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RLBH,


Your numbers are not that far out; whenever same year cost numbers are seen for the Type 82 and Type 42 they show a Type 42 being roughly 60% the cost of a Type 82. (Figures in Friedman and Rebuilding the RN). For instance, the 1967 estimates have Type 82 at £17 million and Type 42 at £10.5 million. Type 42s were designed to (it varied as the specification shifted) between £10.5 and £12 million and were £13.5 by the end of 1968. HMS Cardiff seems to have been ordered on a tender price of £15 million (but ended up twice that, apparently due primarily to labour shortages). Ed Hampshire describes the Type 42 as being half the cost of a Type 82.


Your capabilities list is quite comprehensive but there is one piece missing. All to often forgotten is that the Type 42 had the same sonar fit as HMS Bristol, it just used Lynx and onboard torpedo tubes for ASW weapons delivery so once you get past the headline of the Ikara system you actually find that you lose a significant amount of ASW capability too by having fewer Bristol's rather than more Type 42s.


Type 82 seems to be a lesson in what happens when you design a ship without actually stopping to worry about the costs until its too late. Type 82 started out as a Leander replacement, by mid-1963 it was estimated as being as much as three times as expensive as a Leander and in 1965 the design was estimated as being as expensive as a County class destroyer- and the cost just kept going up. It really is no wonder that the NIGS concept never went anywhere in that context. The decision to pursue smaller all gas-turbine ships was a very sensible move that paid dividends for the next three decades. Possibly the only significant change I would make would be to have listened to some of the voices within the RN design community that were pushing for a bit more length (30 or 40ft depending on the source) and displacement (about 600 tons according to R.J Daniel) in the initial Type 42 design.


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