John KI’m sure you are right. Having devised a complicated housing for the Ikaras on Type 82s, I suppose that when they were cancelled, the powers that be could not bear to let all that work go to waste, so plonked them on the poor old Leanders. Apart from anything else, I object to the way that having a huge dustbin on their bows affected the looks of a very handsome class of ships. Ikara Leanders just didn’t look good!
John KYou can see from the photo of HMAS Swan that Ikara does not take up a lot of space, so long as it is not housed it a grandiose zarebra. I can’t see any reason why the RN’s Leanders could not have had Ikara fitted in place of Limbo, keeping their Wasp. They could then have kept their 4.5″ guns, making them much more capable ships all round. The RN’s Ikara Leanders were turned into single purpose ASW ships to a stupid extent.
However, overall, I would not have bothered with Ikara at all. It was meant for the Type 82 destroyers, and should have died with them. Leanders fitted with a Lynx in place of the Wasp and Limbo would have had a much better ASW capability, whilst keeping a general purpose ability. I would not have spent any of the huge amounts of money converting the Leanders to take Ikara, Exocet or Sea Wolf.
John KI think Ikara would have fitted in the space taken by Limbo, so long as it was not housed in the grotesque zarebra structure the Royal Navy specified. The Ikara Leanders had Ikara, Wasp and Limbo, as well as two Sea Cats and two Bofors guns.
Personally, I think huge amounts were wasted on Leander conversions. They were a good basic design, all I would have done is refit them to take a Lynx and ASW torpedo tubes, replacing the Wasp and Limbo. Nothing else was needed to keep them as perfectly good general purpose frigates with an ASW bias. Considering the Navy in the 70s had Type 21 frigates, which were built to take both a 4.5″ gun and four Exocets, yet by the time of the Falklands two of them had still not been fitted with Exocet, did it make much sense to take the guns off Leanders and fit them with four Exocets?
John Kfrom what info I have available Sea Dart development began in August ’62, the year the Devonshire entered service, with full go-ahead given in May’63. It would appear the last 4 counties were built with what was known to be an obsolete missile system. Bristol was ordered on 4/10/66 so her design was around before this date.
‘Sea Dart was designed as a sucessor to Seaslug. By using considerably smaller and lighter handling equipment that its predecessor it could be made to occupy no more space than a medium-calibre gunnery system.’
1973 saw the conversion of Norfolk with 4 exocets launchers replacing the twin 4.5’s @ B.
With the Counties intended to be A/A escorts, surely common sense would dictate the removal of a system that was now known to be at least 10 years out of date, and as it was designed to fit an area no bigger than a medium-calibre gunnery system, B would be an obvious & straight forward location. It might even have been possible to replace the twin Limbo mortars with the Ikara system, and in all 8 by this date.
With 8 1st class general purpose escorts in service (the counties) there would be no need for the T82, T42’s and the Ikara conversions to the Leanders.
conversion costs could’ve easily been met with the scrapping of the 3 obsolete cruisers in place of their own conversions, Blake 65-68 & tiger 69-72.
with the decisions taken not to go ahead with the ’52 carriers, CVA-01, etc & going ahead with ships that were obsolete before they were even in service one is left to consider which side those that ran the navy were on????
The Counties were never fitted with Limbo. They were meant to have it, but ti was replaced at a late stage in the design by the Wessex helicopter, hence the ludicrous hangar arrangements.
I agree that by the time the last four Counties were ordered, it would have been apparent that beam riding was an outdated technology, hence the Navy was working on semi-active homing for the Sea Dart. That’s why I wonder if consideration was ever given to modifying Sea Slug to SARH?
As for the Ikara Leanders, it seems to me that a better idea would have been to replace their Limbos with Ikara, keeping the 4.5″ guns forward. They ended up with three ASW systems, Ikara, Limbo and Wasp, which is surely too specialised a weapons fit for a frigate.
John KI agree that Sea Slug did not perform in the Falklands, but that was hardly surprising, as it was an outdated beam rider. If it had been updated to semi-active homing would it have done better? As I said, the Americans and French both did this, so it must be possible.
Obviously, Sea Dart was better than Sea Slug. My question is whether Sea Slug could have been updated at a reasonable cost? If possible, this could have maintained the Counties as viable air defence ships without having to rebuild them. As with our 50s carriers, I can’t help but think we never really got value for money from the County class.
John KMy copy of “Naval Armament” by Doug Richardson gives a range of at least 45 km for Sea Slug 2. If it had been possible to convert it to semi-active homing at no great cost, it would have been worth keeping, in my opinion. Given that 14 Type 42s were ordered, I can understand why it would not have been thought worth the time and money to try and convert the Counties to take Sea Dart
John KWhy convert something so huge, & short-range? Sea Slug was retired for a good reason. It lacked development potential. Technology had moved on too much.
The idea that because the Counties were designed around Sea Slug, they therefore couldn’t carry anything else, is disproved by the Chilean conversions. Sea Slug was removed. The ships remained functional. The space cleared by the removal of the launcher was re-used. A space cleared in a ship is useful, not a problem, unless it compromises the ships structure – and it didn’t.
BTW, other weapons were removed from those ships & replaced by something else.
The possibility of fitting Sea Dart in place of B turret has been mooted. Whether that was practical depends on the internal arrangements under that turret. Does anyone know anything about that?
As ever, it’s all about cost. I’m sure that the Counties could have been converted to take Sea Dart, but at great cost. The Sea Slug was stowed horizontally, the Sea Dart vertically, so the long silo running the length of the ship would have been of little use. Given the size of a Sea Dart magazine, I doubt it could have been fitted under B turret space either.
Sea Slug was a large missile, but not short range, I’m sure it could fly over 30 miles at least. That’s why I am wondering if any thought was given to converting it to semi-active homing? That would have been hugely cheaper than trying to convert the Counties to Sea Dart. One use for the B turret space could have been for another radar director, making them much better air defence ships, which was their point after all.
John KThe Chileans removed Sea Slug & used the space freed up for other purposes, including a bigger hangar, & fitted other – though relatively short-range – SAMs. Why could that space not have been used for Sea Dart? It would have been more complicated & costly than the Chilean conversion, but perfectly possible. Or maybe it could have been fitted in place of the B turret, as previously mentioned.
I think it would have been a lot easier and cheaper to have converted Sea Slug to semi-active homing. This can’t be impossible, since both France and the USA did it with the Masurca and Terrier missiles. If a Sea Dart radar director had been fitted in place of the huge Sea Slug one, it might even have been possible to put the helicopter hangar door in the right place!
I doubt it would have been cost effective to have converted the Counties to use Sea Darts, as they were literally built around the Sea Slug. It’s one thing to strip it out, quite another to install a completely different system. But I was just wondering if anyone knows how feasible it would have been to convert Sea Slug to semi-active radar homing?
John KI think even by the 60s beam riding was seen as obsolescent, Sea Slug came into service about ten years too late. Where have we heard that before?
Having said that, I am quite surprised by how scathing some of the books I have read on the Falklands are about Sea Slug. It was said that it was only fired so that its falling booster rockets would frighten enemy pilots. Given that the aircraft the Argentines were using, such as the Mirage and Skyhawk, were themselves of 50s or 60s vintage, I would have thought that even an old beam rider like Sea Slug should have given them a run for their money.
I still can’t understand which lame brain could call a missile after a slug though!
John KGreat graphics there. The 1952 carriers would have been handsome ships, but in the economic situation of the time, could not have been afforded. The Korean War was raging, and Britain was spending huge sums developing the H Bomb and the V Force.
In retrospect, it strikes me as a shame that so much time and money was spent on the refit of HMS Victorious, especially as we got less than ten years out of her post refit (or one might say post rebuild).
It might have been wiser to spend money on Albion, Bulwark and Centaur, fitting them with steam catapults and fully angled decks, and maybe even deck edge lifts, making them almost on a par with Hermes. With Eagle and Ark Royal that would have given the Navy six carriers well able to run into the 1970s. The LPH role could surely have been handled by Colossus class carriers, which were surplus to requirements by the mid 50s, and were cheap to run. The Navy could have had several LPHs, rather than just the two of Albion and Bulwark.
I would argue that the advantage of my “scheme” is that it does not rely on any ships which were never built, but just imagines getting rather more value for money out of ships which really were built. Given that other navies managed to use Colossus class carriers into the 1980s, and HMS Hermes is still in service in India, it can be argued that the Royal Navy never really got full value out of the ships it had in the 1950s.
John KNothing wrong with the county class IMO. From the photo’s i’ve seen they look very distinguished. 😀
Bolt in Sea Dart in place of Sea Slug (would require the deck height increased and a different loading system to T42/T82). Redistribute weight by moving stuff that was originally up in the superstructure down into the freed up Sea Slug storage area. Widen the hanger so that it can fit a pair of Wessex, Lynx or Sea Kings.
In my opinion, that ship, possibly with Ikara fitted to the midships like in the Perth Class, would be much more flexible then HMS Britol and could quite honestly be referred to as a cruiser.
I don’t see how Sea Dart could easily have been fitted to the Counties, which were literaly built around Sea Slug (has there ever been a worse name for a missile?)
I have always wondered why Sea Slug could not have been converted to semi-active homing? The Americans and French both did this, and elements from Sea Dart might have served. It is a shame that the eight Counties were built around a weapon system which became obsolete almost as soon as it was installed in them, yet another sad indictment of British defence procurement.
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