British 'virtuous circle' 1957 onwards?

[Rule of cool]

On the topic of missiles Britain acquired no fewer than 4 (& 1/2 or 5 depending on how you look at it) anti ship missiles: MARTel (TV & ARM), Exocet, Sub-Harpoon/Harpoon and Sea Eagle. Surely there's scope for the worlds 3rd most powerful navy with a big air force to come up with a world class anti-ship missile family for a reasonable price.

 

[zen]

Green Cheese (1950's)
Blue Slug (Anti-ship Seaslug)
Fairey Sea Skimmer
Vague studies early 60’s
RAN Womba (Anti-ship Ikara)
Fleetfoot
Anti-ship Sea Dart
Sea Eagle

 

[red admiral]

Back to a combination of wishful thinking and "if only the government had spent even more money"

 

[Hood]

One virtuous circle thing would be once the Swingfire enters service the Hawkswing variant for helicopter use should be adopted instead of the TOW. That's another example of Britain not pushing its own gear and introducing a second supply chain and support aystem instead.

Snag was, Hawkswing wasn't that good as it descended following launch and risked impacting the ground so the helicopter had to be higher and therefore less able to use terrain masking and potentially ending up as Shilka bait.
Would have needed some element of redesign to work as well as TOW.
To reduce supply chains, you could equally argue buy HOT instead as most of the Lynx are in West Germany anyway and could share Germany Army stocks.

 

[Hood]

On the topic of missiles Britain acquired no fewer than 4 (& 1/2 or 5 depending on how you look at it) anti ship missiles: MARTel (TV & ARM), Exocet, Sub-Harpoon/Harpoon and Sea Eagle. Surely there's scope for the worlds 3rd most powerful navy with a big air force to come up with a world class anti-ship missile family for a reasonable price.

Missing Sea Skua off that list though, so the tally is higher.

Sea Eagle comes out of Martel, so really is a bonus extra. I think more could have been done with the Martel series.
Buying Exocet MM.40 instead of Harpoon was an option, or not bothering to fit the Counties with Exocet and buying Harpoon off the bat.

 

[zen]

If we fund Anti-ship Martel which became Sea Eagle and considering much work was done on a submarine launched version. This really should have become the solution across the board.
Arguably the nuclear option should have been pursued.

Some of this could have been earlier.

The best earlier option seems to be Fairey's Sea Skimmer.
But....
But the most work done was Green Cheese earlier still and Blue Boar TV guided bomb.

Outside of this the Swedes fielded a modified drone from the French to become Europes first Anti-ship Missile.

Both the French and Italians pursued very competent Anti-ship Missile programs. Both were considered for the RN.

 

[A Tentative Fleet Plan]

Ordering SACLOS-Vigilante in lieu of Milan would have been a good idea.

I would prefer Otomat instead of MM40.

 

[zen]

Otomat does meet the higher requirement of Fleetfoot, Exocet the lower.
Sea Killer was a lower end option as well.

 

[PMN1]

Green Cheese (1950's)
Blue Slug (Anti-ship Seaslug)
Fairey Sea Skimmer
Vague studies early 60’s
RAN Womba (Anti-ship Ikara)
Fleetfoot
Anti-ship Sea Dart
Sea Eagle

Fleetfoot?

 

[zen]

Fleetfoot

RN studies and requirements for Anti-ship Missiles. I'd have to check but during the 60's.

 

[Rule of cool]

we fund Anti-ship Martel which became Sea Eagle and considering much work was done on a submarine launched version. This really should have become the solution across the board.

I'm inclined to agree with this approach. If France and Germany can develop an active radar seeker in the early-mid 70s then surely Britain can too. Then is a matter of attaching it to a Martel, putting a booster and putting it in a tube.

 

[Scott Kenny]

Green Cheese (1950's)
Blue Slug (Anti-ship Seaslug)
Fairey Sea Skimmer
Vague studies early 60’s
RAN Womba (Anti-ship Ikara)
Fleetfoot
Anti-ship Sea Dart
Sea Eagle

For Blue Slug and antiship Sea Dart, how much of that was different from the SAMs?

I mean, Talos and Terrier (and Standard, later) had antiship modes designed in, and could use any missile in the magazine for antiship work. Plus, Talos proved to be a terrifying antiship missile between sheer speed and atomized fuel.

 

[Siberia]

CVA-01 is not a paper ship because long-lead items to the value of £3.5 million were on order by January 1966.

CVA-01 was never built, never went through trials to identify any weaknesses, and was never in operational service. Sounds like a fairly paper ship to me.

 

[A Tentative Fleet Plan]

For Blue Slug and antiship Sea Dart, how much of that was different from the SAMs?

I mean, Talos and Terrier (and Standard, later) had antiship modes designed in, and could use any missile in the magazine for antiship work. Plus, Talos proved to be a terrifying antiship missile between sheer speed and atomized fuel.

https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/british-long-range-shipborne-anti-ship-and-surface-missiles-1962-70.12273/#post-128403

The Blue Slug SSM was intended to allow giuided missile destroyers without carrier support to outrange large Soviet cruisers. Designed to use the same equipment as Sea Slug; i.e. same launcher and Type 901 beam-guidance radar, it has been described as being a Sea Slug without the main wings, carrying a Red Angel Warhead and a Red Dean seeker.

NavWeaps Forums-Sea-skimming Sea Dart.

In 1969 Hawker Siddley Dynamics (HSD) proposed an anti-ship sea-skimming variant in which the ramjet sustainer would have been fuelled with Shelldyne

www.tapatalk.com

In 1969 Hawker Siddley Dynamics (HSD) proposed an anti-ship sea-skimming variant in which the ramjet sustainer would have been fuelled with Shelldyne instead of kerosene. As Shelldyne was denser it would have given the missile a significantly greater range, approximately 37km (the same range as the missile in the conventional 'up and over' trajectory) as opposed to 24km. The missile would have used the same CW radio altimeter as proposed for Seaslug; this altimeter was fitted to the Phantoms built for the FAA. It was intended to fit a semi-armour-piercing warhead immediately behind the nosecone, and move the electronics back into the space normally used by the radio fuze.

 

[Scott Kenny]

https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/british-long-range-shipborne-anti-ship-and-surface-missiles-1962-70.12273/#post-128403

NavWeaps Forums-Sea-skimming Sea Dart.

In 1969 Hawker Siddley Dynamics (HSD) proposed an anti-ship sea-skimming variant in which the ramjet sustainer would have been fuelled with Shelldyne

www.tapatalk.com

Thank you.

So, completely different missiles, then, and not an alternate mode of using the AA missiles. Unfortunate. Having an alternate mode for the AA missiles is much preferable for magazine capacity reasons.

 

[starviking]

Thank you.

So, completely different missiles, then, and not an alternate mode of using the AA missiles. Unfortunate. Having an alternate mode for the AA missiles is much preferable for magazine capacity reasons.

I guess it depends on operational choices.

Use of an altimeter, and the talk about Shelldyne matching the up-and-over range suggests a sea-skimmer.

Did the dual-purpose USN missiles have a sea-skimming capability? Or were they just fired to a higher altitude on a path to the target ship?

 

[zen]

Did the dual-purpose USN missiles have a sea-skimming capability? Or were they just fired to a higher altitude on a path to the target ship?

Ballistic I think.
There was even a Terrier based INS missile called Taurus offered.

Only Harpoon changed this.

 

[A Tentative Fleet Plan]

Taurus was a land-attack missile.

 

[Scott Kenny]

I guess it depends on operational choices.

Use of an altimeter, and the talk about Shelldyne matching the up-and-over range suggests a sea-skimmer.

Did the dual-purpose USN missiles have a sea-skimming capability? Or were they just fired to a higher altitude on a path to the target ship?

Talos was definitely ballistic-ish. Flying at a high altitude and then diving down almost vertically onto the target ship.

Not sure about the others, but I'd suspect the same high altitude flight path.

 

[Rule of cool]

Talos was definitely ballistic-ish. Flying at a high altitude and then diving down almost vertically onto the target ship.

Pretty terrifying if you're on the target ship I'd think.

 

[Scott Kenny]

Pretty terrifying if you're on the target ship I'd think.

50% heavier airframe (~3300lbs versus 1900) with ~50% more explosive (215ish lbs versus 150**), and impacting at nearly twice the speed of a 16" HE shell (Mach 3 terminal dive, ~1000m/s versus impacting at ~500m/s). A single Talos hit would probably kill any ship cruiser or smaller, split the ship in half.

** Officially, Talos has a 465lb continuous-rod warhead, but that's including the weight of the rods. Okieboat says that there was about 215lbs of boom in a Talos.

 

[Rule of cool]

I've watched a YouTube video about the USA USSR naval standoff associated with the 1973 Yom Kippur war.

It talks about the Talos armed USS Little Rock being the most powerful surface combatant, and that sounds about right given the Talos weapons effects.

 

[BlackBat242]

I've watched a YouTube video about the USA USSR naval standoff associated with the 1973 Yom Kippur war.

It talks about the Talos armed USS Little Rock being the most powerful surface combatant, and that sounds about right given the Talos weapons effects.

Don't forget the 3x6"/47 guns (one triple turret) and the 2x5"/38 (one twin mount).

 

[Rule of cool]

Don't forget the 3x6"/47 guns (one triple turret) and the 2x5"/38 (one twin mount).

The Independence, escorted by Little Rock, was being shadowed by a Kynda class cruiser while the FDR was being shadowed by a Sverdlov class cruiser.

BTW the British playing a part in the 1973 Arab-Israeli war to its own benefit is what I envisage to be the benefit of a British virtuous circle. Perhaps the RN has a naval Task Force in the Med, certainly TSR2s and multi-role Lightnings in Cyprus to threaten intervention and Belfasts and VC10s to conduct an airlift. Additionally more Lightning and other equipment exports in the Mid East (maybe Iran, Iraq and Jordan) gives Britain to embargo or support to advance its interests.

 

[Purpletrouble]

The US is starting to find itself in the same jam for building warships as the UK was in the 60s.
CVNs are built in smaller numbers over longer times. Maintaining more than about ten modern carriers may be difficult.
Escorts too are now down to one high end (CGX) and one low end (FFG).
One class of SSN and one SSBN cant be built in the numbers of the Cold War.
Managing shipyards will be challenging.

Exactly,

The LCS is basically the high speed Type 19 alongside the AB (aka Type 82). Only the US were daft enough to build it and ignored even more historical evidence since that if you want high speed for surveillance and attack in the littoral, use something that has rotors.

The US isnt in our exact position as it isnt facing the existential carrier decision and did build LCS plus lots of AB - but relatively so the parallels are very marked.

 

[Rule of cool]

I was reading some stuff from 1966 from Americans who were involved in the deliberations for initial sale of combat aircraft to Israel, and the linked sale of fighters to Jordan. This dude was agonising about the US taking on the mantle of supplying Israel rather than supporting the Europeans such as France and Germany, but time was running out and it appeared inevitable that the US would take over.

Israel wanted A6s to balance Egyptian Tu16s and Syrian Il28s, but the US wasn't keen for several reasons, preferring to offer A4s instead.

This got me thinking about this scenario where Britain is backing it's handful of aircraft to the hilt and not wasting resources on flights of fancy. Perhaps Israel could buy Buccaneers with US aid money instead US aircraft. Further the US could support Jordan getting used, refurbished Lightning F1/F1As rather than used USAF F104As, again with US aid money. This could kick the can down the road a bit further, which appears to be what the US wants, while thwarting Jordan from getting cheap MIgs due to pressure of her Arab neighbors.

 

[Scott Kenny]

This got me thinking about this scenario where Britain is backing it's handful of aircraft to the hilt and not wasting resources on flights of fancy. Perhaps Israel could buy Buccaneers with US aid money instead US aircraft. Further the US could support Jordan getting used, refurbished Lightning F1/F1As rather than used USAF F104As, again with US aid money. This could kick the can down the road a bit further, which appears to be what the US wants, while thwarting Jordan from getting cheap MIgs due to pressure of her Arab neighbors.

Almost all US military assistance dollars need to be spent on US made equipment. You may be able to make an argument for buying the stuff to make an ammunition factory and a gunpowder plant from someone not the US, but good luck buying fighters or tanks.

 

[Rule of cool]

Almost all US military assistance dollars need to be spent on US made equipment. You may be able to make an argument for buying the stuff to make an ammunition factory and a gunpowder plant from someone not the US, but good luck buying fighters or tanks.

That is the situation now, and has been since at least the early 70s, but I don't know how well that was all bedded down in the mid 60s. The way it read the US wanted stay stay out of supplying Israel so was happy to pay for Israel to buy equipment from Europe. Apparently Hawk SAMs were the first thing the US sold Israel and tanks the second in 1965.

The prices were interesting, $62m for 24 A6s, $24m for 24 A4s and Mirage IVs were $5m apiece. The US thought A6s were too expensive for Israel.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

The first paragraph of the OP.

There have been several discussions about the British aircraft of the 60s since I started here a few weeks ago, apparently it's a never ending topic. They appear to start out technically and end financially and politically in a viscous circle of failure. In the process some interesting and profound stuff has been said.

Does the British economy as a whole perform better ITTL? Or is it solely civil aviation and the part of British industry that formed the industrial part of the UK's military-industrial-complex? If it's the former there's more money for HM Forces if the proportion of GNP spent on defence is the same as IOTL.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

The first paragraph of the OP.

Does the British economy as a whole perform better ITTL? Or is it solely civil aviation and the part of British industry that formed the industrial part of the UK's military-industrial-complex? If it's the former there's more money for HM Forces if the proportion of GNP spent on defence is the same as IOTL.

@Rule of cool . . . if that is allowed what I think is reasonable is that the British economy gradually improves from 1957 until the early 1970s when it's equal to West Germany and remains about level with West Germany until the end of the Cold War, which is where my interest in alternative history ends.

With one important exception the cuts in the size of HM Forces from 1957 to 1971 (when the EoS withdrawal was completed) are the same as IOTL. However, the Mason Review of 1974-75 doesn't happen and HM Forces were maintained at their 1971-74 size until the end of the Cold War.

The one important exception is that the strike carriers weren't phased out and a force of three ships was maintained from the late 1960s to the end of the Cold War. This would include three replacements built sometime between the middle 1960s and the middle 1980s. The OTL Invincible class wouldn't be built but a class of 3 LPH (or LHD) type vessels would be built in their place as replacements for the existing commando carriers.

 

[Rule of cool]

I'm not an economist, nor do I know about the general government decisions that would improve the economy overall. However I have little doubt that a virtuous circle in the industries that support the military; aviation, heavy engineering, electronics and other high value manufacturing would boost the economy somewhat. As mentioned earlier 100 extra VC10 Super 200s might earn Britain USD$700,000,000m that wouldn't otherwise have been earned, Medway-Trident might add hundreds of millions more, a Dutch order of 468 Rolls Royce V8 powered Chieftains would be a hefty whack as would Lightnings and Buccaneers sold to West Germany, to say nothing of getting in on the Mid East arms bazaar with Chieftains, Bloodhounds, Lightnings, Buccaneers and Harrier GR1s.

As for the size of British forces, I think a virtuous circle would reduce some of the 'push' factors and subsequent problems of equipment obsolescence, wasted or highly expensive development efforts and high costs of ownership deriving from small fleet numbers. It's no coincidence that the decision to withdraw EoS came exactly at the time when Britain would need to spend huge money on CVA01 & 02 as well as F111k for that role as well as F4M and C130K for the Home and NATO roles. Reduce/remove some of these pressures and the Government's options look quite different, after all the new Wilson government in 1965 expected to remain EoS indefinitely and in 1966 to remain until 1975 despite facing very challenging equipment circumstances required to maintain this presence.

 

[pathology_doc]

Did the dual-purpose USN missiles have a sea-skimming capability? Or were they just fired to a higher altitude on a path to the target ship?

Talos could be flown in command mode during the beam-riding phase, arcing above the target and coming down on it, with SARH being switched on at the last instant as a surprise. Both nuclear Talos and nuclear Terrier were restricted to beam riding exclusively, the doctrine being that nuclear-tipped guided missiles must remain under positive control from launch to impact; thus the SARH terminal guidance of nuclear Talos was removed (no interferometer rods) or deactivated before launch, and all the Terriers that had nuclear warheads were of the beam-riding BT-3 variety, rather than the late-model SARH variants.

Both SARH Standard and the earlier Tartar were fired against ships in test, but I think they were up and overs. I'll have a look at Friedman's US Naval Weapons tonight and see if he has more to say. Friedman does mention that for anti-ship use, Talos was actually more devastating if the warhead was switched OFF, so that its mass penetrated deep into the target rather than exploding superficially on the superstructure (as it had been designed to do for aircraft). Remember that Talos is a liquid-fuelled ramjet with a hundred-plus mile range in its final form, and you can imagine how much jet fuel is still aboard after a hit at horizon distance.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

I'm not an economist, nor do I know about the general government decisions that would improve the economy overall. However I have little doubt that a virtuous circle in the industries that support the military; aviation, heavy engineering, electronics and other high value manufacturing would boost the economy somewhat. As mentioned earlier 100 extra VC10 Super 200s might earn Britain USD$700,000,000m that wouldn't otherwise have been earned, Medway-Trident might add hundreds of millions more, a Dutch order of 468 Rolls Royce V8 powered Chieftains would be a hefty whack as would Lightnings and Buccaneers sold to West Germany, to say nothing of getting in on the Mid East arms bazaar with Chieftains, Bloodhounds, Lightnings, Buccaneers and Harrier GR1s.

As for the size of British forces, I think a virtuous circle would reduce some of the 'push' factors and subsequent problems of equipment obsolescence, wasted or highly expensive development efforts and high costs of ownership deriving from small fleet numbers. It's no coincidence that the decision to withdraw EoS came exactly at the time when Britain would need to spend huge money on CVA01 & 02 as well as F111k for that role as well as F4M and C130K for the Home and NATO roles. Reduce/remove some of these pressures and the Government's options look quite different, after all the new Wilson government in 1965 expected to remain EoS indefinitely and in 1966 to remain until 1975 despite facing very challenging equipment circumstances required to maintain this presence.

FWIW my opinion is that If British industry is better at making military equipment (which it appears to be in your TL) then it's reasonable to for it to be better at making non-military goods too. E.g. if the shipbuilding industry can deliver warships on time and at cost in your TL it's reasonable for it to be better at making merchant ships. Or if the British electronics industry is better at making military electronics, it's probably better at making TVs, radios & civil computers as well. Perhaps a British motor industry that builds tanks & AFVs to a higher standard in terms of build quality & reliability could also build motor cars to a half-decent standard in terms of build quality & reliability. Lucas Industries improving its quality control springs immediately to mind.

 

[uk 75]

West Germany (unlike its present day replacement) offers many clues to what a successful UK might have looked like from 1955 to 1975.
Advised by British politicians, civil servants and trades unionists German governments avoided the short-termism and industrial strife which dogged Britain.
Events also meant that Germany did not have to police a former empire or develop its own nuclear deterrent.
By focussing on a social market economy and developing weapons for certain key NATO roles West Germany had an army and air force with facilities the Brits could only dream of.
The Britain this thread hankers after is closer to France than West Germany.
France did and does have the kind of " virtuous circle" this thread seeks for the UK.
Unfortunately the French model requires a well educated technocratic class which Britain's arts and social sciences based political class was and is as different as English and French cheese.

 

[Rule of cool]

FWIW my opinion is that If British industry is better at making military equipment (which it appears to be in your TL) then it's reasonable to for it to be better at making non-military goods too. E.g. if the shipbuilding industry can deliver warships on time and at cost in your TL it's reasonable for it to be better at making merchant ships. Or if the British electronics industry is better at making military electronics, it's probably better at making TVs, radios & civil computers as well. Perhaps a British motor industry that builds tanks & AFVs to a higher standard in terms of build quality & reliability could also build motor cars to a half-decent standard in terms of build quality & reliability. Lucas Industries improving its quality control springs immediately to mind.

Apart from the appalling Leyland L60 engine in the Chieftain tank I don't know if British military gear or aircraft lacked quality, I think the problem was quantity. I think greater quantity can lead to positive spin-offs by creating a critical mass to foster further development, for example a big fleet of Lightnings would likely mean the development of the Red Top Mk2 and/or Radar Red Top as well as other things that were proposed and even developed but not produced.

That said the TSR2 development lead to Britain's first integrated circuit and data bus, which will have positive spin offs for the wider economy. However I don't know if these things will lift the economy overall, so I don't go down that path.

 

[Rule of cool]

West Germany (unlike its present day replacement) offers many clues to what a successful UK might have looked like from 1955 to 1975.
Advised by British politicians, civil servants and trades unionists German governments avoided the short-termism and industrial strife which dogged Britain.
Events also meant that Germany did not have to police a former empire or develop its own nuclear deterrent.
By focussing on a social market economy and developing weapons for certain key NATO roles West Germany had an army and air force with facilities the Brits could only dream of.
The Britain this thread hankers after is closer to France than West Germany.
France did and does have the kind of " virtuous circle" this thread seeks for the UK.
Unfortunately the French model requires a well educated technocratic class which Britain's arts and social sciences based political class was and is as different as English and French cheese.

Short termism is a real killer for the British in this period, it was a temporary slump in the airline industry in 1958 that caused the executives of BOAC and BEA demand the VC10 and Tridents be shrunk. Then there's Duncan 'interim' Sandys and his dogma.

A different outlook on the part of maybe 100 key people in government or government related positions could see the sorts of results I'd like come to pass.

 

[red admiral]

From an economics perspective then the rate of return (i.e. GDP growth) from government investment in Defence is much poorer than other sectors; often negative for Defence spending. The same is true from the Aerospace sector. Lots of immediate postwar UK economic strategy was to move resources (including people) from defence to other sectors. e.g. Hawkers making aluminium beer barrels and pans - there's a much larger and assured market for these

So the additional government spending on this vs other priorities from this scenario could easily be argued to make the UK economy smaller.

 

[zen]

Complex topics this. Economics technology and military.

More Avons.....could that trigger navalisation?
As it is an Avon was developed for electrical power generation I think.
A marine GT might pave the way for marine Spey.

Computers. The more of that the better. But the benefits feed through slowly.
Electronic components. The more domestic demand the greater the lure of domestic production.

Always remember it was the Navy's need for standardised components and products that helped trigger the Industrial Revolution.

 

[red admiral]

It's all very complex and impossible to really say how things would have changed. More spillover effects into the general economy from Science and Technology spending, but that's quite different from simply building more of the same stuff. And who knows how things pan out e.g. the marine Avon example - there was already the marine MetroVick turbines but this then didn't go anywhere.

David Edgerton has a few books on UK economy and the military/aviation that gives further detail and I'd recommend simply for a different viewpoint on these issues.

 

[Hood]

I would second Red Admiral's recommendation, David Edgerton is well worth a read, especially Warfare State (not a cheap book though, think its £40 and is an academic book). Penguin did reprint his England and Aeroplane about a decade ago, Britain's War Machine covers WW2 and The Rise and Fall of the British Nation has some thought provoking arguments too.