Fairmile C motor gun boat

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Class overview

Name:	Fairmile C motor gun boat
Preceded by:	Fairmile B motor launch
Succeeded by:	Fairmile D motor torpedo boat
General characteristics
Displacement:	72 tons
Length:	110 ft (34 m)
Beam:	17 ft 5 in (5.3 m)
Draught:	5 ft 8 in (1.7 m)
Propulsion:	Three x 850 hp (630 kW) supercharged Hall-Scott petrol engines
Speed:	26.5 knots
Range:	500 nm at 12 kts (Bunkerage: 1800 gal + extra 2600 gal)
Complement:	2 officers + 14 crew
Armament:	(As designed) 2×2-pdr (40mm) (2×1) 4×.5 in (12.7 mm) Vickers machineguns (2×2) 4×.303 in (7.7 mm) Vickers machineguns (2×2) (Later) 2×2-pdr (2×1) 2-4×20mm Oerlikon (2×1/2×2) 1-2×20mm Oerlikon (1×1/1×2) (4 depth charges)

The Fairmile C motor gun boat was a type of Motor Gun Boat designed by Norman Hart of Fairmile Marine for the Royal Navy. An intermediate design, twenty-four boats were built in 1941 receiving the designations MGB 312 - 335. The class was mainly involved in close escort work with east coast convoys, and some boats were engaged in clandestine ops. MGB 314 famously took part in Operation Chariot, the daring raid on the St Nazaire docks (the only facility on the axis-held Atlantic coast suitable to refit Bismarck class battleships).

5 boats were lost to enemy action.

The Fairmile Type C was a reuse of the hull form of the Type A but with the lessons learned from the Type A incorporated in terms of steering and deck layout.

Only two survive to this day, one at Hayling Island and the other at Bembridge (UK). A third survived in Shoreham until 2002.

[edit] References

Allied Coastal Forces of World War Two, Volume I : Fairmile designs and US Submarine Chasers - by John Lambert and Al Ross - 1990, ISBN 978-0851775197