This article is about the WWII British Royal Navy ships. For steam-powered gunboats, see gunboat and warship.
Grey Goose
Class overview
Name
Steam gun boat (SGB)
Operators
RN
Built
1940-1942
In service
Nov 1941- post-war
Planned
52
Completed
7
Cancelled
2
Lost
1
General characteristics
Displacement
175 tons (standard), 255 tons (deep load)
Length
44.3 m (145 ft 8 in) overall
Beam
7.1 m (20 ft)
Draught
1.68 m (5 ft 6 in)
Installed power
8,000 shp (5,965 kW)
Propulsion
1 × LaMont boiler
2 × Metropolitan-Vickers geared Steam turbines
2 × shafts
Speed
35 kn (65 km/h) maximum
Range
200 NM (370 km) at full speed
900 NM (1,700 km) at 12 knots
Complement
27 initially (3 officers and 24 men), later rising to 34 as a result of changes in armament
Armament
Final arrangement:
1 × 3-in (76.2 mm) gun
2 × single 6-pdr guns
2 × twin 20-mm Oerlikon cannon
2 × 21-inch torpedo tubes
Steam gun boats (SGBs) were small Royal Navy vessels built from 1940 to 1942 for Coastal Forces during the Second World War. The class consisted of nine steam-powered torpedo boats.
They were developed in parallel with the 35-metre long Fairmile D motor torpedo boats ("dog boats"), specifically due to the need to hunt down German E-boats at a time of scarcity of suitable diesel engines. While sixty were planned, only an initial batch of nine were ordered on 8 November 1940, of which seven were completed.
Steamgunboats (SGBs) were small Royal Navy vessels built from 1940 to 1942 for Coastal Forces during the Second World War. The class consisted of nine...
Second World War, which was armed with a mix of guns, in contrast to the physically similar motor torpedo boat (MTB), whose main offensive weapon were torpedoes...
sail only with difficulty. The gun that such boats carried could be quite heavy; a 32-pounder for instance. As such boats were cheap and quick to build...
including other torpedo boats, that used steam turbines or reciprocating steam engines. Later, diesel-powered torpedo boats appeared, in turn or retroactively...
superior enemy battle fleet using steam launches to fire torpedoes. Cheap, fast boats armed with torpedoes called torpedo boats were built and became a threat...
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a year behind the US with their first nuclear powered ballistic missile boat, the ill-fated K-19 of Project 658 (Hotel class), commissioned in November...
length. Seagoing patrol boats are typically around 30 m (100 ft) in length and usually carry a single medium caliber artillery gun as main armament, and...
first purpose-built steam battleship was the 90-gun Napoléon in 1850. Napoléon was armed as a conventional ship-of-the-line, but her steam engines could give...
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launch Fairmile C motor gunboat Fairmile H landing craft Steamgunboat Coastal Forces of the Royal Navy Reynolds, Leonard C. Dog Boats at War: Royal Navy...
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needed] The French Navy introduced steam to the line of battle with the 90-gun Napoléon in 1850—the first true steam battleship. Napoléon was armed as...
as scouts and fleet support vessels for battle fleets. The first small steam-powered cruisers were built for the British Royal Navy with HMS Mercury...
by large steam engines, to maximize speed to intercept enemy torpedo boats before they could get close to the battleships. These torpedo boat destroyers...
vessels. The idea was first put into action in the 1870s with the steam-powered torpedo boats, which were produced in large numbers by both the Royal Navy...
stations at 2130 hours. S-boats escorting a German tanker torpedoed some of the landing craft and disabled the escorting SteamGunBoat 5. Subsequently Motor...
classified as "frigates" because of the number of guns they carried. However, terminology changed as iron and steam became the norm, and the role of the frigate...
completed in 1902 were built in San Francisco, California. The Holland Torpedo Boat Company of New York City contracted Union Iron Works to build the two Plunger-class...
assumption. One hit, sinking the U-boat. Following World War II, advanced German submarines, especially the Type XXI U-boat, became available to the Allies...
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gunfire support vessel. Various machines guns were often mounted for self-defence from aircraft and small boats, often two to four in the .30-calibre (7...