I’d like to ask you all a question “just for fun” … there’s no meaning to it, there’s no ulterior motive to it; I’m just asking it just to start a discussion … that is it.
Members of another board have given me answers like “the Navy did not designate them anything …” Or, my favorite so far, "they are what they are … just because you make up a name for them, it’s not important because they were what they were.
They missed the point of my question … I was just asking it to start a discussion; not to be shut down for asking it.
Now, before I ask the question … let me preface it by saying I know what vessels (in WW2) the USN designated PGMs (being converted from the 110’ wooden hull SCs and the 173’ steel hull PCs) and I know that MGB is a Royal Navy designation and was never used on an USN vessel…
That said, all of you know that I’ve coined a phrase (PTGB) for the six PTs (the 59, 60, 61, 282, 283, 284 and the 285 - but the 282 replaced the destroyed 284)to refer to those boats which were converted to all gun gunboats.
Now …
Here’s my question …
Would you guys consider those boats as PGMs or MGBs? Both designators fit them. …
If it is PT for a patrol torpedo boat (that obviously has a motor but no M in the designation) why would the same boat with guns instead of torpedoes have to be designated PGM? It seems to be inconsistant to me. Why not PTM for the PT?
Maybe because no one wanted to be on a “Pig Boat”? The submariners already had claim to that title. PG still sounds like the apt designation to me.
Hmm, a fascinating question. I have a '39 Bluejacket’s Manual, and a '40 Knight’s–but, both are in deep storage and not something I can bring to hand.
Now, if memory serves, PG referred to the Panay-type gunboats. If a distinction were needed for a topedoless Peter Tare, it might (only might) be PGB for Patrol Gun Boat.
It’s good to remember that may have been one Navy Department, that there were two Navies–LantFlt and PacFlt. Atlantic Fleet personnel were very much influenced by the Royal Navy. Enough that LantFlt types would refer to the PTs as MTB, even though that was not the by-the-book designation. But, it probably simplified chin-wags over Singapore Slings.
I realize you consider yourself as a serious researcher and a scholarly history and every word must be used in its defined definition, but when I said ‘back then’ I was referring to WW2 … I believe that the man to whom I was replying to understood that.
You know what everyone? I am sorry I started this nice, innocent and nonsensical discussion …
Thank you for saying it was fascinating … at least one person thought so. It was said that it was attempting to rewrite history and was confusing to people. How can asking ONE nonsensical question because I wanted to get people engaged out of boredom be a rewrite of history.
Again, I am sorry if I offended anyone’s intelligence by asking one simple and unimportant question.
Daggone, Garth, you said at the top of the post that this was “Just for fun”. I was having fun with the discussion as it was going. I was just speculating and I did think that your question was thought provoking.
I think that the key word is “motor” as opposed to an engine. Now I see how the M comes into play. Sorry if I didn’t catch that before. The Panay gunboats were steam powered whereas the PGMs had internal combustion engines. PGM would make sense.
PTC please dont throw in the towel on this disscussion. I am not up to date on my WWII designators and I find this thread Very Interesting! Please continue! I might actually learn somthing!
Have to admit to being fascinated by antiquity in general. That, and most of my kin were PacFlt or WesPac, some going back to China service days. But, too many were snipes, and recollected more about the machinery than the hull designations. So, even if I could dial in the wayback machine to go ask now-cogent questions, they’d only really remember things like the ships were grey, the primer red, and torpedo juice white like lightnin’