PT Boat & Vietnam era Boat Plans PT Boat Interior Layout. By class, PT-20, an Elco 77-footer, came in first with an average speed of 39.72kn (73.56km/h; 45.71mph); followed by PT-31, with an average speed of 37.01kn (68.54km/h; 42.59mph); PT-69, the Huckins 72-foot (22m) boat, was third with an average speed of 33.83kn (62.65km/h; 38.93mph);[note 2] PT-6, the Higgins 81-footer, with an average speed of 31.4kn (58.2km/h; 36.1mph) was fifth; and PT-8, the Philadelphia Navy Yard boat, was last, at 30.75kn (56.95km/h; 35.39mph). Measure 31/20L - This scheme combined Black, Green #2 and Green #3. She is located in San Diego and is now named Malihini. The exaggerated claims by Bulkeley about the effectiveness of the PTs in combat against larger craft allowed him to recruit top talent, raise war bonds, and caused overconfidence among squadron commanders who continued to pit PTs against larger craft. The US Navy plans to procure a total of 48 Mark VI boats. [9], At the time, only the Elco 77-footers were loaded with armament. The first Higgins boats for the U.S. Navy were used in the battle for the Aleutian Islands (Attu and Kiska) as part of Squadrons 13 and 16, and others (MTBRON15 and MTBRON22) in the Mediterranean against the Germans. "[9], The Board results provided very important benchmarks in the infancy of PT boat development. In an important note after winning the design competition for the smaller PT boat, George Crouch wrote that Hickman's Sea Sled design would be far superior "in either rough or smooth water to that of the best possible V-bottom or hard chine design". These 16 rockets plus 16 reloads gave them as much firepower as a destroyer's 5-inch (127mm) guns (albeit without their accuracy). [23] Afterwards, the PT mission in the Solomon Islands was deemed a success.[23]. [33], One of two fully restored and operational PT boats and the only combat veteran of the two, PT-305 ("Half Hitch", "Barfly", "USS Sudden Jerk") is a Higgins 78-foot (24m) boat, assigned during the war to MTBRON-22, and saw action against the Germans in the Mediterranean Sea. Some 200 US gallons (760L) an hour were consumed at a cruising speed of 23 knots (43km/h), increasing to 500 US gallons (1,900L) per hour at top speed. Although not used in any other PT boat design, Huckins licensed the use of his patented Quadraconic hull in his PT boat construction. 70 cm. At the same time, Henry R. Sutphen of Electric Launch Company (Elco) and his designers (Irwin Chase, Bill Fleming, and Glenville Tremaine) visited the United Kingdom in February 1939 at the Navy's request to see British motor torpedo boat designs with a view to obtaining one that could be used as a check on the Navy's efforts. During this trial, boats faced heavier seas, as high as 16ft (4.9m). (Price will increase as the work progresses) XT Innovations in Bucyrus Ohio, redid the beautiful pleated pattern and embroidered the Pantera logo on the seatbacks. Wooden Boat Building. A group of PT Boat veterans banded together to restore her between 1995 and 2005, and the boat is now fully functional and afloat as a museum ship in Portland Oregon. In 1938, the U.S. Navy renewed their investigation into the concept by requesting competitive bids for several different types of motor torpedo boats, but excluded Hickman's Sea Sled. The key to making LED boat lights look great, is placement. One captured Japanese soldier's diary described their fear of PT boats by describing them as "the monster that roars, flaps its wings, and shoots torpedoes in all directions."[27]. The 1938 United States Navy PT, which has been restored and adapted to Coast Guard Standards, is a durable boat that was originally used in the US fleet for a period of time. The Canadian Power Boat Company produced four Scott-Paine designed PTs for the U.S. As a testament to the strength of this type of construction and watertight bulkheads, several PT boats withstood catastrophic battle damage and still remained afloat. A few (one 80' Elco, one 72' Vosper, and three 78' Higgins) were cut up and destroyed between 1998 and 2008, leaving (a known) total of 12 PT boats, and 2 experimental PT boat hulls in various states of repair, surviving today in the U.S.: PT-48 is possibly the last surviving 77-foot (23m) Elco PT boat. PT-8 (built at Philadelphia Naval Shipyard) in Louisiana was built entirely from aluminum but did not pass the speed acceptance criteria for use as a PT boat for the U.S. Navy due to its weight. 146 boats, armed with 18in (460mm) torpedoes, were built for Lend Lease, and exported to Allied powers such as Canada, Britain, Norway, and the Soviet Union. \"Save the PT Boat\" is a 501c3 non profit organization and appreciates all the support we can get! (Photo by PhotoQuest/Getty Images) During WWII the US realized their PT boats had more potential than just simple torpedo dispensers. Fittings and finish appropriate for a motor torpedo boat. The Japanese called them "Devil Boats". When it eventually was delivered and tested in the summer of 1917, it was not deemed a success, so a second boat (C-378) of the sea sled design was ordered from Hickman in either late 1917 or early 1918 (conflicting dates). Full-load displacement late in the war was 56 tons. The success and ruggedness of the Huckins' 78-foot seagoing design is demonstrated by Squadron 26's constant ready-boat operations and Fleet torpedo boat training in the oceans around Midway and Hawaii during the last two years of the war. There PT-728 allows up to 49 tourists the chance to ride on a "PT boat". I've always felt that living on our sailboat is like living in a basement apartment because it is totally lacking in natural light!. [citation needed] Crews feared attack by Japanese seaplanes, which were hard to detect even with radar, but which could easily spot the phosphorescent wake left by PT propellers. The quality of the restoration was extremely high, and the boat is on display inside a weatherproof building, on blocks out of the water. Initially, only a few boats were issued primitive radar sets. The second UK built boat is in private hands, floating on a canal north of London and being used as a private residence, though it is remarkably intact in its World War II configuration. The race was a PT boat scramble in the South Pacific during World War II. Be sure to check website at www.savetheptboatinc.com PT-658 was named to the. From a design standpoint, boats are more challenging to design than . Elco competed for the, Other PT boats gaining fame during the war were. Wooden-hulled, 80 feet long with a 20-foot, 8-inch beam, the Elco PT boats had three 12-cylinder Packard gasoline engines generating a total of 4,500 horsepower for a designed speed of 41. Doyle, David.. PT Boats in Action. This was done to minimize the amount of upkeep the Navy would have to do, since wooden boats require much continuous maintenance, and they were not considered worth the effort. The original 196266 McHale's Navy TV series used a Vosper design PT-694[49] [16][17] Another automatic weapon commonly mounted on PT boats was the 20mm Oerlikon cannon. The ring mount was designed by both Elco and Bell, and designated Mark 17 Twin 50 caliber aircraft mount. Hundreds of boats were deliberately stripped of all useful equipment and then dragged up on the beach and burned. Maneuverability satisfactory, turning circle not determined photographically, estimated 300 yards. He also granted permission for Elco, Higgins, and the Philadelphia Navy Yard to use his patented laminated keel, which increased hull strength, although neither Elco nor Higgins ever chose to use it on their boats. Plans are for restoring the vessel to recreate the World War II appearance. She was sold several times, and moved to Kingston, NY for possible restoration. Hyperwar: Close Quarters, by Captain Robert J. Bulkley, Jr. An example of daily life aboard a PT boat, recorded in the deck logs, HNSA Ship Page: PT Boats to visit as museums and memorials, Higgins Industries Motor Torpedo Boat Diagram Collection, https://www.pdfdrive.com/american-pt-boats-in-world-war-ii-e157218440.html, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=PT_boat&oldid=1141088859, Wikipedia articles needing page number citations from November 2014, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles needing additional references from March 2018, All articles needing additional references, Articles with unsourced statements from June 2020, Articles with unsourced statements from May 2017, Articles with unsourced statements from August 2021, Articles with unsourced statements from December 2012, Wikipedia articles in need of updating from April 2022, All Wikipedia articles in need of updating, Wikipedia articles in need of updating from June 2020, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, One 70ft (21m) MRB-8 (Motor Rescue Boat), built for the. The US military initially developed three designs to fulfill their PT boat need (further divided into a 55-foot and 70-foot class) and a total of eight vessels - numbered "PT-1" through "PT-8" - were ultimately produced. Volume builders such as Beneteau and Sea Ray have now commissioned French and Italian design companies. According to the deck log of PT-305, she was kept on board the Merrimack for several days, anchored in the port of Mers El Kbir in Algeria until 25 April. On 11 July 1938 the Navy issued multiple 'notice of competitions' for proposals of design of four separate types of boat: a 165-foot subchaser, a 110-foot subchaser, a 70-foot motor torpedo boat, and a 54-foot motor torpedo boat. PT-724, a surviving Vosper built at the Annapolis Boat yard in Maryland, has been used as a yacht, and has since been acquired by the Liberty Aviation Museum to be restored back to original Vosper configuration. Ability to make a maximum sustained speed of 33.8 knots; maximum speed 43.8 knots with light ordnance load. In April 1941, MTBRON1 reported enthusiasm over the 81-foot Higgins (PT-6), and with the Higgins showing such good seakeeping further purchase of Scott-Paine boats was unnecessary. Most of my experience as an interior designer of ships for the Indonesian government, BUMN, and private boats. The larger punch of the 37mm round was desirable, but the crews looked for something that could fire faster than the single-shot army anti-tank weapon. , 2 1939 12 13 6. Structural weaknesses resulting in fracture of bilge stringers. PT-617 is an 80-foot (24m) Elco boat located at the Battleship Cove Naval Museum in Fall River, Massachusetts. Coincidentally, the PT-309 ("Oh Frankie! In my humble opinion US PT-Boats and crews operating before and during WWII around Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, the Solomon Islands and many other Pacific island groups, did more damage to the Japanese military supply chain than anything else to save Australia from probable invasion and there is almost zero history of those events recorded That the Packard power plant having been found highly satisfactory be adopted as standard for future construction. Meanwhile, in August 1915, the General Board of the United States Navy approved the purchase of a single experimental small torpedo boat that could be transportable. The Rear Mufflers. The PT boats at Guadalcanal were given credit for several sinkings and successes against the vaunted Tokyo Express. PT-308 (Higgins) had her stern sheared off by a collision with PT-304 during a night mission in the Mediterranean on 9 March 1945 and yet returned to base for repairs. PT-658 was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2012.[43]. [23] Enemy forces would use searchlights or seaplane-dropped flares to illuminate fleeing PT boats. T. Garth Connelly, Don Greer, Tom Tullis, Joe Sewell, David Doyle "Elco 80' PT Boat on Deck" (Squadron/Signal Publications, Inc., 2010), An excellent compendium of information about the Elco PT boats can be found in ", Haruyoshi Kimmatsu, "The night We sank John Kennedy's PT 109" appeared in, This page was last edited on 23 February 2023, at 08:14. Powered by three Packard 5M-2500 V12 Gasoline engines rated at 1850 horsepower each! Details on the boat's construction are given on page 357, MTB Manual, 1943. PT-3 was designed by George Crouch and employed lightweight planing hull construction methods. They were assigned to specific outposts in the Panama Canal Zone, Miami, Florida, the Hawaiian Sea Frontier at Pearl Harbor and Midway, and a training center in Melville, Rhode Island. Very little tendency to pound in a seaway. The handcrafted Huckins PT was produced at their civilian facility at a speed of one per month. USN ELCO PT Boat Deck Deck Ventilator duct (three per PT Boat) have their interior Damper Door as separate parts to glue them opened or closed. Although their primary mission continued to be attack on surface ships and craft, PT boats were also used effectively to lay mines and smoke screens, coordinate in air-sea rescue operations, rescue shipwreck survivors, destroy Japanese suicide boats, destroy floating mines, and carry out intelligence or raider operations. [4] The larger boat was used for experiments until 1930. The Admiralty representative for this sea sled demonstration was Lieutenant G.C.E. Most probably due to the lateness in joining the PT boat program and unlike Elco and Higgins, the Huckins yard was never provided any government support to construct a larger facility prior to the war. This was done in thin material, easy to cut. Cleaning tools and tips to keep your boat looking good, bug free, and working well in a marine environment. I'm looking for a challenging environment to utilize my creativity, add more . 2008. p. False claims in Fleming, Thomas, "War of Revenge", Spring 2011, At Close Quarters: PT Boats in the United States Navy by Captain Robert J. Bulkley, Jr. USNR (Retired), Learn how and when to remove this template message, escape from Corregidor Island, Philippines, "Motor Torpedo Squadron ONE, Report for Pearl Harbor Attack, "Damned by Faint Praise: The life and hard times of Albert Hickman", "Navy Acquires Small Speedy Torpedo Boats", Giant Killers, The Elco PT Boat Construction, "DESCRIPTION AND INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE DEWANDRE-ELCO POWER-OPERATED MACHINE GUN TURRET", "Twin .50 Cal Browning Navy Aircraft Mount MK9", "WAR DEPARTMENT TECHNICAL MANUAL TM 9-252", PT Boats, Inc.- Action Report Into Action, Southwest Pacific Return to the Philippines, "JFK's WWII boat may be at the bottom of the Harlem River", PT Boat burning November & December 1945 Samar, Philippines PT Boats Inc, "The decade-long, $6M effort to put a 74-year-old WWII boat back to water", National Museum of the Pacific War official site, "PT-658, last remaining operable PT boat from World War II, named to National Register of Historic Places", "Motor Torpedo Boat Photo Archive: PT-694", At Close Quarters: PT Boats in the United States Navy. Not invited to participate in the original design competition, by late 1940, Huckins had a meeting with Captain James M. Irish, Chief of Design of BuShips, and offered to build a "planing seagoing hull" PT boat, on the condition the Navy loan Huckins engines and agree to look at the Huckins boat. The 619 P Boat has been the star of many events. The squadron was operating under the British Coastal Forces, and saw action along the northwest coast of Italy and southern coast of France. A PT boat carried 3,000 US gallons (11,400L) of 100 octane aviation fuel, enough for a 4M-2500 equipped boat to conduct a maximum 12-hour patrol. The new Mark 1 "roll-off" torpedo launcher rack (loaded with an improved Mark 13 aerial torpedo) effectively eliminated the telltale flash of light from burning grease, did not use any form of explosive to launch the torpedo, and weighed about 1,000lb (450kg) less than the tubes. [9], Boats would have their tactical parameters of each design determined by photographs from an airship. Five Elco Boats were manufactured in knock-down kit form and sent to Long Beach Boatworks for assembly on the West Coast as part of an experiment and as a proof of concept. Prior to starring in the television series this boat was purchased as war surplus by Howard Hughes and was used as the camera chase boat when the Spruce Goose made its only flight. American PT Boats in World War II. PT 109 boat model. [9], Lastly, there was a demonstration of seakeeping qualities and hull strength by making a run at maximum sustained speed in the open ocean. In July 1942, PT-48 (nicknamed "Prep Tom" and "Deuce") was assigned to MTBRON3(2). PT-615, an 80-foot (24m) Elco originally assigned to MTBRON 42, was commissioned after the war ended. PT boat interior S Stephen Borona 642 followers More information PT boat interior Naval History Military History E Boat Plywood Boat Plans Radio Controlled Boats Boat Interior Military Weapons Military Memes Model Boats More information . [9], Due to the problem with ingot loading, a 185nmi (343km; 213mi) trial with the PTs fully fitted out was conducted on 12 August 1941. In June 1945 the squadron was shipped to the U.S. for refitting and transfer to the Pacific, but the war ended while still in New York. We promise fish will be wanting to jump aboard your boat! Country United States. Measure 31/5P - This scheme utilized Navy Green and Ocean Green. The interior is another example of how far Rob went to make this boat special. [6] These last two boats were constructed mainly out of aluminum and had 4 engines. A 78-foot (24m) Higgins, PT-309 ("Oh Frankie!") In the USN they were organized in Motor Torpedo Boat Squadrons (MTBRONs).[1]. During the war, Elco came up with stepped hull designs ("ElcoPlane") which achieved significant increase in top speed. Testor Elco PT boat 1:160 scale The Wild Places. PT boats operated in the southern, western, and northern Pacific, as well as in the Mediterranean Sea and the English Channel. The accelerometers ranked the boats as follows: first was the Philadelphia Navy Yard PT-8 with the least pounding, second was the Huckins PT-69, third was the Higgins PT-6, and last were the Elco 77-footers. Two twin .50-inch (12.7mm) M2 Browning heavy machine guns were mounted for anti-aircraft defense and general fire support. Designers are involved from the early stages of the design process, even on production boats. PT-3 served with the RCAF Fleet as the RCAF Bras d'Or M413 (B119) based at Eastern Air Command in Halifax. The performance specification was to achieve 40 knots with an operating radius of 275 miles at top speed (550 miles at cruising speed). Elco PT Boat: 80 Feet of Wood and Weaponry Weapons & Gear Manual Elco PT Boat: 80 Feet of Wood and Weaponry Of the nearly 400 fast, light and heavily armed patrol boats Elco made for the U.S. Navy during World War II, a few achieved notoriety and one survives today as a museum ship. These torpedoes and tubes were replaced in mid-1943 by four lightweight 22.5-inch-diameter (570mm) Mark 13 torpedoes, which weighed 2,216 pounds (1,005kg) and contained a 600-pound (270kg) Torpex-filled warhead. Unlike the actual "planing hull" Huckins, which planed at 10-11 knots, the Elco and Higgins PT boats were intended to plane at higher speeds (PT 71 and PT-103 classes at around 27 knots, and the PT-265 and 625 classes at around 23 knots). After obtaining excellent testing results at the Plywood Derby, the Navy awarded Huckins Yacht Corporation a contract in 1941 for 8 boats, and later added 10 more. As more PTs were fitted with dependable radar, they developed superior night-fighting tactics and used them to locate and destroy many enemy targets. These boats were never used by the U.S. Navy, and only about 50 were used by the Royal Navy; most were passed to other countries. [citation needed]. Atglen: Schiffer Military, 1997. The boat is owned by PT Boats, Inc., a World War II PT veterans organization headquartered in Germantown, Tennessee. U.S. Navy PTs were eventually fitted with Raytheon SO radar, which had about a 17nmi (20mi; 31km) range. This article is about US Navy patrol torpedo boats in World War II. She was preparing to leave her cozy berth inside the corrugated steel boathouse. That the ordnance installation of future motor torpedo boats consist of two torpedo tubes, machine guns and depth charges. As a result, the average boater expects superior levels of luxury interiors. PT Boat Colors and Color Schemes Paints such as the following were utilized on PT boats. Maneuverability satisfactory except for a large turning circle of 432 yards (395m). The discussion on rounded doors and my post with a couple of shots of a WWII PT interior got me thinking somebody might like to see a bit more of what* an Elco PT boat actually looked like inside.*. PT-617's specifications are: Length:80 feet Beam:19 feet 11 inches Draught:4 feet Crew:2 officers and 9 crewmen Displacement:51 tons fully loaded Max Speed: 41kts (46mph) Fuel Capacity:3,000 gallons of 100 octane avgas Range:358 miles at 35kts, 1050 miles on one engine, 11 knots Oil Capacity:30 gallons Armament: 4 21" Torpedoes Ability to make a maximum sustained speed of 30.7 knots; maximum speed 33.9 knots with light ordnance load. Packard's licensed manufacture of the famed Rolls-Royce Merlin aircraft engine alongside the marine 4M-2500 has long been a source of confusion. A sailor in training to handle a US Navy PT torpedo boat mans one of the twin 50 cal AA machine guns which form the ship's aerial defenses, circa 1944. PT-305 was acquired by the Defenders of America Naval Museum (DOANM), and then sold in May 2007 to the National World War II Museum in New Orleans. So, putting this together, a PT boat is a patrol torpedo boat. PT-658 is now fully functional and afloat, and is one of the two restored US Navy PT Boat that is operational today. General visitors are not allowed inside the boat in order to help preserve her historic integrity. Boats from Ron 22 participated in the Invasion of Elba on June 18, 1944, where PT-305 sank a German Flak lighter. She is available for public viewing, and has portions of her hull cut away to display the cramped interior of the crew's quarters. [9], The Elco 77-Footer Design Demonstrates:[9], The Huckins 72-Foot Design Demonstrates:[9], The Navy Yard Philadelphia 81-Foot Design Demonstrates:[9], The Higgins 81-Foot Design Demonstrates:[9], The Higgins 76-Foot Design Demonstrates:[9], The Board arrived at the following recommendations:[9], The Board also had the following opinion on structural sufficiency: "During the first series of tests (2124 July) the Huckins design (PT-69), the Philadelphia design (PT-8) and the Higgins design (PT-6) completed the open sea endurance run without structural damage. The Elco, Higgins and Huckins companies used varying lightweight techniques of hull construction which included two layers of double diagonal mahogany planking utilizing a glue-impregnated or lead painted canvas layer between inner and outer planks. When these weapons were found to be successful, they were incorporated onto the PT boats as original armament. On March 21, 1939, Sparkman and Stephens won the prize in the 70-foot class and Prof. George Crouch (for Henry B. Nevins, Inc.) had won the design proposal for the 54-foot class.[5]. The shallow depth meant Allied destroyers were unable to follow them due to the risk of running aground and the barges could be protected by an umbrella of shore batteries. In the Solomon Islands in 1943, three 77-foot (23m) PT boats, PT-59, PT-60, and PT-61, were converted into "PT gunboats" by stripping them of all original armament except the two twin .50 cal (12.7mm) gun mounts, then adding two 40mm and four twin .50 cal (12.7mm) mounts. The first class was for 54-foot (16m) boats, and the second class was for 70-foot (21m) boats. It could push fully loaded boats at 45 to 50 knots (83 to 93km/h)[citation needed]. Fittings and finish unnecessarily refined. Structural weaknesses resulting in transverse fractures of deck planking. 3 ' ' . Maneuverability unsatisfactory due to inability to reverse outboard engines with a large turning circle of 443 yards (405m). Those are:[9]. Print product data sheet. By war's end, the PT boat had more "firepower-per-ton" than any other vessel in the U.S. Navy. PT-728, a surviving Vosper boat built under license at the Annapolis Boat Yard in Maryland, was restored in Key West, Florida. Other paints were used as well, and as soon as I find their nomenclature and corresponding numbers, I will post them here. Holding all this together were thousands of bronze screws and copper rivets. Lieutenant Kennedy was the first commanding officer of PT-59 after its conversion. If you find that some photos violates copyright or have unacceptable properties, please inform us about it. PT 617 was built too late to serve in WWII. USN ELCO PT Boat Deck Stern Chocks (x2 per PT Boat). The vessel was sold in 1952 to Otto Stocker who operated the "Sightseer" as an excursion vessel from Otten's Harbor in Wildwood, New Jersey. Space available for four 21" torpedo tubes. In spite of Bulkeley's claim that introduction of the Mark 13 torpedo to PT boats in mid-1943 all but eliminated the early problems that PT boats had with their obsolete Mark 8s,[23] difficulties remained. Later that same year, Higgins was to build PT-70 (at their own expense) that incorporated slight improvements over PT-6 Prime. Acid-resisting black Copperoyd bottom paint Canvas preservative dyes (blue, gray or green) Deck Blue (20-B) Deck Green (20-G) After the war, American military interviews with captured veterans of the Imperial Japanese Navy, supplemented by the available partial Japanese war records, were unable to verify that all the PT boat sinking claims were valid.

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