British Carriers Commando Ships and Escort Cruisers 1963 to 1968

[Abraham Gubler]

That link doesn't work JCF.

Its a strange one. The link is dead because the mods have merged the two threads as suggested. So you are actually where the link wants you to go!

 

[uk 75]

Abraham

No discussion needed. The answers are in Ian Sturton's excellent article in WARSHIP 2014 as suggested by JFC Fuller above. The drawings of CVA 01 make it a must have.

uk 75

 

[starviking]

Warships 2014 - differences in editions?

A quick question, and I hope this is the best place to post it.

We were talking about Warships 2014 earlier. I now see there are two versions: Conway's and that of the Naval Institutes Press.

Does anyone know if there are any notable differences between the two versions?

Cheers!

 

[Scapa]

The only difference is the different UK and US publishers. Although when I went to pre-order the 2013 version early last year I noticed that Amazon UK offered both versions. The US one cost considerably more than the UK one and availability was a month later. Not the most difficult decision I've ever had to make.

 

[zen]

I suspect reality would force a consecutive building schedule.
Which would have been better for both industry and the Navy.

But you do shed light on why the cost quoted in Parliament was for two of them and their attendant DDGs

 

[PMN1]

 

[JFC Fuller]

Quick of the mark PMN1, thanks!.

That is a monstrous dock, given that C and D docks are 850ft long that dock must be 1000-1250 ft long and thus much larger than required for CVA01.

There must have been some serious dredging planned.

Additionally, a couple of observations based on a trip to Kew:

Design process: The RN apparently evaluated 70 different designs ranging from 30-70,000 tons. They came to the conclusion that the bigger the ship the better as it would reduce the cost per embarked aircraft- there is even a snazzy little chart to demonstrate the point. The RN wanted to cross deck (and put in the hangar) large USN aircraft (including F-111B) which was a theme common with the 1952 effort. It was stated that the only reason the RN wasn't asking for a 70,000 ton ship was cost considerations.

Construction: In 1963, once the programme was reduced to three ships, it was planned to build the last two almost simultaneously, they would be ordered just 12 months apart.

 

[Yellow Palace]

Quick of the mark PMN1, thanks!.

That is a monstrous dock, given that C and D docks are 850ft long that dock must be 1000-1250 ft long and thus much larger than required for CVA01.

There must have been some serious dredging planned.

I believe it was 1,250 feet long with an entrance width of 150 feet, not sure about sill depth. Presumably a lot of the dredged material would be used as infill.

 

[zen]

Are they designing this for the USN?

 

[PMN1]

Are they designing this for the USN?

Finally future proofing??

 

[Hobbes]

Are they designing this for the USN?

No, they were designing this 50 years ago for the (cancelled) CVA01 project.

 

[zen]

Are they designing this for the USN?

No, they were designing this 50 years ago for the (cancelled) CVA01 project.

Fully aware of that. But this is overkill for CVA-01 design. So either this is indeed 'future proofing' or they had sights on playing host to USN CV's.

 

[Hood]

The ability to dock a USN carrier would have been an obvious bonus.
I suspect this was some degree of future proofing given the lack of docks had hampered the 1950s carrier projects, some of which were 1,000ft long.

 

[zen]

The ability to dock a USN carrier would have been an obvious bonus.
I suspect this was some degree of future proofing given the lack of docks had hampered the 1950s carrier projects, some of which were 1,000ft long.

When one thinks on the issues of fitting aboard aircraft to OR346 and equivalent US designs it would certainly have seemed prudent to say design a drydock to take the larges USN CVN and then add a bit more Length just to be safe.

 

[PMN1]

Nimitz class CVN's look to be around 12ft wider overall than the QE class so should be doable, though some dredging would probably have been needed as it has been for the QE class.

 

[Thorvic]

Nimitz class CVN's look to be around 12ft wider overall than the QE class so should be doable, though some dredging would probably have been needed as it has been for the QE class.

That's just the angled deck extension at the fwd end of the sponson, the CTOL version of the QEC had this as well as the stern round down. The Hull width at waterline and sponsons are virtually the same, however the QEC are 40+m shorter

 

[JFC Fuller]

This was far from the first RN effort at future proofing. At the end of the Second World War the RN took ownership of large tracts of the bombed out wasteland that was Devonport and Plymouth. With this land they schemed a massive expansion and modernisation of the naval base including a new basin in the Weston Mill Lake in the North yard (currently the home of the Amphibious fleet) that would have three 1,000ft+ dry-docks plus two 1,000ft+ entrance locks. Additionally there was a plan for a 1,000ft+ dock to be constructed in the South yard. There was also thinking about merging some of the existing basins in the North yard.

As with the later CVA01 Portsmouth dock proposal this would have required some serious dredging. Maneuvering a 1,000ft ship all the way up beyond bull point in order to get it into the entrance locks of the new basin, even with tugs, would have been an *interesting* activity.

I used to have photos of these plans from the TNA but lost them along with the CVA01 dock one above, however they make an appearance on pages 32 and 33 here: https://navaldockyardssociety.files.wordpress.com/2016/02/part2-twentieth-century-naval-dockyards-devonport-portsmouth-characterisation.pdf

Ultimately the RN ended up giving up all the land it acquired at the end of the war and this scheme obviously came to nothing but it does perhaps go some way to explaining the very large designs considered under the Malta and 1944/45 Lion class studies. It also explains a comment in one of the 1952 carrier documents that when large carriers were being studied at the end of the war new docks were proposed for them.

 

[zen]

Thank you for sharing that, I've missed such reading material, and thank you for sharing the information.

Quite a plan!
The amount of dredging they must have been planning is not trivial and would need refreshing every so often.
But like the later Portsmouth plan, this moves the complete CV support away from the likes of Rosyth and ... that bridge.

 

[PMN1]

 

[PMN1]

Thank you for sharing that, I've missed such reading material, and thank you for sharing the information.

Quite a plan!
The amount of dredging they must have been planning is not trivial and would need refreshing every so often.
But like the later Portsmouth plan, this moves the complete CV support away from the likes of Rosyth and ... that bridge.

How about this from 1926

 

[zen]

Thank you PMN1 it would certainly have eased design constraints to have had even one military drydock of 1000th Length such as those.

 

[Hood]

Some brief information has come my way regarding the two Commando carriers/LPHs that were planned for the 1970s as discussed in this thread: https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,16178.msg155294.html#msg155294
The older thread was dealing with mid-1970s plans but as we've seen the Commando Carrier/Command Cruiser saga had roots back long into the early 1960s, so I feel the information is best placed here, although it dates from 1970, bridging both sides.

By 1970 the LPH was still not fully defined. It was being offered in two versions; Military and Ferry, only one version would be acquired but no decision had been made at that time.
The Military version was very similar to the CCH in size and layout with a hull hangar 19ft 8in high with two lifts (53ft 5in x 20ft or 55ft x 32ft as on the CCH was possible). The Ferry version had an above-deck hangar, presumably similar in concept as the earlier CCH Study 21 or RFA Engadine.

 

[starviking]

Good work Hood! Slowly, the pieces of the postwar navy puzzle are being put into place.

Looking at was offered, it seems like the RN was still wary of putting 'carrier like' vessels up as the only solution to their political masters.

BTW, it should be RFA Engadine, not HMS Engadine.

 

[The Skipper]

The just issued book on British Carriers by David Hobbs (see thread in the books section for ref) adds some tantalising information to existing sources and confirms somethings we already know.

Hobbs explains in fairly brutal terms that the 1963 Escort Cruiser design was a non starter once work began on desigining and building Polaris submarines. Interestingly he refers to the final design having one Seadart launcher only, which makes more sense that the earlier idea of two Seadarts and an Ikara.

The 4 Escort Cruisers (to replace the Tiger conversions in the 70s) and 2 replacement Commando Ships (to replace Bulwark and Albion in the 70s) remained in the long term costings but no work was done on them.

Fast forward to the chapter on the 1966 Fleet Working Party which was convened to try and sort out a large ship after CVA 01's cancellation.

Hobbs does not cover the fairly vague proposals mentioned elsewhere for a cheaper design to replace CVA 01 (carrying what becomes the Jaguar) or the offers from the States to supply Essex class carriers. Similarly he does not go into the later US offer at the time of the Falklands, To be fairm the focus of the book is sensibly on what actually happened rather than what MIGHT have happened.

I found the chapter on the 1966 designs in Brown/Moore's rebuilding the Royal Navy and the line drawings difficult to follow. Hobbs provides his own chapter, whose narrative tries to clear up some of the designs. He is also confusing in that he describes designs which are not illustrated and those that are in the same breath and so I am still a bit lost. He saves his best contribution to the end: a 15,000 ton cruiser design with Seakings and Seadart plus lightweight 4-5 gun dating from 1968. It is not hard to see from this ship what the 1963 Escort Cruiser final design might have looked like.

The farcical attempts to meet the Government hatred of anything that looked like a carrier is well explained by Hobbs and treated with appropriate contempt. The adoption of Blake/Tiger style hangars on these ships is a retrograde step from the 1963 cruiser which already had its hangar below decks.

The cheap and practical design for an Iwo Jima style Commando ship is described (interestingly information about this ship is found in the German magazine Marine Rundschau from 1965-6, so it had been in the minds of designers before 1966). This is a sad what might have been as it would have been cheaper to operate than Bulwark and Albion.

It is hard not to agree with Hobbs's contention that more money was spent on this round about way of having a carrier than might have been on CVA 01, which he seems quite positive about.

The icing on the cake for CVA 01 fans are the original ships drawing from the NMM which show a somewhat different design to those published previously, notably in the form of the Island.

I hope that some of the more learned contributors to this site who have also read Hobbs will pick up the thread and add more.

Does Cdr. Hobbs give the dimensions & displacement of the "Iwo Jima style commando ship"?

 

[The Skipper]

Re: CVA-01

CVA 01 name was Furious or Queen Elisabeth?

H.M.S. Queen Elizabeth.

 

[Tzoli]

HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales was my knowledge. I thought only 2 ships were considered but wikipedia states 4 ships with the extra two being HMS Duke of Edinburgh and HMS Princess Royal.

CVA-01 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

But you do know you replied to a post from 2006 yes???

 

[Hood]

Nope. Wikipedia as usual is spinning a tale.

CVA-01 was to be HMS Queen Elizabeth, that name was approved in May 1964 but not made public at the time.
CVA-02 had the name Duke of Edinburgh reserved but was never formally approved.

CVA-03 and CVA-04 were notional replacements for Hermes and Eagle but were never realistically likely to be approved and planning for them probably wouldn't have begun until the early-1970s at the earliest.

 

[CV12Hornet]

Re: CVA-01

Here is an interesting table comparing some of the draft designs for what became CVA-01. The larger ships are because the original RN specification required the ability to deploy 64 strike recce aircraft and 32 fighters (via at least two ships) as the minimum force needed to sustain land and sea operations outside of land based air cover.

Sorry to bump this extremely old post, but I'm having a little trouble interpreting the table, in particular the aircraft numbers, and it's really useful information. Each type has numbers given in the hanger, on the flight deck, and combined in total; are the numbers for each type the max the carrier can carry with solely that type, or is the max with both types?

 

[TomS]

Sorry to bump this extremely old post, but I'm having a little trouble interpreting the table, in particular the aircraft numbers, and it's really useful information. Each type has numbers given in the hanger, on the flight deck, and combined in total; are the numbers for each type the max the carrier can carry with solely that type, or is the max with both types?

I believe that the next gen aircraft/OR346 was a replacement for Buccaneer, so it would be either one or the other of those types, plus the specialty types mentioned.

 

[A Tentative Fleet Plan]

Since CVA-01 seems to come under this thread, I am going to put this here.

Boilers

Boilers. December 1967. COMMANDER D. O'HARA, R.N., C.ENG., A.M.I.MECH.E.

library.imarest.org

Designing the New Aircraft Carrier

Designing the New Aircraft Carrier. December 1966. COMMANDER J. R. BROADHURST, O.B.E., R.N. (RETD)., C.ENG.

library.imarest.org

 

[Scott Kenny]

Since CVA-01 seems to come under this thread, I am going to put this here.

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Boilers

Boilers. December 1967. COMMANDER D. O'HARA, R.N., C.ENG., A.M.I.MECH.E.

library.imarest.org

Designing the New Aircraft Carrier

Designing the New Aircraft Carrier. December 1966. COMMANDER J. R. BROADHURST, O.B.E., R.N. (RETD)., C.ENG.

library.imarest.org

"water spray type" arresting gear?

So, they filled a large cylinder with water and let the recovered aircraft put force/pressure onto it? Or was that some other way of operating?

 

[A Tentative Fleet Plan]

"water spray type" arresting gear?

So, they filled a large cylinder with water and let the recovered aircraft put force/pressure onto it? Or was that some other way of operating?

Basically as you described:

DA 2 Arresting Gear (FIG. 5)
The basic design for the new carrier arresting gear has been retained. The Staff Requirement for this design is to arrest aircraft in the weight range 15,000-40,000 Ib from engaging speeds not less than 110 kts for the lower weight aircraft and not less than 125 kts for the upper weight, without exceeding a retardation of 4-2 g. From ship and equipment considerations the arrest must be completed within a run-out distance of 270 ft, with a deck-edge sheave spacing of 100 ft and with a limiting factor of safety (FOS) of not less than 2 on all arresting gear components. The arresting gear designed and being developed to meet these requirements is the DA2. The essential features of DA2 are:

(a) The Energy Absorbing Unit (FIG. 6)
This unit is an inner tube of 5% in. bore contained in a 10 in. bore outer tube and arranged in 2 lines approx. 230 ft long. Along each inner tube are approximately 200 orifices of $ in. diameter. A piston, 12 in. long, connected to the arresting gear rope system runs in each inner tube. Each tube length is anchored at one end only. The tube length is aligned and supported to within a limit of f 0.1 in. over 220 ft and is free to move axially to allow for expansion of the unit or relative ship/unit movement from other causes. The inner and outer tubes are kept full of fresh water by pumps. When the rope system is engaged by the aircraft the pistons are pulled along the inner tubes expelling and circulating the water ahead of each piston through the orifices into the outer tubes and back into the inner tube behind the pistons. Pressures of up to 3,000 lb/sq in. are generated in the inner tubes. Pressures in the outer tubes are controlled to 600 lb/sq in. by air loaded relief valves. As the piston speed decreases during the arrest so does the orifice area ahead of the piston and a reasonably constant pressure and therefore aircraft retardation, is maintained throughout the arrest. By careful design of the orifice programme the gear is capable of arresting a wide range of aircraft weights and speeds and no adjustment of the gear for different aircraft weights and speeds in the specified range is necessary or fitted. The inner and outer tubes are made up from 12 ft and 8 ft lengths as required to match the spacing of the ship's structure. Inner and outer tubes are solid drawn from EN26 and mild steel BS 806-B respectively.

Flight Deck Machinery

Flight Deck Machinery. December 1968. COMMANDER D. N. LOYNES, R.N., C.ENG., M.I.MECH.E.

library.imarest.org