The steam gun boats were conceived to answer the seeming need for a craft which was large enough to put to sea in rough weather and which could operate both as a ‘super-gunboat’ and a torpedo carrier, combining the functions of the Motor Gun Boat (MGB) and Motor Torpedo Boat (MTB) in the same fashion as did the German E-boats.
The 1st SGB Flotilla was formed at Portsmouth by mid-June 1942, under the command of Lieutenant-Commander Peter Scott, son of the Antarctic explorer Captain Robert Scott, later a noted ornithologist, conservationist and broadcaster. Their first fleet action took place in the Baie de Seine (the estuary of the Seine River) shortly after midnight on 19 June, when two vessels – SGB 7 and 8, under the joint command of Lieutenant J. D. Ritchie, in company with the Hunt-class destroyer Albrighton encountered several E-boats escorting two German merchantmen. SGB 7 was sunk in this action; as a consequence the Admiralty noted their vulnerability and refitted them with the additional armour over their engine and boiler rooms. At the same time the six survivors were renamed after wildlife in the form “SGB Grey….”.[3]
Grey Owl was damaged in a fight with German armed trawlers off Berneval while escorting landing craft in the Dieppe Raid August 1942
HMS Steam Gunboat.stl, HMS SGB Lifeboat .stl, HMS 20mm Oerlikon.stl, HMS 6 pounder gun.stl, HMS 3in gun.stl
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.