Coastal Forces of World War II

Coastal Forces was a division of the Royal Navy established during World War II. It consisted of small coastal defence craft which the Navy designated with names such as: Motor Launch, High Speed Launch, air-sea rescue, Motor Gun Boat and Motor Torpedo Boat. It did not include landing craft, trawlers or purpose-built minesweepers. Other Navies operated equivalent boats, but classified and named them somewhat differently.

This article attempts to pull together, for comparative purposes, some statistics concerning the coastal forces of different navies. It starts with the above British definition of "Coastal Forces" and attempts to identify the equivalent boats in other navies.

Coastal Forces of the United Kingdom

Main article: Coastal Forces of the Royal Navy

Type	Designation	Built	Lost	Designed purpose
Motor Launches	ML, HDML ASR			Harbour Defence Motor Launches (HDML) and submarine chasing or for armed high speed Air Sea Rescue.
Motor Gun Boats	MGB
Steam Gun Boats	SGB	7	1	Hunting down German E-boats
Motor Torpedo Boats	MTB

Coastal Forces of the United States

Type	Designation	Built	Lost	Designed purpose
PT boats	PT-
Submarine chasers	SC- and PC-

Coastal Forces of Germany

Type	Designation	Built	Lost	Designed purpose
Schnellboot (E-boats)	S-
R boat

Coastal Forces of Italy

Type	Designation	Built	Lost	Designed purpose
MAS-boat
Motoscafo Silurante		36

Coastal Forces of Japan

Post war

Post war there seemed to be no need for small coastal force vessels. They were generally withdrawn and their functions taken over by larger corvettes, frigates, and destroyers. A few remained in service with Third World navies. The RN's last boats built in any number were the Dark-class fast patrol boats of the mid-1950s; Coastal Forces was reduced in 1957 to a few vessels.

In time, the need for smaller vessels re-asserted itself, as in this experience of the Royal Australian Navy:

The motor launches quickly passed out of service after the war and coastal patrol duties once more devolved upon larger RAN ships. From the early 1960s the Ton class minesweepers took on significant patrol responsibilities, particularly during the Indonesian Confrontation from 1962-1966. This experience led directly to the decision to reintroduce patrol boats to the RAN inventory, as the minesweepers were expensive to maintain and their engines were not designed to loiter on patrol.

— ^[1]

Coastal boats reappeared in navies around the world now generally adapted to the need to "patrol" and designated as "patrol boats".

Surviving craft

Following is a list of notable surviving coastal craft from World War II.

Vessel MGB81	Country Great Britain	Type Motor Gun Boat	Design British Powerboat Company	Built 1942	In the care of Portsmouth Naval Base Property Trust	Notes
HNoMS Hitra	Norway	submarine chaser				Only remaining World War II submarine chaser with intact armament [2]
S-130	Germany	E-boat		1943	British Military Powerboat Trust [3]	Only surviving German E-boot. Participated in Exercise Tiger and attacks on the D-day invasion fleet.
PT 617	US	PT-boat	80-foot Elco		Battleship Cove Museum [4]	Only completely restored 80-foot Elco PT-boat in existence [5]
PT 796	US	PT-boat	78-foot Higgins		Battleship Cove Museum [6]	restored [7]
MTB 102	UK	MTB	Private venture	1937	MTB 102 Trust	capable of 48 knots unladen

See also

• Submarine chaser
• PT boat
• British Power Boat Company – producer of the PT boat prototype
• Canadian Power Boat Company
• Patrol boat
• USCG Patrol Boat
• Fast Attack Craft – modern classification
• List of patrol vessels of the United States Navy