Talk:PT boat

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Contents

[edit] Updates

I'm not sure if this is worth preserving, but when I found it, the page originally contained:

"Patrol Torpedo" boat - used by the United States Navy in the South Pacific in World War II. About 40 feet long, wood hull, inboard engine, two torpedo tubes on each gunwale pointed forward, two .50-cal machine guns (?), crew of four (?)
United States President John F. Kennedy was the captain of a PT boat (PT 109) in World War II.
FIX this needs lots of work.

If there was ever a PT boat that only had a crew of four, I can't find it -- I assume the original author was simply guessing. If I'm wrong, please correct me! --The Epopt

Yeah, I think this can lose it's "Stub" tag now... nice work :) - MMGB

I was the original author - thank you for doing a proper job with this page. RAE

I'm pretty sure torpedo boats existed before WWII, in fact, IIRC, the destroyer class ship was created initially to counter small fast torpedo boats in WWI. Does someone have references? -- ansible

Yes, the destroyer (Originally "Torpedo boat destroyer" in german) was created to deal with the torpedo boats. All this information looks very good, but I think a good deal of it should be moved to Torpedo Boat as that is the ship class. PT boat is simply a name for a serie of american ships. It is like listing information about battleships under Bismarck... For a reference I would recommend "The development of fighting ships", if you can get your hands on it. Otherwise "Destroyers" gives a rather good overview. Also there is a short overview at global security: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ship/destroyers.htm P.S. 13:47, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

Torpedo boats in WWI were much larger. --WerWil 23:28, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Coming soon

The article says,

"What neither the PT Boat crews, nor their comrades in the submarine service knew in this time frame was that their torpedoes were defective. The American torpedoes ran at depths well below their set depth, and both of the firing mechanisms built into the torpedo regularly malfunctioned. The more squarely the torpedo was lined up on the target, the more likely the torpedo was to fail. Either the torpedo would run under the target, the torpedo would explode prematurely, or it would strike the target and break apart without exploding. Interestingly, early German torpedoes had suffered almost identical defects."

While this applied to the Mk14, the antique Mk8, which might have suffered the deep-running problem, was not designed for or fitted with the Mk6 magnetic exploder, & so shouldn't have suffered prematures (which doesn't exclude the possibility sheer age of the arming & firing mechanisms causing them...). As for duds from square-on hits, this was (AFAIK) exclusively a Mk6 problem; the Mk10 didn't suffer from it, & I doubt the Mk8 did, either. The later Mk13 probably suffered from it & other troubles; it was worse than the Mk14. This issue needs more research & correction. Trekphiler 02:56, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

On reflection, I deleted the above as irrelevant or unsubstantiated. Trekphiler 06:21, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 37mm M3 on PT boats

Perhaps somebody knows... Is there any information about the 37mm anti-tank gun M3 / M3A1 mounted on PT boats other than the PT-109 ? Or on any other ships ? Thanks in advance. Bukvoed 18:08, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

It turns out, there is:
...in fact there were 8 to 10 boats that had/were to have this mounting... The guns came from and were mounted by members of the US Army 25th Infantry Division. - http://www.pt103.com/
M3A1 37mm Anti-Tank Gun Mounting Drawings - http://www.pt108lilduck.com/specs.html
Bukvoed 17:17, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Medal of Honor Rising Sun

On the second level, is that a PT boat you are on? Because it does not look like one. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 216.125.254.254 (talk) 13:26, 10 May 2007 (UTC).

== This article says the Higgins built PT boats were "used in great numbers during the D-Day landings" and goes on to state "Gen. Eisenhower said that that the Higgins boats won the war for us".

The Higgins boats Ike was referring to were the Higgins built LCVPs (Landing Craft, Vehicle & Personnel) that were the backbone of US amphibious assaults, not PT boats. Over 20,000 Higgins LCVPs were built. My father hit the beach three times from LCVPs in the Pacific. http://www.ussrankin.org/id41.htm 65.199.155.32 21:30, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Minor edit

166 Gallons are 628 Liters, not 250. fix'd MikeTango 04:04, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] More about defective torpedos

The article has this sentence "The effectiveness of PT boats in the Solomon Islands campaign, where there were numerous engagements between PTs and capital ships, was substantially undermined by defective torpedoes." What kind of defects? The Mark 8 was pretty old by then, were these torpedos made new with new defects or were they age-related defects? Is this sentence confusing the Mark 14 torpedo problem the subs were having? The Mark 15 used by DDs was having similar Mark 14-style problems but AFAIK the PTs were okay with their elderly 1917-ish Mark 8 design. Binksternet 12:46, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

It was 2 things, as I understand it. First was age (I suspect the warheads had been filled for years, & the explosive got old & sensitive, & prematured, leading to the spurious "hits"). Second, as in the Mk14s/15s, the exploder design was defective (in the Mk14, the contact pistol would crush on impact, rather than fire; the Mk14/15's magnetic feature caused numerous prematures); I may be mistaken, here, because the Mk10 (contact pistol) was OK. USN torpedoes had several (unrelated) design problems, from what I've read; exactly what they were, I'm honestly not familiar enough with the issue to say with certainty, without sources in front of me. And don't forget, PTs also used Mk13 aircraft torpedoes, which had even more problems than the Mk14s. Without specifying the date of the engagement, or the type of firing mechanism (the Mk8 used tubes, Mk13 racks), knowing the problems actually encountered is a bit hard. Feel up to doing some research? Trekphiler 17:12, 14 October 2007 (UTC) (P.S. You may be right about "confusing the Mk14 problem", but IIRC, PTs reported independent troubles. Whether it was the Mk8 or Mk13, I couldn't say.)

[edit] Gen. Eisenhower and Higgins boats

The Higgins boats that Gen. Eisenhower was referring to was not the PT boats but the Landing Craft http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgins_boat 72.27.58.29 (talk) 12:49, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] This article is getting to be too big!

It seems like a lot of people are incorporating information that may be better suited somewhere else. Things about the Great Britain Royal Navy MTB's and Steam Gunboats and German S-Boote dont really belong in an article about the US PT Boats. Same goes for the WW1 Torpedo Boats. It is really interesting and good information I will grant, but it seems to be interfering with the overall scope of the main subject of the article, which is after all, PT Boats. Just a thought, maybe somebody knowledgeable about those other subjects could start an article about them and move the info into that other article, and provide a link to this article.

Also, I fail to see the value in changing every single measurement into its metric equivalent. OK one or 2 examples is fine, but providing parenthetic metric equivalencies for each and every measurement or diameter etc is very detracting from the flow of the sentence. Thanks! Jerry 1-23-08 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.134.136.3 (talk) 13:54, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "PT boats were uniquely U.S.!"

I am not sure what the editor ment by this but I would like to point out that at least the Elco class were used by the Royal Norwegian Navy and that the Norwegian Nasty class was used by the US Navy. So US PT boats were used by other navies and foreign PT boats were used by the US Navy.Inge (talk) 13:58, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Hey Inge, All I meant was that only the US Navy referred to them as "PT Boats" during a specific time period of World War 2 (1941-1945). Since this is an article on "PT Boats" (and not MTB's or MGB's or TB's or S-Boats or what have you) we should stick to the subject and the time period. Placing information about a torpedo boat used in 1972 in Vietnam has no business being in an article about "PT Boats", which is both time and nation specific to WW2 US Navy. Wikipedia has articles already covering those other types of boats so therefore a bunch of information about them placed into this article detracts somewhat from the subject. Amplifying information is fine, but there is a point where it becomes too much, in my humble opinion. But yes, other Navies did use this type of boat and called them something other than "PT Boat". The USN did not really ever use foreign made PT Boats in active service during WW2. (if you were referring to the Vosper boats, they were manufactured under liscence in the US during the war I believe,at Annapolis Boat Yard and at Miami Shipbuilding, and even these were pretty much -all- sent overseas to allied nations) Jerry —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.134.136.3 (talk) 11:40, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "US PT Boat torpedo success in WW2"

Here is a little background research/information I came across concerning US PT Boat torpedo successes against the Japanese Navy (IJN) and the other axis powers (Germany, Italy) found in Robert J Bulkeleys authoritative book "At Close Quarters: PT Boats in the United States Navy", at the beginning of this wikipedia page about PT Boats, it implies a virtually complete lack of success by USN PTs with torpedoes. Well...I beg to differ! read the facts below and decide for yourself! Jerry

  • Night of 24 January 1942, PT 41 torpedoed a Japanese transport at Subic Bay.
  • Night of 1 February 1942, PT 32 torpedoed and damaged IJN minelayer YAEYAMA in Subic Bay.
  • Night of 8 April 1942, PT 34 and PT 41 torpedoed and damaged IJN light cruiser KUMA in action off Cebu.
  • Night of December 9, 1942, PT 59 torpedoed and sank IJN submarine I-3 at Kamimbo Bay, Guadalcanal.
  • Night of December 11, 1942 PT 44 and PT 110 torpedoed and sank IJN destroyer TERUTSUKI off Guadalcanal.
  • Night of January 10, 1943, PTs 45, 39, 48, 115, 43, 40, 112, 59, 46, and 36 in action off Cape Esperance torpedoed and damaged IJN destroyer HATSUKAZE.
  • Night of December 24/25, 1942, PT 122 apparently torpedoed and sank IJN submarine I-22 at Tufi, New Guinea, though recent investigations cast doubt on that assessment.
  • Night of March 3, 1943, in the wake of the Battle of the Bismarck Sea, PT 143 and PT 150 torpedoed and sank the already-damaged IJN transport OIGAWA MARU, 6,493 tons.
  • Night of May 8/9, 1943, PT 206 torpedoed and sank a German tanker in Ras Idda Bay during the North African campaign.
  • On July 24, 1943, PT 216 torpedoed and sank the 8,800-ton Italian merchant ship VIMINALE near Palmi.
  • Night of October 22/23, 1943, PT 212 torpedoed and sank an Italian corvette converted for use as a cargo carrier in the Maddalena-Bastia area.
  • Night of November 2/3, 1943, PT 211 and PT 207 torpedoed and sank German subchaser 2206 off Giglio Island.
  • Night of May 23/24, 1944, PT 202 and PT 213 torpedoed and sank German corvette UJ-2223 and torpedoed and damaged German corvette UJ-2222 near Vada Rocks.
  • Night of June 14/15, 1944, PT 558, PT 552, and PT 559 torpedoed and sank German corvettes TA 26 and TA 30 between La Spezia and Genoa.
  • Night of November 2, 1944, PT 308 torpedoed and sank German subchaser UJ-2207 off Portofino.
  • Night of October 24/25, 1944, a PT torpedoed and damaged IJN light cruiser ABUKUMA during the Battle of Surigao Strait.
  • Night of October 24/25, 1944, PT 323 torpedoed the damaged IJN destroyer ASAGUMO during the Battle of Surigao Strait.
  • Night of November 28/29, 1944, PT 127 and PT 331 torpedoed and sank IJN subchaser No. 52 and Patrol Boat No. 105 at Ormoc Bay.
  • Night of December 11/12, 1944, PT 492 torpedoed and sank IJN destroyer UZUKI at Palomplon, Leyte.
  • Night of December 26, 1944, PT 223 torpedoed and sank damaged IJN destroyer KIYOSHINO off Mindoro.
  • Night of January 23/24, 1945, PT 532 torpedoed and damaged a 6,000-ton Japanese freighter in Lingayen Gulf; the ship, its bows blown off, was beached and abandoned.

Source: Bulkeley, Robert J., Jr., Captain, USN (Ret.). At Close Quarters: PT Boats in the United States Navy. Washington, D.C.: Naval History Division, 1962. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 143.183.121.4 (talk) 15:10, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

"decide for yourself" indeed. Just off the top, Fitzsimons, w naval ed Antony Preston (Illustrated Encyclopedia of 20th Century Weapons & Warfare {London: Phoebus, 1978}), says Kuma was sunk in January 1944 by HMSub Tally Ho Volume 16, p.1683); Hatsukaze 2/11/43 by U.S. destroyers including Spence (Volume 14, p.1542); & I-22 lost to "marine casualty" (Volume 13, p.1404). Was Bulkeley using wartime credit, or relying on JANAC? As bad as JANAC was, it was better than the wartime accounting, which couldn't (or didn't) weed out mistaken claims from torpedo failures (for instance). Trekphiler (talk) 14:44, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

The list above does not claim that Kuma or Hatsukaze was sunk, it says "torpedoed and damaged". What is JANAC anyway? Please enlighten me. Thanks Jerry —Preceding unsigned comment added by 143.182.124.2 (talk) 12:01, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

"The list above does not claim that Kuma or Hatsukaze was sunk". Noted. I'd just treat the list with caution, since Bulkeley was a PT sailor & hence had reason to stretch things. JANAC? It's the postwar accounting of Sub Force claims (maybe others, too, which is why I ask), the Joint Army-Navy Assessment Committee. It relied on both U.S. & Japanese records & was notoriously unreliable, denying credit where there were numerous eyewitnesses & photos, giving credit to boats far away from the cited sinkings; also, Japanese records were in chaos by war's end...& at least some U.S. records from early in the war were pretty chaotic, too. Trekphiler (talk) 13:49, 28 April 2008 (UTC)