Smallest Combat boat

Was having a discussion today about combat ships and the question arose..... what is the smallest FUNCTIONAL COMBAT ship someone has built. Also chime in on what is thought it be theoretically possible, or what has been attempted but maybe not finished, or what may have been started but an insurmountable obstacle arose. Also ones that got completed, but didn't function well enough to combat. Would also like to know the current known smallest combat ship.

 

Probably would be one of the subs would be my guess.

 

How about that 6 inch long PT 109 that was built and functionaly however because of its small size it was easily swamped and overturned when the ships would pass by it . The boat was built back in the early 80s . I saw it in an article in a magazine. Had photos of the setup inside . Was not practical to use.

 

I saw a PT boat... used artificial heart motors for drives. Dude probably spent $1000 getting the tiny receiver, etc for it. No pump, no gun. Smallest true combat ship (working gun) would probably be one of the DD's or subs. The current build thread for that Russian DD illustrates how tough it is (and he's doing a great job)

 

I seem to remember someone had said there was a PT boat out there that was armed, but flipped over when it fired, but maybe I'm just imagining it... I do have a set of plans for one somewhere that includes ribs and such. It is painfully small.

 

I saw a 1/144 scale British MTB armed with two spring-powered torpedo tubes. They were .177", smaller than the allowed 1/4" to save weight. The owner at the time I saw it had not operated it in combat. He informed m that the original builder from the South Coast Battle Group made it on a $50 bet, and had used it in one battle. He put two holes in a battleship, brought it back home, and promptly retired it.

The smallest ships that regularly see combat are destroyers. Submarines have seen action, but not on a regular basis. I've also seen tiny unarmed transports, some of which even have space for a pump (one pump is allowed in big gun).

 

I had an article about that British MTB. That is where I saw the boat. Thought it was the PT itself. Been a looong time ago.

 

Any idea why he retired it pretty much immediately?? Seems like it might be a fun novelty on occasion.

 

Possibly the smallest effective combat model has been HMS Gorgon, a 1.5 unit monitor measuring a little more than 30" long. She has a broad beam with prominent anti-torpedo bulges so is stable for such a small ship. She's armed with a 1.0 unit stern gun, which is close to the water due to a relatively low freeboard. An exceptionally tight turning circle (about 4' in diameter) makes it easy to train on targets and to avoid being hit despite the model's low speed. Shallow draft has let the Gorgon escape into shallow water and small size has let it hide behind large rocks on several occasions.
Gorgon was an active member of the NABS fleet in Nova Scotia and remains battle ready. She was especialy useful in attacking ships with propulsion problems and twice helped a cruiser sink an immobilized medium-sized battleship. She won one battle against Marty Hayes' Viribus Unitas (though he was having some transmitter problems) but lost on points in the rematch a year later at Cannats 2002.
We had only two other very small ships in the NABS fleet. One was an Akizuki Class destroyer that was unseaworthy and sank itself by crossing it's own wake on a trial run (a NABS Northampton Class cruiser sank itself in the same way but in rougher water). The Akizuki never saw action after being grappled from the bottom of the pond where it was embedded in a couple of feet of duck poo!
The other small ship was my I-400 sub which could do a static dive and resurface multiple times and fire it's hangar mounted stern BB cannon after resurfacing. Unless the water was millpond still it was unstable on the surface and had to declare itself sunk in its only battle (a one to one against a cruiser&#160 because it rolled more than 45 degrees during a turn and stayed at that angle, rendering the BB cannon useless.

 

I forgot to mention another small ship I built, HMCS Prince Robert, a small coastal liner from British Columbia that was converted to an AMC with 6" guns and then to an 'AA cruiser' with 4" twin DPAA guns. Two sisterships had similar conversions. A photo of Prince Robert is appearing on the title page of this site at the moment (Aug. 19). It's a 1.5 unit ship under IRCWCC rules as a 'gunboat/other' and has a 1.0 unit stern gun and 0.5 unit pump.
This was one of the last models I built before regular NABS activities came to an end in 2008 and had a fiberglass hull made by Eric Broderick, a former NABS member who made several transport, AMC and German raider hulls.
The Prince Robert never saw action in NABS. As it was being launched for a 1:1 in the last Cannats held in Nova Scotia, there was an electrical fire due to an incorrectly connected receiver battery. (The aftermarket battery pack plug lacked the tab that insures connection with the correct polarity.) After repairs the model ran trials again but was sold within a couple of years along with the I-400. Both models are in the OAF.
Although small the PR had reasonable displacement and was easy to build with a CO2 capsule gas system. It had potential for use in convoy battles (for which it was designed) because it was faster than convoy ships and quite manueverable so could get in close without much risk of making contact and getting a penalty.

 

Dana Graham built and battled a PT boat, this was the one with the artificial heart motor. Very cool, but a poor return on investment. Basically spend 100's of hours and way too much money for 5 minutes of battling.

 

There were three destroyers that battled this year at MWC Nats. A Z-boat, Shimakaze, and Akizuki class. Z-boat battled all week and did very well, the Jap DDs saw service in campaign and pick up battles wed afternoon. All were functional though the rough weather one day did in the Z-boat. There was also a WW1 Emden that battled on wed, a very small cruiser about the same size as a Z-boat. All of these were basically 4 lbs and 30-36" long. Pretty small indeed!

 

That's the one I remember... He challenged all comers to try and hit him as he drove around. Charlie Stephens' Yamato fired trip sterns that missed high, but the blast of gas capsized the PT.

 

The PT boat did get sunk at NATS in 06. I think Tim B got it with his Bismarck. One hole.

 

And I believe it didn't "sink", not enough room for water in the hull (that thing was packed with gear). Dana declared it sunk. He built it, battled it, and upon reflection "waste of time"

 

I sold the Z-Class mould to Battlers Connection more than a decade ago and made the hull deeper than scale to increase the displacement as allowed by IRCWCC rules. The Z-boat is one of the few hulls I made that I didn't build a model from - at the time I didn't think I could build an effective combat model that small.
I had one of Ralph Cole's Mogador DD hulls around that time. It was big enough that I was more confident it would turn out OK but I ended up trading it. I think Ralph sold the mould to Battlers shortly after they bought the Z -boat mould. I've never seen or heard of a Mogador in competition but they're nearly CL size so should be less of a challenge to build than a Z-boat.

 

I thought Steve tyng had battled his Mogador..... Or is it just battle ready?

 

Tim K in Atlanta has battled a mogi for a number of years. Latest time was just last month, it is in one of the Atlanta battle videos in the video section of this website.

 

The smallest I have seen is a minelaying "Big Gun" torpedo boat of the Spica class (Italian). Carried two mine strings and successfully deployed them in combat. No cannons on it. However, it was only a 1000t ship. Paper superstructure and unbelieveably adorable...lol