PC-461-class submarine chaser

	PC-461-class submarine chaser USS PC-815 in April 1943, Lieutenant L. Ron Hubbard commanding
Class overview
Builders	Albina Engine & Machine Works; Brown Shipbuilding Company; Commercial Iron Works ; Consolidated Shipbuilding Corporation; Defoe Shipbuilding Company; Dravo Corporation; George Lawley & Son; Gibbs Gas Engine Company ; Jeffersonville Boat and Machinery Company; Leathem D. Smith Shipbuilding Company; Luders Marine Construction Company ; Nashville Bridge Company ; Penn-Jersey Shipbuilding Company; Sullivan Drydock and Repair Corporation;
Operators	United States Navy; During World War II:; Brazilian Navy; Free French Naval Forces; Hellenic Navy; Royal Norwegian Navy; Royal Netherlands Navy; National Navy of Uruguay; After World War II; Royal Cambodian Navy ; Republic of China Navy; Republic of China Inspectorate of Customs; People's Liberation Army Navy; Cuban Coast Guard; Cuban Revolutionary Navy; Dominican Navy ; French Navy; Indonesian Navy; Israeli Navy; Republic of Korea Navy; Royal Moroccan Navy; Nigerian Navy; Peruvian Navy; Philippine Navy; Portuguese Navy; Republic of Vietnam Navy; Spanish Navy; Royal Thai Navy; United States Air Force; Bolivarian Navy of Venezuela;
Preceded by	USS PC-451 and USS PC-452
Succeeded by	PC-1610 class
Cost	$1.6 million
Built	1940-1944
In commission	1941-2015; 1941-1968 US Navy; 1945-1990 Philippine Navy; 1947-1994 Royal Thai Navy; 1985-2015 Peruvian Navy;
Planned	401
Completed	341
Cancelled	60
Active	0
Lost	27
Preserved	0
General characteristics
Type	Submarine chaser
Displacement	450 tons
Length	173 ft 8 in (53 m)
Beam	23 ft 0 in (7 m)
Draft	6 ft 2.5 in (2 m)
Propulsion	2 × 1,440 bhp (1,070 kW) or 1,280 bhp (950 kW) diesel engines; 2 × shafts;
Speed	20.2 knots (37.4 km/h; 23.2 mph)
Range	3000 nautical miles at 12 knots
Complement	65
Armament	Varied over time. Typically one 3"/50 gun forward, one 3"/50 or 40mm Bofors aft, three or five 20mm single mount cannons bridge/amidships; two or four K-gun depth charge projectors, two depth charge rails.

The PC-461-class submarine chasers were a class of 341 submarine chasers constructed between 1941 and 1944 for the United States Navy (USN). The PC-461s were based primarily on two experimental submarine chasers, PC-451 and PC-452. While PC-461 began the series, the first of the class to enter service was PC-471. Fifty-nine PC-461s were converted to other types of patrol vessels.

As part of the Lend-Lease program, 41 ships of the class were transferred to allies of the United States. In addition to the USN, six allied navies operated PC-461s during World War II. Postwar, another hundred PC-461s were transferred from the USN to various navies. World events and further transfers from these navies – some ships of the class served in three different navies and one served in four – resulted in another eighteen navies (two of them of adversaries of the US – the Cuban Revolutionary Navy and China's People's Liberation Army Navy) operating PC-461s, with one heavily modified vessel serving in the Peruvian Navy as late as the 2010s. Other ships of the class were sold for civilian use postwar, with a few converted as passenger ships and one converted as a luxury yacht.

Twenty-seven vessels of the class (including three vessels converted to PGM-9-class motor gunboats) were lost during World War II (seven losses), several other later armed conflicts (seven losses) and in peacetime incidents, mostly Pacific Ocean typhoons.

Following World War II, ships of the class were involved in several large and small conflicts from the late 1940s to the 1970s, including the 1948 Arab–Israeli War; the Korean War; the 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion in Cuba; armed clashes between the Republic of China and the People's Republic of China including the 1954-55 First Taiwan Strait Crisis and the 1965 Battle of Dongshan; the Nigerian Civil War 0f 1967-70; and the Vietnam War.

One member of the class, USS PC-1264, was one of only two ships in the United States Navy during World War II that had a mostly African-American crew.