Coastal Forces of World War II

Coastal Forces of World War II

Coastal Forces was a division of the Royal Navy established during World War II. It consisted of small coastal defence craft which the Navy designated with names such as: Motor Launch, High Speed Launch, air-sea rescue, Motor Gun Boat and Motor Torpedo Boat. It did not include minesweepers, trawlers or landing craft. Other Navies operated equivalent boats, but classified and named them somewhat differently.

This article attempts to pull together, for comparative purposes, some statistics concerning the coastal forces of different navies. It starts with the above British definition of "Coastal Forces" and attempts to identify the equivalent boats in other navies.

Contents

Coastal Forces of Britain

Main article Coastal Forces of the Royal Navy
Type Designation Built Lost Designed purpose
Motor Launches ML, HDML ASR Harbour defense and submarine chasing or for armed high speed Air Sea Rescue.
Motor Gun Boats MGB
Steam Gun Boats SGB 7 1 Hunting down German E-boats
Motor Torpedo Boats MTB

Coastal Forces of the United States

Type Designation Built Lost Designed purpose
PT boats PT-
Submarine chasers

Coastal Forces of Germany

Type Designation Built Lost Designed purpose
S-boot (E-boats) S-

Coastal Forces of Italy

Type Designation Built Lost Designed purpose
MAS-boat

Coastal Forces of Japan

Post war

Post war there seemed to be no need for small coastal force vessels. They were generally withdrawn and their functions taken over by larger corvettes, frigates, and destroyers. A few remained in service with Third World navies.

In time, the need for smaller vessels re-asserted itself, as in this experience of the Royal Australian Navy:

The motor launches quickly passed out of service after the war and coastal patrol duties once more devolved upon larger RAN ships. From the early 1960s the Ton class minesweepers took on significant patrol responsibilities, particularly during the Indonesian Confrontation from 1962-1966. This experience led directly to the decision to reintroduce patrol boats to the RAN inventory, as the minesweepers were expensive to maintain and their engines were not designed to loiter on patrol.
—[1]

Coastal boats reappeared in navies around the world now generally adapted to the need to "patrol" and designated as "patrol boats".

Surviving craft

Following is a list of notable surviving coastal craft from World War II.

Vessel Country Type Design Built In the care of Notes
HNoMS Hitra Norway submarine chaser Only remaining World War II submarine chaser with intact armament [2]
S-130 Germany E-boat 1943 British Military Powerboat Trust [3] Only surviving German E-boot. Participated in Exercise Tiger and attacks on the D-day invasion fleet.
PT 617 US PT-boat 80-foot Elco Battleship Cove Museum [4] Only completely restored 80-foot Elco PT-boat in existence [5]
PT 796 US PT-boat 78-foot Higgins Battleship Cove Museum [6] restored [7]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Patrol Boats". Navy Contribution to Australian Maritime Operations. Royal Australian Navy. pp. 133–142. ISBN 064229654. http://www.navy.gov.au/Publication:Navy_Contribution_to_Australian_Maritime_Operations. Retrieved 2008-02-23. 
  2. ^ Norwegian Navy article on HNoMS Hitra (in Norwegian)
  3. ^ Schnellboot S130
  4. ^ Battleship Cove Museum PT-617
  5. ^ Elco PT-617
  6. ^ Battleship Cove Museum PT-796
  7. ^ Higgins PT-796

External links

Stub icon This military-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.