what is a picket boat ?

MortarMagnet wrote:

You've got a sharp mind there.  Chances are that is correct.  I have not read any proof of PR before, so I do not suggest it as fact, though I have suspected it.  Some supporting evidence is that it made Cmdr. Craven a bit of a hero when the quote was attributed to Farragut, not that the bravado did nothing for Farragut either.  Cmdr. Craven sacrifices his own ship to save the line, while Farragut cries, "Damn the Torpedoes!  Full speed ahead!"  Two heroes for the Navy.  Subsequently,  there have been a few USS Cravens named in his honor.

How ironic, that the Navy named a topedo boat (TB10) after him.
And a Gridley class destroyer, which ironically, who's name the class was called after was used in another famous naval quote.
Per Wikipedia.

Ok, sorry for the thread hijack.

Scott

You've got a sharp mind there.  Chances are that is correct.  I have not read any proof of PR before, so I do not suggest it as fact, though I have suspected it.  Some supporting evidence is that it made Cmdr. Craven a bit of a hero when the quote was attributed to Farragut, not that the bravado did nothing for Farragut either.  Cmdr. Craven sacrifices his own ship to save the line, while Farragut cries, "Damn the Torpedoes!  Full speed ahead!"  Two heroes for the Navy.  Subsequently,  there have been a few USS Cravens named in his honor.

MortarMagnet wrote:

MBT70 wrote: As an interesting side note, your quote about "damn the torpedoes ..." was made by Union Admiral David S. Farragut as he sailed his fleet against the Confederate Navy.  It was the Battle of Mobile Bay in the American Civil War, where he emerged victorious.  Interestingly, at the time, torpedoes were the name for floating mines and his famous command was meant to spur the fleet into battle in spite of the obstacles the enemy built around their port and forts. An interesting side note to your side note,  it was actually Cmdr. Tunis Craven who said, "Damn the Torpedoes!  I'm after that fellow!"  It wasn't until months later that various newspapers began to misquote the phrase and attribute it to Farragut.  Cmdr. Craven commander the USS Tecumseh when it sank as a result of the torpedoes in Mobile Bay.  Two different reasons for the quote are suggested.  One being his pursuit of a Confederate ram moving to halt the flotilla.  The other was a move to block cannon fire to the rest of the flotilla.  After he shouted this quote, the Tecumseh struck a mine inside of a minute.  The first time the quote appeared is by Thornton Jenkins in the NY Commercial Advertiser October 4th 1864.

I wonder if it really was a misquote, or the Navy PR at work.  I mean, didn't Craven's phrase kinda backfire on him and cost him his ship which in turn would look to some as Tom Foolery.

Scott

MBT70 wrote:

As an interesting side note, your quote about "damn the torpedoes ..." was made by Union Admiral David S. Farragut as he sailed his fleet against the Confederate Navy.  It was the Battle of Mobile Bay in the American Civil War, where he emerged victorious.  Interestingly, at the time, torpedoes were the name for floating mines and his famous command was meant to spur the fleet into battle in spite of the obstacles the enemy built around their port and forts.

An interesting side note to your side note,  it was actually Cmdr. Tunis Craven who said, "Damn the Torpedoes!  I'm after that fellow!"  It wasn't until months later that various newspapers began to misquote the phrase and attribute it to Farragut.  Cmdr. Craven commander the USS Tecumseh when it sank as a result of the torpedoes in Mobile Bay.  Two different reasons for the quote are suggested.  One being his pursuit of a Confederate ram moving to halt the flotilla.  The other was a move to block cannon fire to the rest of the flotilla.  After he shouted this quote, the Tecumseh struck a mine inside of a minute.  The first time the quote appeared is by Thornton Jenkins in the NY Commercial Advertiser October 4th 1864.

The  U.S. Navy had a lot of destroyers beat up and /or lost  on  "picket duty " patrolling out from  the invasion beaches late in WWII to warn the fleet of incoming  Japanese kamikaze raids !  They were so effective that they became the prime targets.

Hi

I have build the HMS Renown from Billing Boats, and I relly enjoyed it. Its a nice little kit for almost no money. Good quality. Keep on the good work at Billings.

Cheers

This has been a fascinating bit of discussion.  I've 2d I can throw in.

In the good old days of the Royal Army, a Battalion was two companies, a heavy and a light Company.  The Light Company was usually deployed as, if I remember the contemporary materials rightly either in skirmsih order or as piquettes.  In that day, massed formations were spaced shoulder to shoulder, call that about 1m apart.  The command "Open Ranks" doubled that to 2m, and then "Skirmish Order" was double that again.  (I'm operating off of memory and without references here, so, apologies for any mis-statements.)

Part of Militia Drill was in creating such formations, so, having the Soldiers Open Ranks, suggested a spaced line, rather than a solid surface.  More than once, it has been suggested that is where the decriptive term "picket" came to be applied to fences.

I want to remember that the USN practice of setting up radar "pickets" is a reference to fences more than any other use (but it has been many, many days since I had to pour through the planning documents from that erea, too).

Rather an interesting potential comparison, a steam picket boat, and, say, a DDR or SS(R).

USN practice is that a blue hull is a barge (for admiral's use); blue stripe is a commodore (under a burgee).

I think I've read that the blue hull was an identifying mark of an admiral's barge (though I may well be wrong about that one), and that the picket boats of peacetime, spit-and-polished ships had polished brass smokestacks.

You may very well be correct on this, professor, the US Navy paints the Admiral's barge black while the rest of the ship's boats, including the Captain's gig, gray.

I took a look at the Billing website.  I think what's going on here is yet another example of a sloppy kit description on the part of a manufacturer - perhaps exacerbated by a translation problem. 

I'm in danger of getting out of my depth here, but the model in the picture certainly looks like one of the steam pinnaces (or picket boats) that were carried on board British capital ships from the very late nineteenth century until at least the start of World War II.  (I think most such craft got put ashore in 1939 or 1940, but some ships may have kept them.)  The identity of this one with H.M.S. Renown is, I suspect, pretty arbitrary; identical boats would have been found on board almost any big ship of the same date. 

Plans for boats like this appear in several of the Conway Maritime Press Anatomy of the Ship volumes, including the ones on H.M.S. Dreadnought and H.M.S. Hood.  The basic shape seems also to have been among the many things the Japanese Navy borrowed from the British.  The steam launches of Japanese battleships from the Russo-Japanese War through WWII looked remarkably similar.

I'm sure the details of these boats changed noticeably during that period of fifty years or so; perhaps a Forum member from Britain knows more about that than I do.  (These boats have been popular subjects for British radio-control modelers for years.)  I have the impression that boats of the same general shape and layout were built in several sizes.  I don't know enough about the subject to comment intelligently on the accuracy of the Billing kit, but on the basis of the picture it certainly seems to have the right general shape and layout (though that gun on the forecastle looks mighty big and clumsy).  I think I've read that the blue hull was an identifying mark of an admiral's barge (though I may well be wrong about that one), and that the picket boats of peacetime, spit-and-polished ships had polished brass smokestacks.

My senile memory carries an extremely vague recollection of a book about these boats.  I think I recall looking through it when I was working at the Mariners' Museum.  (That was more than twenty years ago; beware.)  It was, I think, an ovesized book with lots of photos and drawings, and a foreword by the Earl of Mountbatten.  What sticks in my memory is his statement that, though he didn't often agree to write forewords for books, he'd made an exception this time because he had so many pleasant memories of the picket boats he'd commanded early in his Royal Navy career.

Looks to me like a remarkably nice subject for a model.

if my memory is not cheating me, there is a light predreadnought battleship of name HMS Renown at the last quarter of 19th century. She served as the flagship of china station for sometime and was remembered for serving as the flagship of Adm. Jackie Fisher. Robert K. Massie says that İt was in HMS Renown that "Jack" first put to work his high standarts of modern training that will be applied to the RN later on.

Funny, what is this model?

According to Billing Boats,

This ship is a 50-foot steam Pinnace from around the middle of the 19th Century.

If we see a list of HMS Renown in Royal Navy service, there is no HMS Renown in the middle of the 19th Century :

the first one was the captured French frigate "La Renommée" ; later, there was a 74-gun vessel (Napoleonic), and, in the end of the 19th Century, Renown kown as a Royal yacht(of course, later HMS Renown, sister ship of HMS Repulse and yet later the nuclear submarine).

So, what is the model proposed by Billing Boats? 

Michel

 

Quite right sire. But old admiral had the gambler's (or the daring's) luck I think. if the torpedoes were not corroded due to immersion to saltwater and worked, whole yankee fleet would follow the tecumseh to the bottom of mobile bay Sometimes recklessness and sheer courage pay handsome results.

As an interesting side note, your quote about "damn the torpedoes ..." was made by Union Admiral David S. Farragut as he sailed his fleet against the Confederate Navy.  It was the Battle of Mobile Bay in the American Civil War, where he emerged victorious.  Interestingly, at the time, torpedoes were the name for floating mines and his famous command was meant to spur the fleet into battle in spite of the obstacles the enemy built around their port and forts.

I thank you all sires, now it is clear. This is what ottoman steam navy called "muş" from the french bateau-mouche. I think there is no reason to represent such "muş" with my renown

All the above answers are, of course, correct.  In the British Royal Navy, though, "picket boat" seems to have acquired, late in the nineteenth century, another, slightly different shade of meaning.  Each capital ship (e.g., the Renown) carried at least one or two picket boats.  They were fairly large, steam-powered boats with enclosed cockpits, used for all sorts of purposes - from maintaining watch ("picketing") around the ship in harbor to carrying high-ranking officers around to hauling cargo.  Virtually every memoir written by a Royal Navy officer from the beginning of the twentieth century through World War II contains some reference to his experience as a midshipman commanding a picket boat.

There are several definitions for a picket boat.  The basic one is a boat used to patrol a harbor or anchorage. 

 During the Prohibition era in the U.S., the USCG built over five hundred 38-foot picket boats.  The USCG picket boats were used to find and track the rum runners coming in from the "mother" ships loaded with booze. 

The U.S. Navy Picket Boat Number One, a steam launch, was built in 1864 for use in support of the U.S. Navy's blockade of the Confederacy. Outfitted with a spar-torpedo, she could also be employed to attack larger enemy vessels.

During WWII some USN fleet submairnes served picket boat duty during the aerial attacks of Japanese held islands.  These subs serving on picket boat duty rescued many USN & USMC avaitors who were shot down.

After WWII, some USN detroyers and subs were outfitted with large radar units and served as radar pickets, usually off the Russian coast.

Another discription would be a boat that is used for guard duty around a parimeter of a fleet or harbor.
Scott

One description is a boat posted at long distance from a fleet to give advance warning of incoming enemy forces - presumably expendable.......

Michael