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A look at the Soviet version of the motor torpedo boats, covering their pre-war development and their wartime achievements.
We start with a look at the early development of Soviet fast motor boats, which were developed from the British Coastal Motor Boats of the First World War. Several of these had been shipped to the Baltic during the British intervention in the Russian Civil War, and in 1919 one had sunk the cruiser Oleg, impressing the Soviets.
We then move onto the very first Soviet coastal motor boats, designed by the famous aircraft engineer Tupolev, and using many aircraft techniques (including from flying boats). He was certainly set an ambitious target – a top speed of 100 km/h when the official water speed record had only reached 114km/h in 1919 (unsurprisingly the first production boats had that speed target halved!). Ambition is a trend here, including a 1930s plan to build swarms of remote controlled motoro torpedo boats, but a second trend is a failure of ambition, with the MTBs being far less seaworthy than expected, and very likely to corrode. The wooden hulled G-5 was a more robust design. Wartime production focused on the D-3 (the better of Tupolov’s designs) and the G-5, although only about 175 were produced during the war. A similar number of US MTBs were send under Lend-Lease.
When the Germans invaded the Soviets had 290 MTBs, half in the Pacific, the rest split between the Baltic and the Black Sea. They were almost never given a chance to carry out their main role of mass attacks on formations of large German warships, as for most of the war the Germans didn’t use their larger warships in Baltic or Black Sea. Although many claims were made in 1941, they only had one success, finishing off an auxiliary minesweeper that had already been abandoned after hitting a mine.
With their original role no longer needed, the MTBs were found new tasks – as troop transports, mine layers sub-chasers or escorts. They weren’t terribly well suited to most of these roles – as sub-chasers they could carry 24 depth charges but no sonar, as escorts they lacked firepower although some were given 20mm AA guns. Perhaps the most effective use of them was to carry a battery of Katyusha rocket launchers, which made them into effective shore bombardment weapon.
Their combat record was not impressive – they claimed to have sunk 250 enemy ships, but the real total was about 30, and in return 147 Soviet MTBs were lost, mainly from the Soviet construction. Post-war Soviet designs were much improved, influenced by the lend-lease designs they had seen during the war, and produced in much larger numbers.
Chapters
Introduction
Torpedo Boat Development
Further Developments
Torpedo Boats at War
Author: Przemyslaw Budzbon
Edition: Paperback
Pages: 48
Publisher: Osprey
Year: 2025