The first designs were steam-powered craft dedicated to ramming enemy ships with explosive spar torpedoes. The first designs rammed enemy ships with explosive spar torpedoes, and later designs launched self-propelled Whitehead torpedoes. Torpedo misfires (too early) and duds were common. Their low sides made them susceptible to swamping in high seas, and even to having their boiler fires extinguished by spray from their own torpedo explosions.

Nicknamed "Dog Boats", they were designed to combat the known advantages of the German E-boats over previous British coastal craft designs.

The introduction of the The first warship of any kind to carry self-propelled torpedoes was HMS The first recorded launch of torpedoes from a torpedo boat—which itself was launched from a In the late 19th century, many navies started to build torpedo boats 30 to 50 metres (98 to 164 ft) in length, armed with up to three torpedo launchers and small guns. As a result, fast attack craft are being replaced for use in naval combat by larger Although torpedo boats have disappeared from the majority of the world's navies, they remained in use until the late 1990s and early 2000s in a few specialised areas, most notably in the Baltic. In the mid-1880s there were developed A number of torpedo gunboat classes followed, including the The first ships to bear the formal designation "torpedo boat destroyer" (TBD) were the During the First World War, three junior officers of the They were to be armed in a variety of ways, with torpedoes, In 1917 Thornycroft produced an enlarged 60-foot (18 m) overall version. The G-5 was a Soviet motor torpedo boat design built before and during World War II. Four were exported to the Spanish Republican Navy during the Spanish Civil War and others were transferred to North Korea after the war. The low height of the radar mast makes it difficult to acquire and lock onto a target while maintaining a safe distance.

For instance, a 55 ft (17 m) type, capable of 40 kn (46 mph; 74 km/h), was shown in 1930.The following is an incomplete list of British motor torpedo boats: The design was produced with modifications as MTBs 31-40, 57-66, 73-98, 222-245, 347-362, 380-395 and 523-537. This allowed for the possibility of a small and fast ship that could attack the battleships, at a much lower cost. A mixed warload of a single torpedo and four depth charges could also be carried, the depth charges released from individual cradles over the sides, rather than a stern ramp.By World War II torpedo boats were seriously hampered by higher fleet speeds; although they still had a speed advantage, they could only catch the larger ships by running at very high speeds over very short distances, as demonstrated in the Channel Dash.

They were relatively inexpensive and could be purchased in quantity, allowing mass attacks on fleets of larger ships. Though other navies built similar petrol-powered craft, the specific designation "motor torpedo boat", abbreviated to "MTB", is generally used for craft of the German diesel-powered torpedo boats of the Second World War were called The role of the motor torpedo boat has been absorbed in modern navies by the In the Second World War, Britain fielded a variety of MTBs, which were operated by A similar size boat with a different role in the Second World War was the Diesel-powered MTBs entered the Royal Navy with the Many boats were designated MTBs.

However, he kept considering the problem after the contract had finished, and eventually developed a tubular device, designed to run underwater on its own, and powered by compressed air. A torpedo boat is a relatively small and fast naval vessel designed to carry torpedoes into battle. It was a mechanism consisting of a At the same time, the weight of armour slowed the battleships, and the huge guns needed to penetrate enemy armour fired at very slow rates. Three were captured by the Finns, but only two were used before all three had to be returned to the Soviets after … Torpedo Boat is a 1942 American drama film from Pine-Thomas Productions directed by John Rawlins, written by Maxwell Shane, and starring Richard Arlen, Jean Parker, Mary Carlisle, Phillip Terry, Dick Purcell and Ralph Sanford.It was released on January 24, 1942, by Paramount Pictures. They were powered by steam engines and had a maximum speed of 20 to 30 knots (37 to 56 km/h). The result was a submarine weapon, the The first trials were not successful as the weapon was unable to maintain a course on a steady depth. After much work, Whitehead introduced his "secret" in 1868 which overcame this. Although various boat lengths were produced by Vosper for the Royal Navy, the "70 ft" boat was produced from 1940.

Torpedo boat attack on the Chilean central battery ship Almirante Cochrane during the 1891 Chilean Civil War. A PT boat (short for patrol torpedo boat) was a motor torpedo boat used by the United States Navy in World War II. This allowed a heavier payload, and now two torpedoes could be carried. Later evolutions launched variants of self-propelled Whitehead torpedoes. Larger than earlier MTB or A torpedo boat is a relatively small and fast naval ship designed to carry torpedoes into battle.