With the PT-Boats: Knights of the Sea release approaching, we decided to dive into the history of Patrol Torpedo Boats. While the history of PT boats in the US and The British Empire may be widely known, we wanted to write a little about the great history of Russian torpedo boats first.

Russian Torpedo Boats in Russo-Turkish War of 1877

Not many people know that in 1877 Russia commenced in earnest to build torpedo boats. Ordering as many as 100 during that year, while England had built just one, called the Lightning, which having proved satisfactory, she ordered twelve others.

In the Russo-Turkish war of 1877, out of the nine cases of attacks by Russian torpedo boats, the Turks lost one ironclad and two steamers, while three ironclads were injured.

May 1877. It was one of the many wars between Russia and Turkey. Russian troops concentrated on the left bank of the Danube. Here they would gather to cross the deep and wide river. To prevent the crossing, the Turks would put their military fleet into the mouth of the Danube. By that time the Turkish fleet was a sizeable force. For operations on the Danube, Turkey outfitted a flotilla of 46 ships with 77 guns. Russia, at that time, had only an insignificant force in the Black Sea.

On the night of May 12th, Lieutenants Fyodor Dubasov and Alexander Shestakov sank the monitor Seifi using pole mines. Turkish observers on the monitor noticed some strange silhouettes very close to their ship, which were rapidly approaching. The turks just barely had enough time to fire their rifles when the side of the ship was rocked by a massive explosion, and the ironclad began to take on water and quickly started sinking.

The Turkish commanders were overwhelmed by this event. They did not know who commanded these attacking ships, nor what they were armed with. In fact, these were just ordinary steam boats, armed with spar torpedoes made up of gun powder charges that weighed up to 20 kilograms, and were contained in copper cylinders that were attached to  long wooden poles.

Lieutenant Stepan Osipovich Makarov, who was very young and not yet well known, and was destined to become a famous admiral in the future, proposed to deliver the spar torpedo boats on the deck of a steamer that was specially converted for just such a purpose. This steamer, the “Grand Duke Constantine” suddenly appeared before the enemy at night on what was known as the Batumi raid, located in the area of Sukhumi near the mouth of the Danube. Frightened Turkish sailors were in constant fear of these attack boats leading to the restriction of Turkish navy operations.

Torpedo boats and their combat experience came under detailed study not only by Russians, but also in a number of foreign fleets. Representatives of the German Maritime Command made a special trip to the Black Sea with only one goal in mind, to see the “Grand Duke Constantine” in person, so they could determine exactly what constitutes a steamer and its mine boats.

First Self-propelled Torpedo attack

In 1865, a Russian marine officer named Alexandrovskiy invented a self-propelled torpedo. The pilot tests exibited very good results. However, while imperial maritime command was slow to decide what to do with the invention, Alexandrovskiy’s invention was intercepted abroad, and after some time, the self propelled torpedo, now known as the “Whitehead,” appeared in England.

It was not until 1878 that the torpedos of the Whitehead design were installed onto the Russian boats.

On the night of January 14, 1878, two Russian boats entered the Batumi raid and attacked a Turkish patrol boat, releasing one self-propelled torpedo each, causing the night air to echo with the sounds of  explosions as one of the Turkish guard ships disappeared into the sea.

So, for the first time in naval history, a modern-style torpedo attack took place, launched by a new class of torpedo warships with their own tactics. The credit for creating these ships and the military tactics that went along with it, rightly belongs to that of the Russian military mariners. Read more...

PT-Boats Official Site, Russian Torpedo Boats, Part 2: Soviet Torpedo Boats in WW2.