The Russian Navy recently found and raised a Soviet G-5 Type motor torpedo boat sunk in the Siege of Sevastapol during World War II. Approximately 300 G-5s were built, of which 73 were lost during World War II.
Despite specific differences in size and armament, American, British, and German motor torpedo boats used during World War II were fundamentally similar to each other — fast, lightly built primarily of wood and heavily armed with torpedo tubes facing forward. The Soviet G-5 was a very different craft altogether.
The G-5 had a single-step, hydroplane hull with a whaleback upper deck. It was mainly built from duralumin, an early type of age-hardenable aluminum alloy and was capable of speeds of over 50 knots. Its most distinctive feature was the two torpedoes mounted on the rear deck. Rather than firing the torpedoes forward, each torpedo was ejected astern. The torpedo motor was not activated until a wire trailing from the boat snapped, giving the boat just enough time to turn away from the target. The helmsman of the G-5 had to turn quickly enough to avoid getting hit by his own torpedo. The boats could also be used to lay mines. The afterdeck could be fitted with rocket launchers.
The video below shows G-5s in service. The narration is in Russian but the imagery is clear enough to make some sense out of the footage even for non-Russian speakers (like me.) At about the 30-second mark, there is an animation of how the torpedos are fired. At around 3 minutes, a flotilla of G-5s fires volleys of rockets.
Thanks to Alaric Bond for contributing to this post.
Of course you know about the British WWI MTB’s single step hulls which dropped the torpedo out of the stern like the Russians. Wonder if the Russians copied that concept? Turnabout is the Faulkner short story.
No. That is new to me. Thanks.
it is most likely that these are copies – as it is this type of boat in which Commander Agar won the VC in the Baltic in 1919/20.