The ''Nasty'' class of fast

patrol boat A patrol boat (also referred to as a patrol craft, patrol ship, or patrol vessel) is a relatively small naval vessel generally designed for coastal defence, border security, or law enforcement. There are many designs for patrol boats, and the ...

s were a set of 20 vessels built for the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

to a Norwegian design and purchased in the 1960s for

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during the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...

. Following the conflict they remained in service until the early 1980s.

Construction

Following

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

the US Navy had little use for fast attack craft, and most of her

PT boat A PT boat (short for patrol torpedo boat) was a motor torpedo boat used by the United States Navy in World War II. It was small, fast, and inexpensive to build, valued for its maneuverability and speed but hampered at the beginning of the wa ...

s were disposed of shortly after

VJ Day Victory over Japan Day (also known as V-J Day, Victory in the Pacific Day, or V-P Day) is the day on which Imperial Japan surrendered in World War II, in effect bringing the war to an end. The term has been applied to both of the days on ...

. With the involvement in the Vietnam War the Navy saw a renewed need for small combatant craft for "

brown water Maritime geography is a collection of terms used by naval military units to loosely define three maritime regions: brown water, green water, and blue water. Definitions The elements of maritime geography are loosely defined and their meanings ha ...

" operations, and they approached the Norwegian Westermoen company, which had built a prototype fast attack boat, the , and was currently building a set of 12 vessels (the s) for the

Royal Norwegian Navy The Royal Norwegian Navy ( no, Sjøforsvaret, , Sea defence) is the branch of the Norwegian Armed Forces responsible for naval operations of Norway. , the Royal Norwegian Navy consists of approximately 3,700 personnel (9,450 in mobilized state, 3 ...

. The USN ordered two vessels, which were delivered in 1962 and were designated ''PTF 3'' and ''PTF 4''. This was followed in 1966 with an order for 14 more (PTF's 5-16), with an agreement for a further six to be built under licence by Trumpy of

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. Trumpy's had been a major contributor to the USN's PT fleet in World War II, and had been one of just four yards asked post-war to build a prototype PT boat to consolidate wartime experience and the lessons learned. The Norwegian boats were delivered in 1964, and the Trumpy boats three years later.Conway p623 A subsequent improved version, the Osprey class, was larger with aluminum instead of wooden hulls, of which four were operated by the U.S.Navy, assigned hull numbers PTF-23 through PTF-26.

Service history

All vessels of the class saw action during the war in Vietnam, being employed by the

special forces Special forces and special operations forces (SOF) are military units trained to conduct special operations. NATO has defined special operations as "military activities conducted by specially designated, organized, selected, trained and equip ...

for clandestine operations along the coast of

North Vietnam North Vietnam, officially the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV; vi, Việt Nam Dân chủ Cộng hòa), was a socialist state supported by the Soviet Union (USSR) and the People's Republic of China (PRC) in Southeast Asia that existed f ...

. During these operations six boats were lost; one (''PTF 4'') in 1964 and five more in 1966. In 1966 four boats were transferred to the

South Vietnamese Navy The Republic of Vietnam Navy (RVNN; ; ''HQVNCH'') was the naval branch of the South Vietnamese military, the official armed forces of the former Republic of Vietnam (or South Vietnam) from 1955 to 1975. The early fleet consisted of boats fro ...

, though they were returned and re-commissioned in 1970. With the end of the conflict the need for these boats evaporated, and the high maintenance costs of such vessels militated against retaining them. Most were disposed of in the 1970s and all were gone by 1981, except for

PTF 17 PTF may refer to: ;Science * Palomar Transient Factory, an astronomical survey program * Pedotransfer function, a concept used in soil science * Phase transfer function, used for the optics of an imaging system ;Computing * Program temporary fi ...

, which is on display at the Buffalo and Erie County Naval & Military Park.

List of vessels

Notes

References

* Gardiner, Robert; Chumbley, Stephen ''Conway's All The World's Fighting Ships 1947–1995'' (1995) Naval Institute Press, Annapolis

External links

''The "Nasty Class" Fighting Boat''
(Dan Withers)

(HistoryNet.com,

World_History_Group World History Group is a magazine publishing company headquartered in Leesburg, Virginia. It was founded in 2006 as Weider History Group by Eric Weider, the son of fitness entrepreneur Ben Weider (and nephew of Joe Weider) and current President o ...

) {{DEFAULTSORT:Nasty class, United States Torpedo boats of the United States Navy Nasty, USN Ships built in Mandal, Norway Patrol boat classes