They represent a best effort on my part, please confirm dimensions and information given here for yourself if errors cannot be tolerated. My PT Boats information The following is a bibliography of PT-Boat books I used to find information when building my PT-Boat models: (further down is a description of some of the modifications I made to the kits.) Initially, the boats were armed with Mark VIII torpedoes, leftovers from World War I that often proved defective. Like the earlier Elco PT's, the new boats were constructed from many materials: the hull was initially constructed upside down with frames made from laminated spruce, white oak, and mahogany, the keel made from spruce and oak, and the whole assembly double … Overall, Balkoski says that the boats were extremely successful in both Europe and the Pacific. The PT boats were ordered to block the western and southern approaches to Choiseul Bay and intercept barges. American PT Boats - there were two similar types of American PT boats, ELCO and Higgins. Restored to its wartime glory Others wood boats like the 136-foot YMS Class mine sweeper were built of wood to avoid setting off magnetically detonated mines. Boats are commonly made of wood, aluminum, steel, fiberglass or any combination of these materials. The majority of these were built by the Elco Naval Division, with 1-inch thick mahogany planking on mahogany frames. The boats were incredibly lightweight but had a strong frame. Higgins boats were the perfect vessel for the war front. Fast and maneuverable these wooden boats weren’t the best attack vessels but they did sink a few ships and had many other uses. JFK captained one and became a hero because of his dramatic exploits rescuing his crew after his boat was sunk. PT-59 (more on her later) is credited with sinking Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) submarine I-3 on December 9, 1942 near Guadalcanal. However, there were some hiccups during the D-Day invasion of … "PT" is the US hull classification symbol for "Patrol Torpedo". The Packard 4M 2500 engine powered most, if not all, of the US built PT Boats. If you check out the Japanese fleets, you will notice that they even engaged Sampans. BUREAU OF SHIPS NAVY DEPARTMENT 31 March 1944. There are a total of [ 7 ] Vietnam War Patrol Boats (1955-1975) entries in the Military Factory. But steam engines eventually gave way to … The Higgins PT Boats ruled this Theater. The boats were incredibly lightweight but had a strong frame. As the Vietnam war was drawing to a close more modern craft were being introduced. PT crews were not typically experienced sailors and received little training specific to their boat. High-performance urea-based adhesives developed for aircraft manufacturers were widely used for the new technique of molding boat hulls – typically for PT boats. They targeted enemy warships, barges, transports and tankers. A second shot of the Higgins PT Boat. Entries are listed below in alphanumeric order (1-to-Z). Torpedo Boats. in 1942 but I would be interested in any further information, where did they serve? The most famous of these were the American Patrol Torpedo or PT Boats. Pieces of it were used to restore several PT boats, including one in Louisiana that actually sank two German ships during the war. The PT boats were lashed together and set on fire at the end of the war. They were based on British designs, with American engines. The fact that the PT boats were made of wood was the reason that so few survived the war. Higgins pleasure craft were designed after their big Brothers the PT Boats. Higgins also made larger 56 and 70 foot landing crafts. Pretty good compared to a lot of the larger ships out there. They were also faster and could turn on a dime than most any runabout of the time. There were apparently PT Boat bases in Cairns and Darwin but I am unable to find any definitive details of these. "PT" is the US hull classification symbol for "Patrol Torpedo". Crews needed to provide make-up water from their drinking water tank. At this point the Japanese were frantically moving troops by barge in anticipation of American landings in the northern Solomons. NOTE: The Detail Specifications are based on Specifications for Motor Torpedo Boats PT 103 to 138 design No. PT boats were bigger than most realize. Some adhesives required baking in an oven to cure and hot-molded hulls were developed, though there were size limitations governed by access to industrial ovens. It had been converted to a private boat. I remember seeing one many years ago when I was a boy somewhere around the waters of Detroit. The PT boats were small and generally limited to coastal operations. Connelly, T. Garth; 'PT Boats in action'; Ship Number 7, Squadron/Signal Publications, 1994 2. The 103 Class boats were initially armed with two sets of twin .50 caliber machine guns, a 20mm Oerlikon anti-aircraft gun, four torpedo tubes or two torpedo tubes and eight (four to a side) roll-off racks for depth charges (the 300 pound charge variety). By then, though, PT-658 was actually in the water again – running under its own power. They were made of mahogany plywood and powered by three 12-cylinder gasoline-fueled Packard 4M-2500 (and later 3M-2500, 4M-2500, and 5M-250) engines. The rivers of the Vietnam War were ripe with friendly and enemy activity - giving importance to the fighting riverine forces of both sides. PT-191 was one of the last boats in the first series (PTs 103-196)of the PT-103 Class. Patrol Boat, River or PBR, is the United States Navy designation for a small rigid-hulled patrol boat used in the Vietnam War from March 1966 until the end of 1971. The majority of these were built by the Elco Naval Division, with 1-inch thick mahogany planking on mahogany frames. The PT boat squadrons were nicknamed "the mosquito fleet" because of their small size, high speed and maneuverability. Dan says it was the development of polyester resin that started the fiberglass boat revolution. Some of these presented here are pre-Vietnam War era to bring the history up to the end of that war. PT 109 was one of the hundreds of motor torpedo boats (PT) of the PT 103 class completed between 1942 and 1945 by Elco Naval Division of Electric Boat Company at Bayonne, New Jersey.The Elco boats were the largest in size of the three types of PT boats built for U.S. use during World War II. The PT Boats in the MTO came up against every kind of boat and ship the enemy could throw at them. The Navy and its squadron of PT boats held a memorial service for the crew of PT-109 after reports were made of the large explosion, but Commander Warfield, to his credit, ordered an aerial search by Royal New Zealand Air Force P-40 fighters that spotted a few remains of the wreck, but not the crew who had already swum to safety. These boats were made out of wood and able to move at over 46 miles-per-hour. On deck, they carried four torpedoes and two twin machine guns in turrets. It made its first trip in September 2004. PT Boats were very active in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations (MTO). MTB-houseboat German E-boats preparing for the next mission. In combat, they were known most for their commerce raiding during the Solomon Islands campaign , and were particularly effective at attacking Japanese barge traffic, which was critical to starving remote Japanese garrisons.. E-boat of the S100 class with 117 tons. While PT-boats had an option to muffle their engines by routing the exhaust underwater, no such option was on either the 63' or 85' rescue boats, so with straight pipes, stealth operations were never an option. Kennedy, now promoted to full lieutenant, took PT-59 on eight similar patrols during the next ten nights. As important as the technical aspects of the boats is the stories of the men that served aboard them. It turns out there were several earlier boats made of fiberglass and various plastic resins, but most of them were too brittle for practical use. Many PT Boats made field installations of army artillery cannons, and the 37mm automatic cannons from the P-39 fighter plane. I did recently find reference to a quantity of 11 British style Fairmile-B boats having been built at Lars Halvorsen's boat works in Ryde in N.S.W. Wood is the traditional material used for boat building and is considered aesthetically pleasing. Only one in four boats was equipped with radar—a fact that explains some of the confusion on the night of PT-109’s collision. These vessels continued to serve in the American Navy well into the 1970s. A friend of my father, Milt Donadt served on Elco PT Boats in the Pacific during the Second World War. On deck, they carried four torpedoes and two twin machine guns in turrets. Six of the Elco boats, PTs 109 through 114, were then transferred to MTB Squadron TWO on 26 October 1942 and prepared for deployment to the Solomon Islands. The most famous of these were the American Patrol Torpedo or PT Boats. The PT boat squadrons were nicknamed "the mosquito fleet". Dimensions given were found on the drawings or derived from them. Their speed was 40 knots, they carried four torpedoes and typically one 40mm gun, one 20mm gun, and two twin-barrel machine guns. Packard built 14,000 marine engines during the war on East Grand Avenue, Detroit and the US navy's 768 PT boats were fitted with three of them, two astern and one amidships for … Over 200 S-boats had been built, of which about 50 % made it to the end of WW2. PT-105 underway.. PT boats were a variety of torpedo-armed fast attack craft used by the United States Navy in World War II to attack larger surface ships. The PT boat fully matured during World War I. PT boats made during World War I were powered by steam. The Japanese called them "Devil Boats". Congress has recently commissioned a Gold Medal of Honor for Andrew Jackson Higgins to recognize the efforts of all the workers and his work during the war. Some boats were fitted with more guns instead of the torpedoes. PT-109 joined MTB Squadron FIVE and shifted to Panama, replacing the first eight PT boats that sailed on transports for the south Pacific in early September. Of course at that time it really wasn’t that old. Although personal cameras were not officially allowed Milt brought a Kodak Brownie camera with him and took a number of photos of life on a PT Boat base in the Solomon Islands. It’s surprising in one way that only two films have been made about PT boats, “Expendable” and 1964’s “PT-109.” PT boat logs could supply spectacle, adventure, action and drama aplenty for the movies. One of the most notable types of wooden crafts was the PT or Motor Torpedo Boat. Many of the motorized patrol torpedo boats, what were known as PT boats, used in WW II were also made by Higgins. 1. Early in WW2, four PT boats performed an important special operation by evacuating MacArthur and … Torpedo Boats. Some of these boats are outlined here. 1-To-Z ), T. Garth ; 'PT boats in action ' ; ship Number,... Lieutenant, took PT-59 on eight similar patrols during the War most famous of these materials boats PT to. 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