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VAS (motorboat)

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Class overview

Operators	Regia Marina Italian Navy
Built	1942
In service	1942–1956
General characteristics (as built)^[1]
Type	Motor torpedo boat/Submarine chaser
Displacement	Type 1&2: 68.8 t (67.7 long tons; 75.8 short tons) Type 3: 90 t (89 long tons; 99 short tons)
Length	Type 1&2: 28 m (92 ft) Type 3: 34.1 m (112 ft)
Beam	Type 1&2: 4.3 m (14 ft) Type 3: 5 m (16 ft)
Draft	Type 1&2: 1.35 m (4 ft 5 in) Type 3: 2.1 m (6 ft 11 in)
Propulsion	Type 1: 3 shafts 2 Fiat + 1 Carraro petrol engines 1,500 hp (1,100 kW)/300 hp (220 kW)
Speed	20 knots (37 km/h)
Range	up to 1,100 nautical miles (2,000 km) at 12 knots (22 km/h)
Crew	26
Armament	2 × 450mm torpedo tubes or a 37mm AA gun (type 3) 26-30 depth charges 1 or 2 × 20mm Breda AA 2 × 6.5mm machine guns

Vedetta anti sommergibile (anti-submarine picket boat), commonly abbreviated as VAS and also known in Italy as VAS Baglietto (from the name of the shipyard that designed VAS and built a number of them), was a class of motor torpedo boats that served as coastal anti-submarine patrol boats in the Regia Marina (Italian Royal Navy) during World War II. Several boats that survived the war later served in the post-war Italian Navy.

The boats were officially classified as "anti-submarine patrol boats"^[2] and the first 30 boats were ordered by the Regia Marina at the Baglietto shipyards on 3 September 1941,^[2] entering service between March and November 1942.^[2]

The concept had first appeared in World War I and by the 1940s similar boats served with the US Navy where they were known as the PT boats, and they also had their European analogues in the German S-boots and the Royal Navy's Vosper and Fairmile MTBs. The VAS were in fact a roundabout development of the original S-boot, derived from the German-built Orjen-class torpedo boats of the Royal Yugoslav Navy captured by the Italians after the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia.

For all that the VAS were derived from MTBs, they were ultimately far closer in performance and intended role to the British Fairmile B motor launch, being both far slower & more defensive in nature than true MTBs.

References[edit]

^ Gardiner, Robert. Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1922-1946.

^ ^a ^b ^c Capitolo XXXIII de: Erminio Bagnasco, I MAS e le motosiluranti italiane, collana Le navi d'Italia, Vol. 6°, 2ª Edizione, Marina Militare, Stato Maggiore - Ufficio Storico, Roma, 1969