The following are quoits from E-boat Alert, by James Foster Tent.
p.24
"of all the world's navys in WWII,the Germans would emerge with the most formidable fast torpedo boat"
p.42
"armament varied, but by 1944 a typical boat was mounting one 40mm(or 37mm)Bofors gun on the stern. A twin 20mm Oerlikon mount was installed amidships-a few even had a Vierling, or quadruple Orelikon mount-and the single Oerlikon on the bow(in the well), plus lighter, removable machineguns on the bridge."
p.42
"the alloy and wood construction with judiciously placed heavy metal reinforcing made the E-boat a remarkably light but rugged craft"
p.42
"carrying as many as 6 thousand 20mm canon shell's"
p.42
" A fully combat loaded E-boat of 1944 weighed 113tons. Even so it was a planing vessel, and at 42.5 knots it was by 1944,one of the worlds fastest and one of the deadliest torpedo boats ever built."
Something of note in the photo bellow U will notice the bridge, it is armored as is the fighting compartment in the bow that housed a retractable 20mm orelikon cannon.
E-boats were also used by the Italians who managed this:
The MAS and the MS achieved notable successes during the war. It must be noted that, besides the sinking of numerous merchant ships, these units sunk the largest warship sunk by a torpedo boat in the period 1939/45. This was the English light cruiser MANCHESTER , sunk during the Battle of Mid-August by MS 16 and 22.
It also must be noted the sinking of the English destroyer LIGHTNING (Algerian coasts, March 12th 1943), the Russian submarine EQUOKA (Black Sea, June 19th 1942), and the serious damages to the English cruisers CAPETOWN (MAS 213 April 8th 1941) and Russian MOLOTOV. (MAS 568 and 573 August 3rd 1942
Also of note is the E-boats torpedo armament, they carried 4 torpedos, 2 ready, and 2 reloads, thease are much more powerful weapons than the type carried by our PT boat.
Also later E-boats were also faster and more heavily armed.
These boats also had a much better hullform than their allied equivalents and were better at sea keeping as a result, in fact their hull form is still in use today being copied for new fast attack craft for Israel I believe.
Brady
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[This message has been edited by brady (edited 12-26-2000).]
