The 80-foot Elco was a fast 57-ton craft built around four 21-inch torpedoes. Its standard weapons also included a 20 mm cannon, twin .50-calibre machine-gun mounts, and depth charges. Crews could use the available forward mounting for field additions such as the 37 mm cannon shown on PT-105. The arrangement made the boat more adaptable than its torpedo-focused label suggests. This was the material starting point from which wartime PT crews built increasingly gun-heavy craft.
Chapter · 37:24-39:18
Elco PT boats carried field-modified firepower
The 80-foot Elco paired four torpedoes with cannon, machine guns, and depth charges while leaving crews room to increase its forward firepower.