County Class Destroyers: Alternative options for development

The problem is that the Counties were designed around the Seaslug missile, and missiles become obsolete much faster than warships. Seaslug was very much first generation, and much better alternatives came along fairly quickly.

So what to do with the Counties? Not a lot. You could have rebuilt them to take much more modern missiles, but that would have been expensive, and they were very large vessels for their role.

You would be better off starting again from scratch.
Then we start the development of the Type 22's to provide command and control for complex ASW missions and eventually the towed array sonar. The biggest problem the T22 had with that mission was their gas turbine machinery which limited the use of towed array, noisy brutes. So more Leanders are chopped up so their quiet steam propulsion can get more from towed array. But they are so small they get stripped of pretty much everything else. So you have two ships required to operate the towed array, command systems and a smaller aviation complement. Expensive way of doing business into the 80s and 90s.

Gas Turbines are quieter than Steam Turbines (and Diesels), and the sound they emit is at higher frequencies and therefore propagates less (not to mention using bleed air from the compressors for Masker and Prairie/Agouti), that's why they were selected for the Type 22s and Spruances, minimal acoustic signature being strict requirements for both.
 
Last edited:
Seaslug was very much first generation, and much better alternatives came along fairly quickly.
That being said, look at the way Tartar and the front half of Terrier evolved into whatever version of Standard we're up to now, with associated changes on the launch platforms (Terrier started out beam riding; late versions and the evolution into Standard ER were SARH from the same ships). The missile itself isn't much different to look at; what's inside has changed immeasurably.
 
The US Navy was able to use loads of SH3s and S2s on carriers when it built the Farraguts. The RN was forced to put helos on its escorts.
 
The USN got better value from their equivalent of the County class thanks to better designed weapons which evolved with the threat

The US had significantly more money to throw at development and evolution.
They also didn't have to concern themselves as much with organic air units on the DLGs. I'd like to see what a Terrier ship looks like when it has to allow for hangar facilities. (Actually, we know what it looks like when taken to its logical extreme - it's HMS Invincible, with the Vittorio Veneto somewhere in the middle.)
 
I think that is valid. The big Countys were not just carrier eacorts they could also provide the basis for a Surface Action Group (SAG).
 
When the RAN went to the UK wanting a Tartar, steam only County with extra helicopters, the RN responded that what they were specifying was closer to the under-development Escort Cruiser.
 
The USN got better value from their equivalent of the County class thanks to better designed weapons which evolved with the threat


It's a pity the USN never managed to shoehorn a helicopter into its DLGs. That's the one place where the Counties had a distinct advantage.
Belknaps had a helo, Dash originally but later a Seasprite.

You're correct. No idea how I forgot that.

Of course, it took a ship 30% heavier and 27-feet longer than the County for the USN to manage it...
 
As the Counties were the byproduct of the GW series (Actually County was GW54A ) so a Talos or Terrier missile conversion seems feasable as the Talos was considered for at least one design (GW 51) and the early USN Missile cruiser conversions featured a similar long horizontal storage and loading areas as installed on the Counties.
The sextuple box launcher of the Sea Wolf Seems a good replacement for the Seacat as well.
I'm not sure it would be cost efficient to replace the Sea Slug with Sea Dart.

Most of the proposed mods in that Aviation & Marine drawing would have been technically difficult and/or very expensive, except bolting SSMs on in lieu of the B mount, which was actually done to the RN ships.

The sextuple Sea Wolf ended up being considerably bigger and heavier than Sea Cat and was not a direct replacement . The four-round Lightweight Sea Wolf was considered as more of a drop-in replacement. The two-tube Sea Wolf shown here had belowdeck automatic reloads, which might be hard to retrofit, depending on what actually sat below Sea Cat in these ships.

Retrofitting Sea Dart as shown would require a totally different horizontal-loading magazine, which might require missile changes if Sea Dart was designed only to take shock loads while standing upright, not horizontally, in the magazine (some missiles care, some don't).

Retrofitting Terrier seems like it would make sense, but it could end up being very expensive. I have no idea whether the Terrier loading and handling rooms would actually fit inside the Sea Slug "tunnel." It's a fairly precise layout it fit inside an existing space. US ships either built all new deckhouses (for conversions) or wrapped the ship design around the missile spaces (new designs).

They were going to replace the Sea Slug with Sea Dart? Why was that?

That was a hypothetical for the possible sale of Devonshire to Egypt.
I saw a YouTube video years ago about Seadart... long term storage was horizontal in a remote magazine, they were transferred in the video horizontally in their storage box via a just slightly bigger than the box tunnel to the upper part of the launcher/missile room. They were taken out of the box and fueled, then loaded into the vertical magazine. From what I have gathered over the years the seals on them weren't good for long term horizontal fuel storage, perfectly fine vertically but you couldn't have them lay flat for really long amounts of time before they started to leak which makes a really flammable mess.

Fix the leaky seal issue and the dimensions of Seaslug and SeaDart are close enough that it is not unreasonable to assume you could swap them.
 
I saw a YouTube video years ago about Seadart... long term storage was horizontal in a remote magazine, they were transferred in the video horizontally in their storage box via a just slightly bigger than the box tunnel to the upper part of the launcher/missile room. They were taken out of the box and fueled, then loaded into the vertical magazine. From what I have gathered over the years the seals on them weren't good for long term horizontal fuel storage, perfectly fine vertically but you couldn't have them lay flat for really long amounts of time before they started to leak which makes a really flammable mess.

None of this is accurate. No ship at sea ever carried Sea Dart in horizontal magazines, nor were there remote storage magazines on ships separate from the primary magazine adjacent to the launcher. Sea Dart used storable kerosene fuel and was always stored fully fueled at sea.

Here is a drawing of an actual Sea Dart magazine. Only one missile shown but you can see where the others would be racked up on their trollies, all stowed vertically directly below the launcher.


1663179663407.png

And a picture of the full magazine:
1663179744270.png

And a link to a thread here with drawings of various early Sea Dart proposals, all of which show the planned magazine arrangements directly below the launchers:

 
I saw a YouTube video years ago about Seadart... long term storage was horizontal in a remote magazine, they were transferred in the video horizontally in their storage box via a just slightly bigger than the box tunnel to the upper part of the launcher/missile room. They were taken out of the box and fueled, then loaded into the vertical magazine. From what I have gathered over the years the seals on them weren't good for long term horizontal fuel storage, perfectly fine vertically but you couldn't have them lay flat for really long amounts of time before they started to leak which makes a really flammable mess.

None of this is accurate. No ship at sea ever carried Sea Dart in horizontal magazines, nor were there remote storage magazines on ships separate from the primary magazine adjacent to the launcher. Sea Dart used storable kerosene fuel and was always stored fully fueled at sea.

Here is a drawing of an actual Sea Dart magazine. Only one missile shown but you can see where the others would be racked up on their trollies, all stowed vertically directly below the launcher.


View attachment 684088

And a picture of the full magazine:
View attachment 684089

And a link to a thread here with drawings of various early Sea Dart proposals, all of which show the planned magazine arrangements directly below the launchers:

I am familiar...those are the ready launch magazines for the fueled birds. However they were transported horizontally when dry. The video showed the loading procedure wherein the dry bird was brought into the missile room, fueled and then loaded into the launch magazine. Now that could have been done at dock and this is how the missiles were brought on board and not dead storage somewhere in the ship I grant you, but that doesn't change that the missile was transported horizontally, and therefore could take some stress on that axis which is the question I was trying to answer.

I specifically say you could not store them fueled and therefore launch ready horizontally because of sealing issues, solve those and they are as usable from a horizontal launch as the Talos was. Seaslug was about 18 feet long and about 16 inches in diameter; SeaDart was 14 and 17 so it probably would have been a good thing to use Talos style seals and be able to retrofit the 8 County's. Replace A turret with the new 4.5 and do the same kind of Ikara conversion to B turret that they did on the Leander's and you nearly have yourself a type 82.
 
I'd really love to see this video, because what you're describing just doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

OK, so here is an image of the missile being loaded at sea. You can see it's shipped in its container, which encapsulates it until it is lowered down into the magazine. And yes, it appears that this shipping container was meant to be stowed horizontally aboard the supply ship. But such a container can secure a missile in ways that it can't be secured while stowed ready to launch. I think the Sea Dart handling systems aboard ship only grip the missile by the booster, which looks odd but is necessary (at least on the launcher) considering the missile upper stage is so much narrower than the booster.

As for fueling, I'd be very surprised if they didn't come aboard fully fueled, because fueling missiles at sea is sort of fraught and an invitation to problems. Storable kerosene fuel is a well-understood design element and fueling missiles at sea just means you have to have another kerosene tank somewhere and a bunch of fittings that are all prone to leak. No one has ever (AFAIK) had any issues with Harpoons full of JP-8 leaking aboard ship.

1663186403665.png
 
I'd really love to see this video, because what you're describing just doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

OK, so here is an image of the missile being loaded at sea. You can see it's shipped in its container, which encapsulates it until it is lowered down into the magazine. And yes, it appears that this shipping container was meant to be stowed horizontally aboard the supply ship. But such a container can secure a missile in ways that it can't be secured while stowed ready to launch. I think the Sea Dart handling systems aboard ship only grip the missile by the booster, which looks odd but is necessary (at least on the launcher) considering the missile upper stage is so much narrower than the booster.

As for fueling, I'd be very surprised if they didn't come aboard fully fueled, because fueling missiles at sea is sort of fraught and an invitation to problems. Storable kerosene fuel is a well-understood design element and fueling missiles at sea just means you have to have another kerosene tank somewhere and a bunch of fittings that are all prone to leak. No one has ever (AFAIK) had any issues with Harpoons full of JP-8 leaking aboard ship.

View attachment 684093
I am looking for video.. been at least four years since I saw it, and the information about the seals I did get from another forum (hence why I said "from that I have gathered" in the original post), so it could be faulty though it was from a trusted/knowlegable source. But the vide clearly showed them filling the missile with fuel... trust me I was as horrified as you but I figured if they can gas up a helicopter at sea *shrugs*.. will note that I saw the video after hearing the seal info on the forum, probably warship1 so it gave credence to it. I will also note that the container in the video was MUCH smaller, like it would fit inside of that one, it was basically a black box just a little bigger then the span of the fins.

Given that the US had ZERO issues storing Talos fueled horizontally and that the SeaDart and SeaSlug are so close in dimensions one would figure that they would at least consider retrofitting County's but it is the RN of the "WTF?" era and I have seen dumber things.

The ability to absorb some shock horizontally is the most important thing in the conversation, and given the difference between the box in the video and the box in your pic there is likely additional shock absorbent involved here.
If I find the video I will post it... yeah I understand ALL of your points, and fully agree.. part of the reason it stuck out to me was the why the flaming hell are you filling this thing with gas part
 
Last edited:
When the RAN went to the UK wanting a Tartar, steam only County with extra helicopters, the RN responded that what they were specifying was closer to the under-development Escort Cruiser.
That’s a real “WTF” moment, which brings up two possibilities:

1) The RAN didn’t really have a good handle on the effect of capabilities on ship size.

2) Someone wanted to buy US, and the redesign requests were made to stymie a RAN by of the County.

2 seems a bit conspiracy-theoryesque to me, but I don’t know enough about RAN politics of that time to discount it.

1 fits with common comments in DK Brown’s work about RN officers not understanding design factrors and their limitations.
 
When working on Seaslug (so long age now) the Sea Dart team were next door; Sea Dart was shipped as a fueled ready-to-shoot round. The absolute maximum stowage in the Type 42s was 20 missiles; take a look at this image DSCF1359_SeadartMagazine.png
It is from a TNA file on the proposal for an SSM variant but shows the stowage very well. The file number is visible at the top for anyone who wants to see it for themselves!

SRJ.
 
When working on Seaslug (so long age now) the Sea Dart team were next door; Sea Dart was shipped as a fueled ready-to-shoot round. The absolute maximum stowage in the Type 42s was 20 missiles; take a look at this imageView attachment 684117
It is from a TNA file on the proposal for an SSM variant but shows the stowage very well. The file number is visible at the top for anyone who wants to see it for themselves!

SRJ.
excellent information. I know what I saw in that video, and have zero reason to lie about it, so maybe I just misinterpreted what I was seeing... would they unload the fuel if they were doing maintenance aboard ship and what I was seeing was the missile being brought back from a maintaining room in another compartment?

Edit: The alternative is that I had a minor stroke, no seriously they found evidence of a small one during a scan
 
Last edited:
Maybe the video is of Sea Dart storage and maintenance at a depot? I could have sworn that there was a video somewhere covering Sea Dart maintenance at a shore establishment, that may well be the one you're remembering.
that may be, as I recall the video did not have audio so it was take your best guess and it was oddly named.. and mine was lacking.
 
Last edited:
When the RAN went to the UK wanting a Tartar, steam only County with extra helicopters, the RN responded that what they were specifying was closer to the under-development Escort Cruiser.
That’s a real “WTF” moment, which brings up two possibilities:

1) The RAN didn’t really have a good handle on the effect of capabilities on ship size.

2) Someone wanted to buy US, and the redesign requests were made to stymie a RAN by of the County.

2 seems a bit conspiracy-theoryesque to me, but I don’t know enough about RAN politics of that time to discount it.

1 fits with common comments in DK Brown’s work about RN officers not understanding design factrors and their limitations.
A former Australian Chief of Navy did his Phd Thesis on the acquisition of the Adams / Perth Class destroyers by the RAN and the effect it had on RAN engineering. Prior to the lessons learnt on the Perths the RAN had been totally reliant on the RN for ship design, and even the formulation of sensible requirements, the RAN had been purely operations and to a much lesser degree maintainers.

Australia is still, sadly, an economy that prioritises mining and primary produce and lets lawyers and financiers call all the shots, engineers and scientist, despite their achievements and global recognition, don't even get a seat at the table. (just look at the CV's of most in parliment, even a failed marketing manager can be PM bu not a single engineer or scientist).

Submarine sustainment for example, Australian naval architects and engineers proposed cutting the hull for major maintenance and were not allowed to, an overseas expert comes along and says, "hey why don't you cut the hull" and it happens. An Australian company proposes a schedule and workscope and is ignored, an overseas company puts their letter head on the same proposal, and it's signed off. Our best and brightest still need to go overseas to get the recognition they deserve; brains apparently don't have a place in the ANZAC legend.
 
Wrt County class, I’d like to have seen the Escort Cruiser strangled at birth, or just all post WW2 cruiser ideas banned by law. Thus keep focus on the DLG.

I am curious as to whether a Mk3 Sea Slug with SARH and a lighter director was possible - imitating US Terrier progression?

Possibly then redesign the back end to have 1 or even 2 directors superfiring and 2 hangars beside them opening directly onto the helipad. Sea Cat moved elsewhere or just binned. Perhaps a small beam (“broadbeamed County”) increase to help.

Possibly retrofit the Batch2s.

Batch1s I’d convert as DLHs, removing Sea Slug for larger hangar and pad for 2 Sea King and use them as escort group leaders. Maybe Ikara in place of the 4.5”s and later a towed areay (as had ADAWS).
 
I think actually the GWS.96 CG would had been a better choice
 
I think actually the GWS.96 CG would had been a better choice
That already had 2 directors, not many more Sea Slugs, no helicopters with guns and a crew demand far bigger than we needed plus a maintenance heavy 984 when we needed to develop a DLG sized 3D set.

I love it, but even in AHs I think its fantasy.
 
GW96A had a lot more Sea Slugs, 64 vs the County's originally planned 24. The latter number was increased in December 1957 to 39 by carrying disassembled rounds, but the the same could have been likely done with GW96A had it not been cancelled.

Of course the crew requirements alone kill GW96A as a viable alternative to the Countys.

Certainly the Counties seem to have been pretty easy to upgrade to cruiser standards of self-maintenance and endurance, Study 22A achieved this by increasing displacement to 8,621 tons, having heavier (1000 tons) Y.121 steam machinery (compared to 895 for Y.102), increasing beam to 58ft, with vital spaces and missiles protected by 60lbs vertically and 40lbs horizontally.
 
Can we clarify that the GWS.96 was a Guided Weapons Cruiser, the ultimate outcome of new cruiser studies postwar and was abandoned in 1957.
This was a ship with two twin turret automatic 6"/L50 guns and Seaslug with two Type 901 as well as the Type 984.
No Helicopters.

While the Escort Cruiser began in 1959 and vicariously studied with armament of twin 3"/L70 guns, Seaslug and Tartar. Settling on 6 to 8 Helicopters after a forey out to 22 early on.
 

Similar threads

Please donate to support the forum.

Back
Top Bottom