Page 25: of Marine News Magazine (July 2025)

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Patrol Boats

US Navy or the U.S. Navy, boats perform missions from mundane maintenance chores such as hull scrap- ing and cleaning overboard discharges to clandes-

F tine special forces insertion and extraction. Some boats are about as basic as you can imagine, and some are equipped with sophisticated combat systems and weapons.

Big or small, they all perform indispensable tasks for the

Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard.

MALL,

Boats that are carried on and launched from ships are referred to as “shipboard boats,” to distinguish them from boats based at installations ashore. They serve various pur- poses, including search and rescue, personnel transport, and providing a platform for special operations.

Yes, the Navy is embracing the employment of small unmanned systems for a variety of purposes. Some un- manned vehicles will perform jobs that must now be done with crewed boats, but in limited roles. The em- ployment of boats and small craft continue to be a large and vital part of the Navy’s overall inventory for the pres- ent and into the future.

The All-Purpose RHIB

The most common type of shipboard boat in modern navies is the Rigid Hull In