"Bring back torpedo boats!" Topic

The Patrol Torpedo (PT) Boat of World War II fame has a place in today's Navy. This is not a nostalgic or romantic notion but a practical solution to a very serious and vexing problem. The current Navy relies on multi-billion-dollar destroyers to contest and gain sea control, but destroyers don't need to be the first, or only, choice for every mission. The Navy needs an alternative platform, in large numbers and at a much more affordable cost, to contribute to the battle for sea control. A fast attack craft would complement and balance the current fleet of capital ships, and the PT boat is a proven model…

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Maybe but the navy doesn't want them. Pegasus, Cyclone others all dumped. Just as the navy doesn't want minesweepers. These things are forced on them and dumped as soon as possible.

Big expensive carriers, like the Gerald Ford, with new technology that may or may not work is their favorite.

This argument has been going on since I first started playing the game 'Sea Strike' in the 1970s.

Fast Attack Craft with missiles and guns are ideal for coastal warfare but it seems they are regarded by the Navy brass as the Air Force regard the A-10…….not shiny enough!!

Modern torpedoes would probably cost more than the boat and you would have to start adding expensive sensors to it so that it didn't have to get to eyeball range before firing.

I suspect the real reason would be that a modern frigate's helicopter could easily kill PT boats with little risk to itself (assuming it had some small missiles and knew where they were). That and it would be a career dead end for any navy officer.

WW2 PT boats were the same length as the first destroyers – 125 ft. However the destroyers had bigger (57 & 75mm )and more guns but usually only 2 torpedoes.

The big thing with such small boats is that they can't remain deployed on the front line for very long – the crews suffer reduced efficiency due to fatigue quickly and the boats can't carry enough stores in the way of food & water. So they can really only operate efficiently within a days sailing of a larger support ship or fixed base.

Australia has operated 'patrol boats' for decades, but their armaments are minimal, usually a WW2 vintage 40mm Bofors plus the crews small arms and the boats are relatively slow with a small crew to allow week long patrols at peace time threat levels.

They will as expendable drones.

But the U.S. public is casualty-averse. While PT boats might be useful in a great power war, where casualties are huge, political considerations keep you from using them in small conflicts.

"WW2 PT boats were the same length as the first destroyers – 125 ft. However the destroyers had bigger (57 & 75mm )and more guns but usually only 2 torpedoes."

US PT boats were 78 or 80 feet. Vastly smaller, especially because volume increases with the cube of length.

The Elcos displaced only 56 tons, while the Fletcher-class DDs displaced 2,100 tons and the Laffeys displaced 2,500. Not even vaguely in the same league.

(The Fletchers were 375 ft., the Bensons 341 feet.)

"They will as expendable drones."

+1

Likely, they won't look exactly like torpedo boats, or function exactly like them.

The problem is the problem of all drones: communication links. If the link is broken, you need them to operate autonomously. If they operate autonomously, the likelihood of sinking neutral or civilian shipping increases. There are interesting political consequences to the first time an autonomous warship/aircraft/tank/whatever kills civilians.

xkcd.com/534

I liked the Pegasus. I briefly knew the commanding officer, had the chance to visit her in dock.

1970s and 1980s era Missile Boats would be better. Some of them even carried torpedoes, for heavy, close-in work, or to finish off a kill.

They need a more robust SAM/CIWS defense system though, to protect them from fast movers.

All packed a heavy punch for their size.

Again, the problem is that the crews are essentially disposable.

Make them a 100-ton drone, might work.

Well, the much larger crews on the LCS are too, as well as many other, larger vessels, if you think about it, in the modern missile age.

If the Argentines had more Exocets, working bomb fuses, or the islands were closer to the mainland, I suspect the RN fleet would have been virtually wiped out in short order, Sea Harriers with Aim-9Ls notwithstanding.

Quite possibly, Thresher. Early 1980s ships were rather notoriously light in the AA/anti-missile defenses area.

The LCS are particularly egregious, however, because they have absolutely minimum anti-missile defenses. Just a RAM or SeaRAM launcher and that 57mm.

Even the FFG7s had better defenses, with SM1s and I think even Sea Sparrow quad-packs once the FFG7s went to a vertical launcher. Plus the 76mm and a CIWS. I've read claims that the 57mm on the LCS actually throws more weight of shell per minute than anything short of a 5" automatic, but that's at the cost of a lot of range.

If you get up to the Burke-class, well, we just added Aegis radar to the mix and 50+ SM2s, SM3s, and SM6s. Plus ESSM quad-packs, 5" gun, two CIWS, and maybe RAM launchers, too.