British Type 43 destroyer

[TinWing]

Given the problems the RN had had with previous destroyers how did it think it was going to get a 573ft x 59ft (according to Friedman) destroyer past the Treasury?

Perhaps they planned to deliberately underestimate the displacement and attribute the inevitable cost overruns to rampant inflation? The earliest published source demonstrated complete disbelief of the ambiguous 6,000 ton figure. Looking at the contemporary Spruance/Kidd class, it would seem that a full load displacement wouldn't have been less that 8,000 tons, and perhaps would have been much more?

It's interesting that on page 312 Friedman refers to a nuclear powered design study based on the large Type 43 variant that would have been 172m long and would have displaced around 10,000 tons!

 

[JFC Fuller]

Given the problems the RN had had with previous destroyers how did it think it was going to get a 573ft x 59ft (according to Friedman) destroyer past the Treasury?

Perhaps they planned to deliberately underestimate the displacement and attribute the inevitable cost overruns to rampant inflation? The earliest published source demonstrated complete disbelief of the ambiguous 6,000 ton figure. Looking at the contemporary Spruance/Kidd class, it would seem that a full load displacement wouldn't have been less that 8,000 tons, and perhaps would have been much more?

It's interesting that on page 312 Friedman refers to a nuclear powered design study based on the large Type 43 variant that would have been 172m long and would have displaced around 10,000 tons!

Underestimating displacements in early design concepts is a perpetual issue with RN post war planning and there is no reason what so ever to attribute this particular effort to some underhand effort to trick the treasury. The 172m nuclear powered version is another red herring, the RN engaged in such a multitude of designs that it had no intention of ever constructing that they could sustain this forum for decades.

 

[TinWing]

Given the problems the RN had had with previous destroyers how did it think it was going to get a 573ft x 59ft (according to Friedman) destroyer past the Treasury?

Perhaps they planned to deliberately underestimate the displacement and attribute the inevitable cost overruns to rampant inflation? The earliest published source demonstrated complete disbelief of the ambiguous 6,000 ton figure. Looking at the contemporary Spruance/Kidd class, it would seem that a full load displacement wouldn't have been less that 8,000 tons, and perhaps would have been much more?

It's interesting that on page 312 Friedman refers to a nuclear powered design study based on the large Type 43 variant that would have been 172m long and would have displaced around 10,000 tons!

Underestimating displacements in early design concepts is a perpetual issue with RN post war planning and there is no reason what so ever to attribute this particular effort to some underhand effort to trick the treasury.

Since overall procurement costs were largely tied to high value systems, it seems unlikely that underestimating the displacement would be a successful ploy. Still, I suspect that inflation was blamed for a number of very foreseeable cost overruns in this era, on both sides of the Atlantic.

The 172m nuclear powered version is another red herring, the RN engaged in such a multitude of designs that it had no intention of ever constructing that they could sustain this forum for decades.

It was no more of a red herring than the coal powered Type 42 design study. Still, given the overall size and peculiarly large internal volume, it isn't hard to see why the large Type 43 was studied for nuclear propulsion.

 

[Pioneer]

What strikes me with this design is, even with something like the US RAST system or the Canadian Bear Trap, how safe would it really be to try to land a Sea King size helicopter amidships in bad weather?

Good question - I was thinking the same!

Safer than anywhere else. Having the flight deck as close to amidships significantly improves the ability to land in heavy seas. As the vessel pitches up and down the aft flight deck moves up and down and a helicopter needs to be winched down (RAST/Bear Trap) or match this ascending and descending flight deck or be bounced off... With the flight deck amidships at the centre of the ship's pitching movement it remains relatively steady. The helicopter can approach from the beam or quarter so the aft superstructure is not in the way of its flight path.

Great answer - I love and learn from this site every day

Thanks ;D

Regards
Pioneer

 

[PMN1]

Friedman says

'The helicopter became the master constraint on flexible arrangements. If it were aft, weapons had to be fitted in above its hanger'.

Were any designs done that had a Sea Dart launcher aft of the flight deck (there is a shipbucket version around somewhere) in the same way the County class had its Sea Slug launcher aft and the US had its Standard launchers aft of the flight deck on the Kidd and Ticonderoga classes?

 

[Anderman]

Artist impression and line drawing of the "big variant" Type 43 destroyer.

I have a stupid question what is this small chamber direct under the sea dart launcher , the large should be the magazine but the small one ?

 

[Abraham Gubler]

I have a stupid question what is this small chamber direct under the sea dart launcher , the large should be the magazine but the small one ?

Its not a stupid question. The chamber is probably the house for the various bits of machinery required to train and elevate the rail launcher.

 

[Yellow Palace]

I have a stupid question what is this small chamber direct under the sea dart launcher , the large should be the magazine but the small one ?

Its not a stupid question. The chamber is probably the house for the various bits of machinery required to train and elevate the rail launcher.

I believe the loading sequence for Sea Dart calls for the missile to be moved from the magazine into a handling room of sorts where it is checked out before launch. It may also be fuelled here, but I think that happens on the rail - RN regulations apparently prohibit liquid fuel in the magazine.

 

[Anderman]

Mh the hight of the handling room would be lower than the magazine below. So not much space for handling and i don´t think that the sea dart have be fuelled before start , at least the german sources i found talk about the keroses as (lagerfähig) storable.

 

[Abraham Gubler]

I believe the loading sequence for Sea Dart calls for the missile to be moved from the magazine into a handling room of sorts where it is checked out before launch. It may also be fuelled here, but I think that happens on the rail - RN regulations apparently prohibit liquid fuel in the magazine.

No it is treated as a round of ammunition and moves straight from the magazine to the rail and into the air. The kerosene fuel is sealed within the missile which is considered a single unit. The RN’s regulations apply to the storage of fuel in jerry cans, hoses or other containers being brought into or through the magazine. The missile has all sorts of other things inside it which are probably banned from the magazine but as they are all engineered to be stored and work safely together within its service environments.

 

[Thorvic]

Line drawing of small Type 43 destroyer, an updated Type 42 with Sea Dart Mk II.

According to Rebuilding the Royal Navy: Warship Design Since 1945 by David K. Brown and George Moore, Chatham Publishing/Naval Institute Press, 2003:

Simulations showed it had little capability.

http://books.google.com/books?id=BivKTPcx3woC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_v2_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Are their any other illustrations of the Type 44 destroyer ?

 

[starviking]

Line drawing of small Type 43 destroyer, an updated Type 42 with Sea Dart Mk II.

According to Rebuilding the Royal Navy: Warship Design Since 1945 by David K. Brown and George Moore, Chatham Publishing/Naval Institute Press, 2003:

Simulations showed it had little capability.

http://books.google.com/books?id=BivKTPcx3woC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_v2_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Are their any other illustrations of the Type 44 destroyer ?

There's one in Friedman's British Destroyers and Frigates.

 

[Grey Havoc]

Line drawing of small Type 43 destroyer, an updated Type 42 with Sea Dart Mk II.

According to Rebuilding the Royal Navy: Warship Design Since 1945 by David K. Brown and George Moore, Chatham Publishing/Naval Institute Press, 2003:

Simulations showed it had little capability.

http://books.google.com/books?id=BivKTPcx3woC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_v2_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Are their any other illustrations of the Type 44 destroyer ?

There's one in Friedman's British Destroyers and Frigates.

Just wanted to check, the 'small' Type 43 study design was also known as the Type 44?

 

[Thorvic]

Yeap the Type 44 was the smaller Type43 concept utilising the exisiting strected Type 22 hull with the Single Sea Dart II launcher plus Sea Wolf.

 

[Grey Havoc]

Thanks.

 

[Triton]

http://www.shipbucket.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=1316&start=10

 

[uk 75]

In the light of US development of vertical launch systems, which came in after the first few CG 47s I have always been baffled by the old fashioned design of Type 43 and 44. They might have been useful ships in the 60s and 70s but by the 80s (as Falklands experience showed) they simply would not be able to get enough missiles in the air quickly enough. John Nott was right to cancel the ships as they were designed.

 

[JFC Fuller]

The VLS versus rail launching was not so much the problem, it was the fire control system. Amongst other improvements GWS31 was meant to increase the channels of fire and the whole point of the design was to double the number of launch rails and directors. Add to that the fact that it took two minutes to align the gyros in Sea Dart.

 

[Mike Pryce]

VL was looked at. All that smoke and flame inside a hull would not have been an easy issue to address and so I think they would have had good reason to reject it.


One objective of GWS.31 was to give Sea Dart the ability to perform turns 'off the rail', presumably to improve response times and possibly range (GWS.30 went in a straight line while being boosted). VL could have wasted some booster energy in comparison, or required less booster power etc.


More at: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=hF8H0D05Hm0C&pg=PA310&lpg=PA310&dq=gws.31&source=bl&ots=TcKj-fUeWf&sig=Ex5C81nwe867anAN2t-sO1z51XA&hl=en&ei=UqTXTtK8IoSGhQe-r5mkBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CEgQ6AEwBg

 

[Abraham Gubler]

In the light of US development of vertical launch systems, which came in after the first few CG 47s I have always been baffled by the old fashioned design of Type 43 and 44. They might have been useful ships in the 60s and 70s but by the 80s (as Falklands experience showed) they simply would not be able to get enough missiles in the air quickly enough. John Nott was right to cancel the ships as they were designed.

VLS is not fitted to ships to increase rate of fire, as pointed out above this is dependent on fire control. During the Falklands conflict there was no shortage of missiles in the air for the threat just a limitation in fire control envelopes of the weapons. But VLS launchers are popular now because they require far less maintenance and are more space efficient. Less maintenance means less crew and less worry for the CO.

 

[RyanC]

VLS is not fitted to ships to increase rate of fire, as pointed out above this is dependent on fire control.

When Standard Missile 2 and it's reprogrammable autopilot came on the scene, it allowed the launching ship to time-share it's directors if it was AEGIS/NTU equipped; allowing many more missiles to be in the air at any one time than a simple Mk 99 director count would indicate.

 

[Hobbes]

VLS is not fitted to ships to increase rate of fire, as pointed out above this is dependent on fire control. During the Falklands conflict there was no shortage of missiles in the air for the threat just a limitation in fire control envelopes of the weapons.

AIUI, VLS was part of a package deal with AEGIS/NTU: both were needed to increase the rate of fire. The Mk 26 launcher has a rate of fire of 2 missiles per 10 seconds, which would probably saturate an old-style setup with 2-3 directors, but was seen as insufficient to deal with the threat (a regimental Backfire raid). VLS can fire 1 missile per second.

 

[JFC Fuller]

When Standard Missile 2 and it's reprogrammable autopilot came on the scene, it allowed the launching ship to time-share it's directors if it was AEGIS/NTU equipped; allowing many more missiles to be in the air at any one time than a simple Mk 99 director count would indicate.

Indeed, and you can also add extra fire channels to the directors (and has actually been done), I have not kept up with this but I do recall that back in the 90s the Mk 99 MFCS on the Ticos was reputed in the open source to have at least 12 channels of fire. However, the Sea Dart system in the early 80s was not that fortunate and even the Mk2 system would only have provided two channels of fire per type 909 director.

On a related subject, despite what the picture in Vanguard to Trident states the Type 43 would originally have been planned to have neither Type 1022 or ADAWS, instead Type 1030 STIR and a version of the Computer Aided Command Systems probably called CACS-3 (CACS-2 with Type 1030 and GWS31 was planned for Type 42 Batch IV) would have been the desired fit.

CACS-1 = Type 22 Batch II
CACS-2 = Type 42 Batch IV (Ship Cancelled- MAY have been renamed ADAWS9)
CACS-3 = Type 43 (Ship Cancelled- MAY have been renamed ADAWS11)
CACS-4 = Type 23 (never installed)
CACS-5 = Type 22 Batch III

Checking back through some of my books, GWS31 may have included a command-able autopilot and the ADIMP (ADaws IMProvement- comparable to NTU) upgrade applied one within GWS30 and ADAWS 12.

Type 43 was planed to be in service around 1989 (though CACS apparently had severe issues) whereas HMS Daring did not commission until 2009 (20 years later). Of course, who knew in 1982 that the next RN AAW destroyer was two decades away? If all the pieces had worked, CACS-3, GWS-31, Type 1030, combined with two twin launchers, the RN could have had a capable enough anti-surge capability much sooner. Type 43 would also have carried Sea Wolf, thus combining short and long range armament on one ship-another Falklands lesson. Invincible was reported to have fired six missiles in two minutes once.

 

[RyanC]

Indeed, and you can also add extra fire channels to the directors (and has actually been done), I have not kept up with this but I do recall that back in the 90s the Mk 99 MFCS on the Ticos was reputed in the open source to have at least 12 channels of fire.

Also, with SM-2's reprogrammable autopilot, you only needed to steadily illuminate the target with the director for the final terminal phase; e.g. just shortly before impact/warhead detonation.

The rest of the time, telling the SM-2's autopilot to fly to this point in space and then updating the 'point in space' was good enough for the inflight phase.

 

[Abraham Gubler]

When Standard Missile 2 and it's reprogrammable autopilot came on the scene, it allowed the launching ship to time-share it's directors if it was AEGIS/NTU equipped; allowing many more missiles to be in the air at any one time than a simple Mk 99 director count would indicate.

But even then a CG 47 with Mk 26 GMLRS would run out of missiles a full minute before salvo impact against the AS-6 threat in high angle attack. ROF was not an issue. Until the Block IV ER missile the best thing Mk 41 brought AEGIS was more missiles. That is until the Navy started stealing cells from AAW for Tomahawk. The CG 47 with rail launchers could still put a missile in the air every 2-3 seconds which against an all angle attack is pretty much the upper limit for a ship with four illuminators. Not to mention the early SPY-1's capability to talk those autopiloted missiles unto their engagement zones.

 

[uk 75]

Thank you all for such fascinating info. I must admit I am very weak on things like electronics
and sensors.

Sticking to my broad brush approach. Type 44 would have only had a single two arm Seadart launcher ( an extra one on Type 43). In the Falklands this launcher seemed very problematic and either jammed or failed to fire. It also seems much slower than the US equivalent? However a Type 42 did shoot down an Iranian missile.

The successor to Type 44 was the NATO Frigate programme. These ships were designed with VLS.
The RN's next frigate, the Type 23 also moved to VL.
At the same time France and Italy stopped building their DDGs with single arm launchers and decided to wait until NATO frigate (later Horizon).

The US were building VLS ships from CG52 Bunker Hill on. Are you guys really suggesting that the RN would have been wise to build Type 43/44 ships in the 80s?

 

[Abraham Gubler]

The successor to Type 44 was the NATO Frigate programme. These ships were designed with VLS.
The RN's next frigate, the Type 23 also moved to VL.
At the same time France and Italy stopped building their DDGs with single arm launchers and decided to wait until NATO frigate (later Horizon).

The US were building VLS ships from CG52 Bunker Hill on. Are you guys really suggesting that the RN would have been wise to build Type 43/44 ships in the 80s?

The type of launcher did not determine the schedules of these programs. Far more influential was Glasnost and the force structure of their parent navies. Even with war losses the RN had 12 Type 42s in service by 1985. Combined with the Invincibles that is 15 Sea Dart ships. There is little need from a recapitalisation perspective to build more DDGs. The same for Italy and France that still had life in their second generation DDGs.

Clearly the HMG did not have the appetite after the Falklands to rebuild the RN with the ships war experience demonstrated they needed. That is they did not change their force recapitalisation schedule. Otherwise in the 1980s they would have built new ~40,000 tonne carriers, P.1216, new DDG (T43), >10 Fort Victorias, etc. But all they built was new frigates (T22, T23) to replace the Leander class and war losses.

 

[Triton]

Otherwise in the 1980s they would have built new ~40,000 tonne carriers...

Was there a proposal to build a ~40,000 tonne carrier for the Royal Navy in the 1980s to replace HMS Eagle and HMS Ark Royal? Or was the Royal Navy stuck with Invincible-class through-deck cruisers until the CVF program?

Further, do I remember correctly that there was also a proposal to sell a Midway-class aircraft carrrier to the United Kingdom in the 1980s before the Reagan Administration decided to refit U.S.S. Midway (CV-41) and U.S.S. Coral Sea (CV-43)?

 

[Abraham Gubler]

Was there a proposal to build a ~40,000 tonne carrier for the Royal Navy in the 1980s to replace HMS Eagle and HMS Ark Royal? Or was the Royal Navy stuck with Invincible-class through-deck cruisers until the CVF program?

I believe there was a (post Falklands) plan to build two new, larger carriers, keep Ark Royal and on sell Invincible (to Australia as pre war agreement) and Illustrious (to whomever but most likely India).

 

[JFC Fuller]

Actually T43 would almost certainly have never been built, appetite or otherwise, under any circumstances. It was cancelled in 1980 (pre-Falklands) along with GWS31 and Type 1030. According to DK Brown (Rebuilding the Royal Navy) the initial studies that had supported the Type 43 programme were later found to be flawed and GWS31 inadequate. This not only ends the Type 43 concept but effectively leaves the UK without indigenous weapons and radars to move forward with in a new ship design, a situation compounded by the failure of the CACS programme. What the Falklands demonstrated was what was seemingly already known; Sea Dart, its associated systems and any practical derivation of them was inadequate. Thus what was needed was something radically new and this is what the RN had started working on, ARE began working on MESAR (the beginning of SAMSON) in 1982 and was undertaking research into Data Fusion from 1983 culminating in the Data Fusion Technology Demonstrator System that spent five and a half years at sea in HMS Marlborough from 1991. On the missile front the UK was involved in FAMS and NAAWS from 1988, dropping out of the latter in 1989. T43 was inadequate (and costing at least £200 million per unit in 1980 sterling would have cost more than an Invincible) and it took nearly thirty years to commission a ship that was.


Can we also have a source for the aircraft carrier claim?

 

[Abraham Gubler]

Actually T43 would almost certainly have never been built, appetite or otherwise
SNIP

Can we also have a source for the aircraft carrier claim?

Don't get all fluffed up. I wrote "new DDG (T43)" not because I want to claim that it (T43) was ever seriously considered after the Falklands but rather that IF the urgent capability upgrade rather than recapitalisation was the path the RN would have gone down then that’s how they would have considered a new DDG in the 1980s. As to the Type 43 I'm not a Torah Scholar on the work of DK Brown and just mentioned it in the context of this thread. Since the technology base available to the RN in the mid 1980s was pretty much the same as in 1980 any post Falklands DDG would have looked pretty similar to the Type 43. Especially since war experience demonstrated that the best surface ship AAW capability the RN had was a Sea Dart, Seawolf combination.

Further as to the two new carriers if you wanted to discuss things without a desire to try and point score and nitpick you would have noticed I wrote "I believe". These events were 25+ years ago and any reasonable person would understand that this implies I’m working from the dark corners of memory. If I had a source I would have given it. Rather it could have been some ex Admirals suggestion for what the RN had to do, some leaked study to the press or just about anything. Though my memory is quite specific about keeping Ark Royal and on selling the first two.

 

[JFC Fuller]

I was not getting "fluffed" up, simply pointing out that T43 (and for that matter any "post Falklands DDG" reliant upon a derivation of Sea Dart and the associated systems) would almost certainly have never been built and explained the reason for that.


As for the carrier claim, I will keep waiting for a source.

 

[RyanC]

Until the Block IV ER missile the best thing Mk 41 brought AEGIS was more missiles.

Mk 41 brought much reduced reaction time, massively increased firepower/readiness along with much reduced cost and mechanical simplicity to the table for the Navy.

The reason Mk 26 was chosen for the initial AEGIS baseline was that the Launcher subgroup on the Advanced Surface Missile System Assessment Group believed that VLS would require a complicated and heavy strikedown mechanism at sea, and that this would negate many of the claimed advantages for VLS launchers. (I know, you're going 'huh?' here too.)

Another reason for Mk 26 was that while it caused a performance reduction impact, it facilitated ASMS commonality with Tartar.

Not to mention the early SPY-1's capability to talk those autopiloted missiles unto their engagement zones.

Considering that AEGIS/SPY-1 is much more advanced than Typhon/SPG-59, which was the first system to use the C3M/TH (close control command midcourse with semi-active terminal homing) concept to massively increase engagement ranges and firepower via missiles in the air simultaneously...

Ref: From Typhon to AEGIS -- The Issues and their Resolution -- Naval Engineer's Journal Volume 100, Issue 3 -- May 1988

 

[Jemiba]

Folks, please remember the forum rules and that a tone, that perhaps is just meant as taunting,
may be felt as offending by others !
Judging the moderator reports, I have the uncomfortable feeling, that this thread is endangered
by being locked in the future, if the tone will still rise. Would really be a pity, so please, calm down,

ALL OF YOU !

Don't want to show this too often !

 

[Sam-Yukikaze]

A T43 type arrangement might not be as good at accommodating growth in the helicopter size compared to, say the improved arrangement suggested by DKB for his double-ended Type 23 equivalent.

If you could link to that design (double ended T23) that would be nice.

Interesting to look at design alternatives to the T43 like a more 'accessible' DD 963 type flight deck (see attach) and you retain access problems with the aft Type 909 houses you increase your burble with a bigger superstructure forward of the flight deck and you place all the exhaust into the flight path of the helicopter. Not to mention having to combine your separated engine rooms into a single area.

Interestingly the solution to much of this is in the Sea Dart missile. And in particular the cancelled block II that was to have TVC on its booster and ICWI homing for the seeker. This would enable the launcher to be displaced from the Type 909 directors. Much like on CG 47s and DDG 51s with the SM-2 missile and AEGIS. But even with the new missile the T43 would have to sacrifice unit propulsion on its length to ‘free’ up the rear access to the flight deck.

I tried to modify other people’s Shipbucket works according to your description,Do you have more information about Type 43 in the "Spruance" style?

 

[JohnR]

I feel that the arrangement of the 'light' version of the Type 43 was mistaken in placing the Sea Wolf launcher aft, better to have retained the Type 42's hangar and placed the Sea Wolf on top of it or alternately abreast the uptakes (with the lightweight 4 round launcher as an alternative).

The image I've seen in the Haynes book on the Type 45 of the Type 44 seems to be really impractical, with the Sea Dart and two Sea Wolf launchers on an extension to the superstructure deck, it seems it would be very top and bow heavy requiring an increase in beam and enlarge the underwater profile of the bow, in line with the Type 42.

 

[uk 75]

The RN were trying to put too much on one hull Soviet style. Seadart and Seawolf were too space and volume hogging for T43 and T44 to be feasible with both systems and a helo.
A British Kidd class equivalent with twin Seadart launchers and twin 4.5" guns plus Phalanx and helo would have been possible but would have reduced overall hulls available. Better to have extra T42s.

 

[JohnR]

I agree they were trying to squeeze a quart into a pint pot. There was a version on ship bucket a few years ago with a more practical (if imaginary) layout - but I can't find it now. It was laid out in a Tromp of Audace/De La Penne layout with a 4.5" gun forward Seawolf ahead of the bridge and the Sea Dart between the aft director and the helo hangar. I wish I had been able to find the image.

 

[uk 75]

The Falklands had seen the Type 22 with Seawolf cooperating with the Type 42 with Seadart to try and complement each other's systems. The idea of putting both systems on one hull like the Soviets did with their big Kara class cruisers was understandable.
The Type 23 ordered after the Falklands got vertical launch Seawolf but there was no money for a similar version of Seadart. Vertical launch cells would have made the Type 43 a lot more realistic, though the various directors and radars would have needed sorting out.
But by the mid 80s the NATO frigate 90 programme was expected to replace the T42s using a cell launched SAM and Goalkeeper point defence. Twenty years later this entered service as T45.

 

[uk 75]

The Dutch had built two Tromp destroyers in the early 70s with single Tartar aft and NATO Sea Sparrow BPDMS forward. Italy converted two Audace destroyers in the 80s to a similar configuration and built two of a new version.
The drawings below give an idea of how much room even these more compact weapons take up. Seawolf and Seadart were much more space hungry so it is easy to see how big a T43 double ender would have had to be.