PT Boats

[Erich]

go through this site very slowly for the KM S-boots

PRINZ EUGEN.com - the Kriegsmarine Online Photo Archive

enjoy D.K.'s site he has worked hard on it

[Peter Clare]

The number of E-boats employed against shipping in UK home waters during the period July 1941 and February 1943 was seldom more that twenty, but during this period they managed to sink by torpedo attack, forty-four ships totalling 75,484 gross tons. The fatal casualties among E-boats at this time numbered three, none due to air attack.

S.41 on 19 November 1941 - Foundered in tow after action with British M.T.Bs.
S-53 on 19 February 1942 - Foundered after collision with another E-boat.
S-111 on 14 March 1942 - Sunk in action with British M.T.Bs.

[Erich]

Peter are you quoting from official S-Boot Flottille histories via BA/MA RM listings at Freiburg or another German KM source ? I say this is because there were at least 3 Flottilles operating off the English coast line with more than 20 boats though it would be fool hardy to put all your boats into one area.

Case in point is the 5th S-Flottille with 30 Boots at it's disposal

[Peter Clare]

Erich,

My source is AIR41/47

The RAF Narrative. The RAF in the Maritime War. Volume III. The Atlantic and Home Waters. July 1941 to February 1943.

[Erich]

thanks Peter.........

heres a pic of the CO of the Schnellbooten

Rudolf Petersen : finally given the rank of Kommodore on September 23, 1944

[von Poop]

Good 'memoir' site from a British Coastal forces veteran:
The Coastal Forces

[Warlord]

The British didn´t have a "combination" boat like the E or S-boot, the PT or the Italian MAS; instead, they used MGB´s (Motor Gun Boat) that came with different sets of hardware, mainly owing to their size (even a steam powered one!), and MTB´s (Motor Torpedo Boat), both organized in independent flotillas but with the former usually in support of the latter during strikes on enemy shipping and operating alone while on search and destroy missions against their Nazi counterparts, ML´s (Motor Launches) and HDML´s (Harbour Defence Motor Launches), these two smaller and with less weaponry and performance than the first ones.

Commonwealth forces used these small craft all over the world, including the Channel and the North Sea, where they slugged it out with the Kriegsmarine even until May ´45; the Med, where together with PT´s, both USN and their own, fought against the Italians and the Germans, including the infamous F-Lighters in the Adriatic and the Aegean; the Indian Ocean, where ML flotillas from the Indian Navy supported the Arakan campaigns; and the South China Sea, where several very outdated ML´s fought bravely defending Hong Kong in ´41.

I have a book called "Lanchas Rápidas, Los Bucaneros", from Editorial San Martín, by Bryan Cooper (I guess it is a translation of an english-written original), which deals with the subject rather deeply, but haven´t been able yet to find it posted on the web so as to give all of you war buffs a link to explore.