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Topic: RANGE OF A PT BOAT?? |
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QM
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Posted on: Nov 12, 2008 - 11:29am
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We once made a long patrol from Dreger to the south shore of New Britain. We were near the dividing line between South Pacific and Southwest Pacific fleets. It must have been about 600 statute miles round trip. We cheated a bit with a couple of rubber gas tanks on deck. In 1944 after the risk of aircraft was reduced, we sometimes made patrols that lasted around twenty four hours with no extra gas tanks. In the patrol zone the boats would idle along on two engines. On the return we could make a slow sweep of the coastline until we reached American held territory. As noted by others, the slow speed patrolling conserved gas.
I know where the dividing line was on the north coast of New Britain. Does anyone know the longitude of the dividing line on the south shore? |
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Drew Cook |
TOP BOSS
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Posted on: Nov 12, 2008 - 12:14pm
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Wayne,
A perfect response to some of the "junk history" that's out there!
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Wayne Traxel |
MASTER
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 Posted on: Nov 12, 2008 - 1:20pm
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Thank you, Drew. I appreciate that.
Wayne Traxel |
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BobPic
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Posted on: Nov 13, 2008 - 9:30am
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It is true that the PT's used lots of gas (WE were told ours(PT167, Ron 10) used 375 gallons per hour at top speed. I was QM so I had to record the fuel used as well as the hours, distance etc. We figured our range was 500 mautical miles at varying speede, we could nearly double that if we had to, poking along on one or two engines. For longer trips, like moving basas, we carried auxillary rubber balloons on deck.
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fredtheobviouspseudonym
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Posted on: Nov 19, 2008 - 12:18am
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I'm a civilian and no little about naval engineering so this is all second hand.
According to the Conway "History of the Ship" volume on the British Fairmile MTB type "D" there was a very BIG difference in range depending on how many engines you had and how you managed the engine settings. Fuel mixture, intake manifold pressure, exhaust manifold pressure, temperature of the coolant (which in turn was affected by temperature of the water) would all affect fuel consumption (coolant IIRC.) Again IIRC the Fairmile D's used similar engines to the US PTs, |
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