United Kingdom: Royal Navy CMB, MTBs, MA/SB, MBGs: c2,000 boats This is a Portal Page, long overdue, on British small crafts, boats of ships broadly assimilated to the “Motor Torpedo Boat” Family. In reality, MGBs and MA/SBs, used for ASW or general patrol would might to differ. This post starts with the WW1 CMB types … Read more
RN 1928-45: c300 vessels of all types. The marker of a premium Navy is as much as in its battlefleet than in its support fleet. In that regard, the RN could boast having the world’s largest support fleet in 1939, a category often assimilated to the “miscellaeous” category. Excluded are gunboats and minesweepers, included the … Read more
UK Royal Navy: 23 (86 total) ships. The Hunt class were escort destroyer of the Royal Navy, with first vessels ordered early in 1939 specifically to taking on escort roles and free resgular destroyer for fleet work. The very first serie, seen here, was a famous design disaster in which stablilitary calculations proved totally wrong. … Read more
United Kingdom – (1943-45): 110 planned, 28 completed, 26 to Bay class, 54 cancelled. The Loch class were anti-submarine warfare frigates built for the Royal Navy and Allies in wartime, an innovative take on the preceding, and very similar River class Frigates, but incorporating three years of experience in the Battle of the Atlantic. However … Read more
British Royal Navy (1920): Hawkins, Frobisher, Effingham, Raleigh, Cavendish/Vindictive Named the “Elisabethan Corsairs” due to their names, the Hawkins-class cruisers were designed for hunting down commerce raiders in the open ocean, combining heavy armament, high speed and long range, to the detriment of armour. They were arguably less well armoured than some earlier protected cruisers … Read more
Royal Navy (1930-34) E class: Echo, Eclipse, Electra, Encounter, Escapade, Escort, Esk, Express E Flotilla Leader: HMS Exmouth F class: Fame, Fearless, Firedrake, Forester, Foresight, Fortune, Foxhound, Fury F Flotilla Leader: HMS Faulknor The E and F class destroyers were a next step in destroyer design, with modest improvements over the C/D class but near-repeats … Read more
United Kingdom/Canada – (1940-45): 44 ships, 95 planned, 51 cancelled. We saw the Flower class corvettes in detail back in September 2022, and they were a very important part of the Battle of the Atlantic, freeing military yards for more important repairs and constructions while still being well adapted to their rough north Atlantic escort … Read more
Royal Navy (1928-31) A class: HMS Acasta, Achates, Active, Antelope, Anthony, Ardent, Arrow, Acheron Canadian A class: HMCS Saguenay, Skeena A class Leader: HMS Codrington B-class: HMS Basilisk, Beagle, Blanche, Boadicea, Boreas, Brazen, Brilliant, Bulldog B-class leader: HMS Keith The first interwar British Royal Navy destroyers were the A and B classes, identical and built … Read more
Minelayer cruisers – HMS Abdiel, Latona, Manxman, Welshman, Ariadne, Apollo The Abdiel class were six fast minelayers (cruisers) commissioned during the Second World War, built in two groups, one ordered in 1938, the second in wartime and commissioned in 1943. They were known as the Manxman class of just the “mine-laying cruisers”, armed only with … Read more
UK Royal Navy (1916-1945) 1916 program: HMS Shakespeare, Spenser, Wallace, Keppel, Rooke, Saunders*, Stragge* (Built 1916-1920). The Shakespeare or “Thornycroft Type” were Flotilla leaders which type was developed already in 1913, after acknowledging the failure of HMS Swift as an in-between cruisers and destroyers. Thus by October 1913 the admiralty worked on a new design, … Read more
