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History
United Kingdom
Name	MGB 501
Builder	Camper & Nicholson (Gosport)
Completed	1942
Fate	Sank after an internal explosion, off Lands End, on 27 July 1942
General characteristics
Class and type	Motor gunboat
Displacement	95 long tons (97 t) deep load
Length	117 ft (36 m)
Beam	19 ft 6 in (5.94 m)
Draught	4 ft 6 in (1.37 m) fully laden
Propulsion	3 × shaft petrol engines; 3,750 bhp (2,800 kW);
Speed	32 knots (59 km/h) (max); 29 knots (54 km/h) (cruising);
Range	2,000 nautical miles (3,700 km) at 11 kn (20 km/h)
Complement	21
Armament	Designed:; 1 × 3-pounder gun; 1 × 2-pounder gun; 2 × 21-inch torpedo tubes; Actual:; 1 × 2-pounder gun (MkVIII mounting); 1 × 20mm Oerlikon; 4 × .5 inch Vickers machine guns; 2 × 21-inch torpedo tubes; 12 x depth charges;
Notes	Cocker, Maurice (2006). Coastal Forces Vessels of the Royal Navy from 1865. Stroud: Tempus Publ. p. 121. ISBN 9780752438627.

HM Motor Gun Boat 501 was a motor gunboat operated by Royal Navy Coastal Forces during the Second World War. The design, prepared by Bill Holt of the DNC's Boat Section, was unusual for a British light coastal forces' boat at the time in that it was of composite construction, whereas most MTBs and Motor Launches were entirely wooden-hulled. MGB 501's frames and various internal members were steel, with layers of diagonal wooden planking forming the exterior skin of the hull and wood for the remaining decks & bulkheads.

She was initially designed as a combined anti-submarine boat and motor torpedo boat, but was completed as a Motor Gun Boat.^[1] Based on the lessons of combat experience with the early MA/SBs following their conversion to MGBs, MGB 501's initial designed gun armament, which would have included a 2-pdr Rolls gun, was replaced with a suite that would have provided greater reliability and volume of fire in battle (a Vickers pom-pom and an Oerlikon cannon).^[2] Retaining her 21-inch torpedo tubes, she therefore completed for service as a combined motor gun & torpedo boat (much like the 'E' boats or schnellboote) whilst being designated purely as an MGB.

Loss

HM MGB 501 was lost off Land's End on 27 July 1942, after an internal explosion.^[1]

Notes

^ ^a ^b Cocker, Maurice (2006). Coastal Forces Vessels of the Royal Navy from 1865. Stroud: Tempus Publ. p. 121. ISBN 9780752438627.
^ Gardiner and Chesneau, p. 69