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Night Watch

"Reminds me of an attempt to fit a 20mm on a clone of an 18' Glen L runabout - shattered the front deck despite reinforcements. Settled for a pair of 7.62 (modified) Brownings with gunsight from wire! " And I thought the USA had crazy gun laws!!!!! 😮 😎

5 years ago by RNinMunich

Forum

Night Watch

Reminds me of an attempt to fit a 20mm on a clone of an 18' Glen L runabout - shattered the front deck despite reinforcements. Settled for a pair of 7.62 (modified) Brownings with gunsight from wire!

5 years ago by redpmg

Forum

Batteries in a DX5e

Evenin' Martin (W), "but go to a British model boat club (if you can find one) and you'll be grunted at if you're lucky." That was precisely my experience many years ago with the MBC here at the Munich Ostpark lake. Interestingly I haven't seen them for a few years now, and their 'Stammtisch' and equipment lockers have been removed!! I suspect that they strangled themselves. Now I sail, mostly alone, from the same site 😊 See pic, from before the club table was removed! Martin(555), there was a lot of one-upmanship with them too 😝 One guy regularly came with his large 'Wiesel' FPB, with a working 20mm Oerlikon mechanism - NO not with live rounds!😮 But all he ever did was discuss the at the Stammtisch. I never saw his boat on the watter! What I did find back then was that some very old guys, who had served in the Kaiser's navy or the Kriegsmarine, were much more friendly and came over to chat, ask questions and share experiences when I was sailing my 1936 destroyer and/or 1936 U-Boot. One had served on one of the first 'Torpedo Boat Destroyers' in WW1 !! He was very chatty and asked lots of questions about my 1/72 HMS Hotspur H01. Another used to turn up with a huge (ca 2m) model of Titanic on a trailer. Superb model BUT; it played continuous dreadful Oompahpah music ☹️🙉 He was a nice guy though and very chatty, especially with a Maßbier (1ltr!) in his lifter 😊 Cheers, Doug 😎

5 years ago by RNinMunich

Forum

Plan Sources

Er... yes. I have also done a bit of research when drawing up the EeZeBilt PT boat. The US came late to the concept of light torpedo boats. The original doctrine, gathered from the old WW1 exploits of the MAS boats, was that these light boats would overcome capital ships by force of numbers and agility - typically in harbour defence scenarios where their lack of blue-water range was not an issue. Similarly, they could defend against prowling submarines. Since the US did not have any close maritime enemies, they did not consider light torpedo boats to be worth investing in. Strategy had moved on by WW2, and when the US finally considered them, with the 'Plywood Derby', their original raison d'etre had all but vanished. capital ships were surrounded by Torpedo Boat Destroyers, and radar meant that it would be suicide to consider approaching a 'big gun' enemy on the high seas. Nevertheless, the initial US PTB purchase specified armament for just this function - standard US Mk VIII tube-launched torpedos, smoke for concealment and 0.5 calibre machine guns for local/AA defence. This turned out to be almost completely useless in practice. The tactical doctrine makes engrossing reading: "...3401. Unsupported attack on enemy task force.-The plans for attacking an enemy convoy apply equally to attacking an enemy task force, the only material difference being that stiffer resistance may be expected and a great number of boats should normally be employed. 3402. Supported attacks in fleet action.-This type of attack has such a wide range of possibilities which depend on so many factors that it is not possible to recommend any general plan. Some of the possibilities, however, are listed below. (a) Night action with destroyer support where MTB's first attack the enemy screen, permitting destroyers to penetrate the screen and attack the - main body. (b) Night action with destroyer or light cruiser support where the DD's and CL's engage the screen, permitting MTB's to pierce the screen and attack the main body. (c) Day action where destroyers, aircraft and MTB's attack enemy main body simultaneously. MTB's launched from a carrier or operating from a fleet base. 3403. Attacks coordinated with aircraft.-Attacks by large numbers of motor torpedo boats and aircraft made simultaneously on enemy forces should be highly successful, as such attacks will present a great multiplicity of targets for enemy anti-aircraft and secondary batteries and will bring heavy striking power to bear on the enemy. The time of the attack will depend upon the motor torpedo boats, as aircraft can control their timing more readily. The aircraft attack may be a dive-bombing, strafing, or torpedo attack or any combination thereof. An aircraft torpedo attack, coordinated, should be made on opposite side from the MTB attack. A high altitude horizontal bombing attack will not divide the enemy's fire to the maximum extent, as he will not divert the use of his machine guns toward the bombers. In this type of attack all available motor torpedo boats should attack simultaneously...." !!! There are a number of propaganda stories during the early part of WW2 suggesting that PT boats were engaging and sinking Japanese cruisers. These all seem to be untrue, and circulated as 'morale boosters'. I can find few examples of a successful attack on a big ship - the strike on the light cruiser Abukuma by PT137 during the Battle of Surigao Strait (which was almost certainly a mistake!) is one notable example. The PT boats came into their own as shore harassing gunboats and inter-island supply interdiction once the initial Japanese advance halted, and that was when they began needing to add more guns. The Toku Daihatsu barges used for Japanese supply were almost immune to torpedoes, drawing only a foot or so, and were heavily armoured, so the 'Ma Deuces' were of limited use. Some early PT boats had a 20mm Oerlikon mounted on the stern. I have never seen one with twin Oerlikons mounted this way, though there might have been occasional one-offs. Invariably the armour plate on the gun was discarded for weight reasons. Single 20mm Oerlikons were also mounted on the front quarters, together with the distinctive 'horse-collar' M4 37mm , initially from u/s Bell P-39 Airacobras, but later as a standard fitting. By 1945 they were adding 5" rockets... On the stern the boats were rapidly updated to carry a Bofors 40mm, which they could do when the heavy MkVIII torpedo tubes were replaced with light Mk XIII aircraft 'roll-off' torpedoes. A bit of a misnomer, this, as the torpedoes did not actually roll.... But I have never seen a PT Boat with a 35mm on it. The radar fitting was one of three types: 1 - no radar 2 - SO dome 3 - SO-3 with rotating parabola. I wish there was a simple, cheap way to get a 1:48 Bofors gun. The EeZeBilt PT boats need a Bofors on the back, but I haven't managed to source one yet. And I suppose I should add torpedo tubes to provide accuracy across the whole PT range... Below is a picture of two EeZeBilt PT boats. The far one is an 1940 model with no radar mast and a single Oerlikon on the stern. It should really have tubes as well, of course. Note the position of the life-raft on the bow. The near one is a 1944 fit, with an M4 at the front and SO radar. The life-raft has moved back to the top of the chart cabin. It should really have a Bofors on the stern, and a small boat on the day cabin, but I haven't made these yet. And, of course, no PT Boat had varnished wooden planking. But I just thought that it looked nice... 🤗

5 years ago by DodgyGeezer

Shop

Working Water Monitor (1:16)

Designed for the crash tender, but suitable for any boat or tug of the same scale. This will operate by attaching a pipe at the base. The angle can be set during assembly. Comes in red, but can be painted as required. Brand new to the shop!

5 years ago by fireboat

Forum

Plan Sources

Hi DG, I'd be MOST interested to see what you consider to be the 'relevant plan'! So here is your 'Round to It' 😉 I heartily agree with you regarding the portholes / glazed units! But as far as armament goes - Anything goes, especially for those operated in the Pacific theatre - which was the vast majority. Crews scrounged and used whatever they could get their hands on. The classic example is the 37mm Army Anti Tank gun JFK scrounged and fitted to PT109. To no avail; they were rammed and sunk the day after by the Japanese destroyer IJN Amagiri. If it worked it was introduced in the next production class. As far as your 'relevant plan' goes; I guess that depends on which boat of which class in which of 30 squadrons (RONS) of 80' ELCOS built at which stage of the war was taken as the basis of the plan. The early classes, up to about the 103 class (to which JFK's infamous boat belonged) had no radar at all. You are correct that there was a large radar pod on some PTB's. As built probably from the 200 class at the earliest. Earliest pics and references I can find indicate that the radar pods may have been first fitted to the 500 series. Highly likely that such such details were still secret and not available to Les & Co in the late 40s early 50s. I have seen some photos of PTBs with that odd 'button' on the mast top but haven't yet fathomed what it could be. Don't fit no radar antenna that I know of and it's way too small for the radar of the time anyway. Some earlier boats may have been retrofitted but not many. Most squadrons only had one or two boats fitted with radar at all (destroyers and upwards took precedence in the early days of radar, until centimetric and corresponding smaller antennas were introduced and could be mass produced) and most PTB skippers switched them off at night and lowered the mast anyway to reduce the risk of detection. The early classes also had no armament on the foredeck. As the official model of PT109 shows. Only the Carley Floats or some other form of liferaft. I also attach drawings from the USN Bureau Of Ships deck plan and profile drawings as designed and originally built. (Thanks for the pointer Maurice👍). They and all subsequent classes were, consequent to operational experience esp. in the Pacific, rapidly fitted with a colourful assortment of single and twin barrel s fore and aft as well as single and /or twin 20mm Oerlikons midships and/or on the torpedo mounts - similar to British MTBs, e.g. Vosper. Later versions had all sorts of guns on the foredeck and a single 0.5" machine to port just forward of the cabin. so as far as a PTB model goes; Yer pays yer money and yer takes yer choice. You can fit a model with virtually anything less than a 3" QF/HA and probably be right for at least one boat somewhere at some time! In my archive I have dozens of photos of PTBs of various types and classes; as built, in operation, and as restored, if anyone needs 'em.😉 Wrt the straight or front cabin; difficult to see what was intended in the Aerokits plan😮 I agree with you that the ELCOs had a cabin front slanted backward. The Huckins PTBs did have a straight cabin front. Not many were built and never saw war service being stationed mostly in Florida, Pearl Harbour and Midway and used for training. Maybe someone got their plans mixed up. Cheers and G'night, Doug 😎 PS Have a look at Battleship Cove for lots of photos of the restored PT617. There you can see the later radar pod.😉 "Armament The primary anti-ship armament was two to four Mark 8 torpedoes, which weighed 2,600 pounds (1,179 kg) and contained a 466-pound (211 kg) TNT warhead. These torpedoes were launched by Mark 18 21-inch (530 mm) steel torpedo tubes. Mark 8 torpedoes had a range of 16,000 yards (14,630 m) at 36 knots (67 km/h; 41 mph). These torpedoes and tubes were replaced in mid-1943 by four lightweight 22.5-inch-diameter (570 mm) Mark 13 torpedoes, which weighed 2,216 pounds (1,005 kg) and contained a 600-pound (270 kg) Torpex-filled warhead. These torpedoes were carried on lightweight Mark 1 roll-off style torpedo launching racks. The Mk13 torpedo had a range of 6,300 yards (5,800 m) and a speed of 33.5 knots (62.0 km/h; 38.6 mph). PT boats were also well armed with numerous automatic weapons. Common to all US PT boats were the two twin M2 .50 cal (12.7 mm) machine guns. Early PT boats (Elco PT20 through PT44) mounted Dewandre plexiglas-enclosed hydraulically operated rotating turrets.[12] Almost immediately after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Dewandre turrets were replaced on the entire PT boat fleet with open ring twin mounts. The ring mount was designed by both Elco and Bell, and designated Mark 17 Twin 50 caliber aircraft mount.[13] Part of the Mark 17 Mod 1 and Mod 2 ring mount consisted of the Bell Mark 9 twin cradle.[14][15] Another automatic weapon commonly mounted on PT boats was the 20 mm Oerlikon . On early series of boats, this was mounted on the stern. Later in the war, several more of these 20 mm s were added amidships and on the forward deck. Forward of the chart house of some early Elco 77-foot (23 m) boats (PT20 through PT44) were twin .30 cal (7.62 mm) Lewis machine guns on pedestal mounts. Beginning in mid-1943, some boats were fitted with one or two .30 cal Browning machine guns on the forward torpedo racks on pedestal mounts. Occasionally, some front line PT boats received ad hoc up-fits at forward bases, where they mounted such weapons as 37mm aircraft s, rocket launchers, or mortars. When these weapons were found to be successful, they were incorporated onto the PT boats as original armament. One such field modification was made to Kennedy's PT-109, which was equipped with a single-shot Army M3 37mm anti-tank gun that her crew had commandeered; they removed the wheels and lashed it to 2x8 timbers placed on the bow only one night before she was lost. 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. Their answer was found in the 37mm Oldsmobile M4 aircraft automatic cannibalized from crashed P-39 Airacobra fighter planes on Henderson Field, Guadalcanal. After having demonstrated its value on board PT boats, the M4 (and later M9) was installed at the factory. The M4/M9 37mm auto had a relatively high rate of fire (125 rounds per minute) and large magazine (30 rounds). These features made it highly desirable due to the PT boat's ever-increasing requirement for increased firepower to deal effectively with the Japanese Daihatsu-class barges, which were largely immune to torpedoes due to their shallow draft. By the war's end, most PTs had these weapons. The installation of larger-bore s culminated in the fitting of the 40mm Bofors gun[16] on the aft deck. Starting in mid-1943, the installation of this gun had an immediate positive effect on the firepower available from a PT boat. The Bofors had a firing rate of 120 rounds/min (using 4-round clips) and had a range of 5,420 yards (4,960 m). This gun was served by a crew of 4 men, and was used against aircraft targets, as well as shore bombardment or enemy surface craft. Gunboats In the Solomon Islands in 1943, three 77-foot (23 m) 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 (12.7 mm) gun mounts, then adding two 40mm and four twin .50 cal (12.7 mm) mounts. Lieutenant Kennedy was the first commanding officer of PT-59 after its conversion. On 2 November 1943, PT-59 participated in the rescue of 40 to 50 Marines from Choiseul Island and a foundering landing craft (LCP(R)) which was under fire from Japanese soldiers on the beach.[17] Towards the end of the war, beginning in 1945, PTs received two eight-cell Mark 50 rocket launchers,[18] launching 5 in (130 mm) spin-stabilized flat trajectory Mark 7 and/or Mark 10 rockets[19] with a range of 11,000 yards (10,000 m). These 16 rockets plus 16 reloads gave them as much firepower as a destroyer's 5-inch (127 mm) guns. By war's end, the PT boat had more "firepower-per-ton" than any other vessel in the U.S. Navy. PT boats also commonly carried between two and eight U.S. Navy Mark 6 depth charges in roll-off racks. Sometimes they were used as a last-ditch weapon to deter pursuing destroyers. The depth charge could be set to go off at 100 feet (30 m), and by the time it exploded, the pursuing destroyer might be above it. Additionally, a few PT boats were equipped to carry naval mines launched from mine racks, but these were not commonly used. "

5 years ago by RNinMunich