PTF boat
fast patrol boats used in Vietnam War
PTF (short for Patrol Torpedo, Fast) were fast patrol boats of the United States Navy introduced during the early years of the Vietnam War. The PTF designation was give to 26 boats with four different boat designs. The PTF boats were the Vietnam War "brown water" river boats version of the World War II PT boats. They were heavily armed gunboats that were used by the US Navy and by Special forces. The first two PTF boats were commissioned 21 December 1962. The last two PTF were commissioned on 8 April 1968. PFT boats were replaced by the new Patrol Craft Fast (PCF) boats that were more widely used in Vietnam. There are five PTF boats that have survived and are in various state of restoration. The "Torpedo Boat, Fast" designation is a hold over from World War II, as PTF boats were not equipped with torpedoes, as they were mostly used in shallow river waters.
History
Following World War II the US Navy had little use for fast attack craft, so almost all of the PT boats were scrapped at the end of the war in 1945.
The public source identifies “PTF boat” as fast patrol boats used in Vietnam War. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around boat, fast and patrol.
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The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q131850700. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1962, 1968 and 1945.
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This entry incorporates text from “PTF boat” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.