Small Ships of WW2

What I am talking about here are the numerous small craft under 250 tons that fought during ww2 .
Nearly everyone knows about the famous E-boat yet fail to realise it was not one class of boats .

What I am interested in is the possible drivers for a change in the use and performance of the ships used . For example the Elco and Higgins PT boats used gasoline engines , The British used Gasoline as well .
Germans Diesel , Italians gasoline as well . Soviet small craft used a multitude of engines and usually aircraft engine origins . On-board power was also highly dependent on hull design and endurance required . 700 miles for an E-boat was considered good .

The Hulls again vary in design and method of construction . These changes made seaworthiness an issue for the plywood construction in the early Elco boats at least . British MTB and MGB seem to have also been a wooden hull construction . I am fairly sure the fairmiles had steel hulls .

The weapons carried and their utilisation also had a major variation . This usually involved torpedo's and quick firing guns . Some of the Soviet Boats had a single torpedo and a machine gun while the largest British SGB's had light cannon and included 3 inch guns on a 250 ton max displacement . This obviously stretches the definition a bit however they where designed to combat the E-boats .

If you could go back and knowing what we now know about what worked well , what changes would you make . What is your ideal design .


For me I would look at the SGB and reduce it's size .

A 120 ton vessel
powered by modified Napier Culverin,s . I would envision 4 shafts with 1600 hp a shaft provided by a 12 cylinder 24 piston engine . essentially a twin Napier Culverin .

With a Steel framed Hull so long as the wood or plywood used was strong enough heavy sea's would be a breeze .

On a 120 ton hull I would mount a pair of pom pom's for and aft (for early war) backed up with 2 or 4 armoured twin browning 0.303 MG turrets. Finish it off with 6 depth charges and 2 or 4 18 inch aircraft torpedo's .

By mid war the Pom Pom's could be changed to Bofors or Mollins guns , the twin browning 0.303 MG turrets replaced with either 50 cal or 20 mm . Add in radar and you have a usefull vessel .

I also feel an armoured pilot house is a good idea.
 
Late model S-100 series MTB (E-Boat) with 40mm Bofors was only a decent radar short of being the best WW2 era boat.
To get the ideal WW2 boat you either have to put a German (DB) diesel on a Fairmile D boat or go the other way around and put British/American sensors on a German Boat.
 
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