PT Boats-Fast and Furious

[cyberia]

The Patrol Torpedo Boat (PT) was a wooden craft, ranging between 70 to 80 feet long and displacing about 55 tons. It was powered by three Packard Marine engines that developed close to 1,500 horsepower each. The boats carried 3,000 gallons of 100 octane aviation fuel for power. They could accelerate from 8 to 40 knots in about eleven seconds, with a top speed of about 48 knots.

PT Boats at speed

There were four active classes of PT boats in service with the United States Navy During the Second World War:
PT-20 Class: seventy-seven foot boat, based on the PT-10 Class design, built by Elco.

PT-71 Class: seventy-eight foot boats, manufactured by Higgins Industries.

PT-95 Class: seventy-eight foot boats, built by Huckins.

PT-103 Class: eighty foot boats, also built by Elco.

Each of the classes had one or more sub-class within its production run.

These active class type of PT Boat exclude a small number of prototype designs built by the United States, Great Britain and Canada.
Nor to they account for four specialty built 70 foot Pt Boats constructed in Canada for the Dutch Navy, but placed in US service after the fall of Holland.

A formation of PT Boats somewhere in the Pacific

As far as armament goes, you couldn't come near one without having
something lethal pointed in your direction. The PT Boat carried more firepower per pound than any other craft in the Navy including:

40 mm Bofors cannon, aft.
Twin 50 cal. machine guns port and starboard
20 mm Oerlikon forward
37 mm Automatic forward
4 MK VIII torpedoes in tubes,
later boats had 4 MK XIII torpedoes on racks
Depth Charges
Mortar
Rockets
Smoke Generator
Small Arms
Hand Grenades

The Crew of PT 59

The crew of a PT Boat consisted of about 14 men, 1 or 2 of them officers. What made the all-volunteer crew different was the breadth of their training. While the crew members on a typical ship were trained in a specialty, and there were several crew members trained in the same job. The crew of a PT was trained to do every job on the boat, with one or two being their specialty. They didn't have the luxury of replacements, so everyone had to know each other's job.

Three PT Boats, along with a seaplane, pulled up to a tender

[Jim O]

Of course well all know that President Kennedy commanded not one but two PT boats. The more famous was PT 109, a PT 103 class built by Elco.

PT-109_crew.jpg
Lt Kennedy (far right) with his crew.

[temujin77]

Excerpt from my website:

WW2DB: PT-class Motor Torpedo Boat

Before the war, at the Philippine Islands, General Douglas MacArthur was an advocate of PT boats. He said:

Unfortunately, MacArthur never got the quantity of PT Boats he wanted. While a fleet of PT Boats would not fight off the Japanese invasion that he would eventually face in Dec 1941, they might just give the Japanese enough a headache and give the defenders a few more precious hours to prepare the defenses.

WW2DB: Photographs - PT-class

I've also got a collection of 11 photos of PT Boats; they can be found at the link above.

[temujin77]

Cyberia, do you have details on the color photo you posted? As in where you got it from, who the photographer is, the date the photo was taken, etc.?

Thanks.

[Commander Waffle]

Ironic... octane avaiation fuel... naval vessel...

[cyberia]

Originally Posted by temujin77

Cyberia, do you have details on the color photo you posted? As in where you got it from, who the photographer is, the date the photo was taken, etc.?

Thanks.

There where no details with the photo, temujin, but here's the link where I found it.

PTboats

[barrett.t]

Does any one know how fast the German E-boats were and what they carried and what they were capapble of. How many men as well. Also the italians thier boats. What weapon would an eboat be afraid of?

[cyberia]

Originally Posted by barrett.t

Does any one know how fast the German E-boats were and what they carried and what they were capapble of. How many men as well. Also the italians thier boats. What weapon would an eboat be afraid of?

Have it ready to go as a new thread for you barrett.t, should have in all in by tomorrow night.

[barrett.t]

See you said that you would have the information ready.

[cyberia]

Originally Posted by barrett.t

See you said that you would have the information ready.

I did, and the very next day...

Schnellboot