Motor Launch

A WW I motor launch - ML 59
Class overview
Builders	Elco
Operators	Royal Navy
Built	1915–1918
In commission	1915–1920s
Completed	580
General characteristics ML.1–50 series
Type	Motor launch
Displacement	34 t
Length	75ft
Propulsion	Petrol engine
Speed	19 kn (35 km/h)
Complement	8
Armament	1 × 13-pdr later replaced with 1 × 3-pdr depth charges
General characteristics ML.51–550 series
Type	Motor launch
Displacement	37 t
Length	86ft
Propulsion	Petrol engine
Speed	19 kn (35 km/h)
Complement	6
Armament	1 × 13-pdr later replaced with 1 × 3-pdr depth charges
General characteristics ML.551–580
Type	Motor launch
Displacement	37 t
Length	80ft
Speed	19 kn (35 km/h)
Complement	8
Armament	1 × 13-pdr later replaced with 1 × 3-pdr

A Motor Launch (ML) is a small military vessel in Royal Navy service. It was designed for harbour defence and submarine chasing or for armed high-speed air-sea rescue. Some vessels for water police service are also known as motor launches.

World War I service[]

Although small by naval standards, it was larger than the preceding steam or diesel-engined harbour launches of 56ft and coastal motor boats of 40 and 55 ft length. The first motor launches entered service in the First World War. These were five hundred and eighty 80-foot-long (24 m) vessels built by the US Elco company for the Admiralty, receiving the numbers ML-1 to ML-580. They served with the Royal Navy between 1916 and the end of the war, defending the British coast from German submarines.^[1] Some of the earliest examples, including ML 1, also served in the Persian Gulf from June 1916. After the Armistice of 11 November 1918 a flotilla of 12 Royal Navy motor launches travelled down the Rhine performing duty as the .^[2] The only known surviving example of a World War I era motor launch is ML-286, which now lies in a poor condition on the banks of the River Thames.

World War II types[]

Royal Norwegian Navy motor launches off Dover during the Second World War.

The BPBC Type Two was succeeded by the Type Three 68 ft "Hants and Dorset".

Post-war, many motor launches were taken on as pleasure boats. A number of them are on the National Register of Historic Vessels.^[3]

See also[]

References[]

• Gardiner, Robert, Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1906–1921 Conway Maritime Press, 1985. ISBN 0-85177-245-5.
• Gardiner, Robert and Chesneau, Roger, Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1922–1946, Conway Maritime Press, 1980. ISBN 0-83170-303-2.

External links[]

• UK National Register of Historic Vessels
• Naval Museum of Manitoba
• Juno Beach
• A Short History of HMS St Christopher. Royal Navy Coastal Forces training base, mainly for MLs
• Stoker Harold Siddall Royal Navy, his service in ML.1030 and capture in Crete 1941
• "The Movies" A Motor Launch History