected by Robert Whitehead, working in the Austrian arsenal at Fiume. The term "torpedo" soon came to be reserved for these, with the old type becoming "mines".

 

The big armament change on PTs was replacing the torpedo tubes with Mark 13s in lightweight racks. The weight savings enabled increase in other weapons, notably the 40mm gun. Many PTs did carry 4.5" or 5" rockets, commonly in 8-barrel launchers on each side of the forecastle. They often did carry 60mm mortars, used to fire flares for night illumination as well as HE or smoke.

 

Before the war, we were trying to prepare the Philippines for self-defense, and part of the plan was a fleet of PTs (called Q boats for some reason, no relation to Q ships).