Tiger class cruisers; Love, hate or adore?

[Archibald]

French cruiser Colbert (C611) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

HMS Tiger (C20) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Those two seemed to have been of almost similar tonnage. And the french manage to ram a complete MASURCA launcher into the Colbert hull.
How big was a SeaSlug ? MASURCA was 450 tons.

counting the entire weapon system as a whole, the weight was closer to 450 t (440 long tons; 500 short tons).

 

[EwenS]

The 4" magazine on the Belfasts was forward of the machinery spaces and under the catapult deck. The description of the ammunition arrangements given in Raven & Roberts, "British Cruisers" is as follows.:-

"One feature, not altogether desirable, was the distance which the 4in ammunition had to be transported after it arrived from the magazines at forecastle deck level. Transportation from the point of exit at the after end of the flight deck was by means of trolleys along along a sort of railway, a complicated arrangement which in action could easily be disrupted."

The foremost pair of 4in mounts sit directly over the forward end of the forward engine room, the next pair at the foremost end of the after boiler room and the aftmost pair (until removed 1944/45) over the after end of the after boiler room..

I've got no drawings or photographs of this arrangement.

Edit:- I see from Arjen's post that the shell hoists (marked SH) are immediately aft of the cranes.

 

[Dilandu]

Those two seemed to have been of almost similar tonnage. And the french manage to ram a complete MASURCA launcher into the Colbert hull.
How big was a SeaSlug ? MASURCA was 450 tons.

Well, it depend heavily on how exactly it would be arranged. The "County"-class "long lane" type magazine arrangement was essentially dictated by two specific demands:

* That missiles could be moved and loaded manually, in case of electrical failure - therefore the horizontal arrangement with the missiles stored one after another in line
* That there would not be single point of massive detonation in case of ship being hit - therefore the very long magazine, where explosion of one missile would not cause cascade explosions

The result was a "long lane" magazine:



Now, in case of Tiger-class:



I suppose, that if we arrange the magazine system a bit differently - if we put long-storage magazine under the ready-use magazine, with two-tier check room serving also as elevator room for moving missiles from one tier to another - we could just squeeze the whole arrangement inside the superstructure, between launcher on ship's stern and rear funnel. It wouldn't be the best solution, of course, but it would be as close to existing design for County as possible.

Alternatively, a Gridle Ness-type multi-tier magazine could be used; it would trade length for height.

 

[EwenS]

Dilandu
From the profile diagrams I have of the internal layout of Tiger, it appears that your lower blue check room will encroach on the after boiler room and the funnel uptakes.

While the boilers in the forward boiler room were placed side by side, that in the after boiler room were were in line on the ship's centreline. The boiler room itself extends all the way up quarterdeck level and the after bulkhead is around the aerial you have between the aft funnel & the 3" gunhouse.

 

[Dilandu]

From the profile diagrams I have of the internal layout of Tiger, it appears that your lower blue check room will encroach on the after boiler room and the funnel uptakes.

Thank you for the data! The magazine for Tiger must be made shorter, then. Something like such:

 

[EwenS]

Is it true that the original raison d'être for Tiger class helicopter cruiser conversions was that they'd be commando cruisers instead of ASW cruisers? If that's correct does anyone know how many Royal Marines they'd carry? At the time it was standard practice for RN capital ships and cruisers to have a detachment of Royal Marines anyway. Does anyone know how many Royal Marines were part of the complement of 716 men when they were gun cruisers and 885 after their conversions to helicopter cruisers?

IIRC the number of RM commandos was increased from 3 to 5 as a result of the Sandys Defence Review. That was because paying off most of the big ships allowed the formation of the 2 additional commandos. Which was in spite of the total number of Royal Marines being reduced by a few thousand.

Everything I have read about Tiger & Blake was about ASW conversion and not commando cruisers.

However in late 1961 there was a proposal to convert Belfast as an amphibious transport & landing ship. This would have involved
1. removal of X & Y turrets and as much of the after superstructure as could be undertaken in a 6 month conversion period.
2. Creation of a flight deck 160ft long with 2 spots for Wessex sized helicopters.
3. 2 hangars replacing the after superstructure, 40mm guns etc (2 required due to angle of after funnel splitting the area) these would accomodate 4 Wessex.
4. space under the flight deck used for troop accomodation (requirement was for 2 companies c260 personnel)
5. replacement of the 4" guns with 4 LCA. in davits.

 

[DWG]

Scan from Anatomy of the Ship - The Cruiser Belfast by Ross Watton, Conway 1985.
Shell hoists marked SH, immediately abaft catapult.
PM for bigger scan.

Ah, right, now I see where I went completely wrong! I think what I was looking at in the drawing in Friedman are the blast deflectors (?) on the deck above the 4" mountings, which I'd interpreted as a French torpilleur style looped arrangement, rather than an actual pair of rails running fore and aft, which are there now I look more carefully. And it also makes much more sense with the hoists forward of the funnel and therefore the machinery spaces.

And the consequences of all this is the machinery spaces are in the way of 3" mountings on P2, P3, Q2 and Q3, and even P1, Q1 might need shuffling forwards given EwenS' description of them as "directly over the forward end of the forward engine room"

 

[uk 75]

I am sure that either in Grove (Vanguard to Trident) or Wettern (Decline of British Seapower) there is a referemce to commandos rather than ASW for the Tigers.
Early artists impressions (I posted one a while back) showed a smaller shed than the hangar actually fitted and only two Wessex.

I suppose if one or two Tigers had got Seaslug 1 earlier than the County class in the late 50s like the US cruiser conversions it might have been worth it.

For all its faults Seaslug did give the RN a Terrier ship comparable with the Coontz class on 8 ships. Just a shame it could nt evolve.

Tiger and Blake had pretty useful careers as Command Cruisers as the carriers faded away.

 

[PMN1]

HMS Belfast as a landing cruiser, picture came from somewhere on this board.;

 

[Rule of cool]

The problem with the Tigers is the similar to the last front engine GP cars when the mid-engine Coopers appeared, or the last awesome piston engine fighters when the Me262, Metoer, Vampire and P80 appeared. They're good ships and have utility in the new environment, but that utility is declining without major changes.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

Everything I have read about Tiger & Blake was about ASW conversion and not commando cruisers.

However in late 1961 there was a proposal to convert Belfast as an amphibious transport & landing ship. This would have involved
1. removal of X & Y turrets and as much of the after superstructure as could be undertaken in a 6 month conversion period.
2. Creation of a flight deck 160ft long with 2 spots for Wessex sized helicopters.
3. 2 hangars replacing the after superstructure, 40mm guns etc (2 required due to angle of after funnel splitting the area) these would accommodate 4 Wessex.
4. space under the flight deck used for troop accommodation (requirement was for 2 companies c260 personnel)
5. replacement of the 4" guns with 4 LCA. in davits.

I am sure that either in Grove (Vanguard to Trident) or Wettern (Decline of British Seapower) there is a referemce to commandos rather than ASW for the Tigers.
Early artists impressions (I posted one a while back) showed a smaller shed than the hangar actually fitted and only two Wessex.

I suppose if one or two Tigers had got Seaslug 1 earlier than the County class in the late 50s like the US cruiser conversions it might have been worth it.

For all its faults Seaslug did give the RN a Terrier ship comparable with the Coontz class on 8 ships. Just a shame it could nt evolve.

Tiger and Blake had pretty useful careers as Command Cruisers as the carriers faded away.

For what it's worth Grove is where I remember reading it and (this may be a false memory but) Grove also wrote that a Statement on the Navy Estimates or a Statement on the Defence Estimates from circa 1963-64 said that the Tiger class were to be converted to commando helicopter carriers.

 

[pathology_doc]

That said, the idea of a RN Guided missile cruiser with an automatic 6-inch turret up front and 3x3-inch turrets for close-in defense make me fell starry-eyed!

Such a ship appears fictitiously in Gerry Anderson's UFO series. Archive footage of a Tiger and missile-handling operations one of the Counties are interspersed to give the impression of a Seaslug ship with a Tiger main gun turret.

 

[pathology_doc]

The problem with the Tigers is the similar to the last front engine GP cars when the mid-engine Coopers appeared, or the last awesome piston engine fighters when the Me262, Metoer, Vampire and P80 appeared. They're good ships and have utility in the new environment, but that utility is declining without major changes.

One other big problem is their size. They were originally laid down as evolved Fijis. If Churchill had got his big 9.2" cruisers started instead of Vanguard, the RN would have had a couple of most likely unfinished and unarmed large hulls entirely suitable for missile conversion. The Americans had the Clevelands, which were 1500 tons heavier than a Fiji to start, and the much bigger Baltimores to work with (no treaty restrictions at all), but even the Clevelands were at the limit of what they could handle with an area-defence SAM on board.

Being laid down as evolved Fijis brings the final problematic card to the table. A Tiger hull that went to the Falklands would have been older than just about all of its crew, possibly including its captain. Even had there been unlimited funds and time to reactivate and crew her, the phrase "worn out" comes to mind.

 

[Dilandu]

the RN would have had a couple of most likely unfinished and unarmed large hulls entirely suitable for missile conversion

Well, the RN actually have several light carriers in this state... and done nothing good with them.

 

[Grey Havoc]

Well, the RN actually have several light carriers in this state... and done nothing good with them.

Though that was primarily down to the Treasury and other parts of the post-World II Civil Service bureaucracy, I believe.

 

[Dilandu]

Though that was primarily down to the Treasury and other parts of the post-World II Civil Service bureaucracy, I believe.

True. Still, the Leviathan was around and its massive hull and large internal spaces allowed for much easier conversion into the missile-carrying warship.

 

[uk 75]

In discussing converting or retaining ships it is worth remembering that until the 70s the UK enjoyed full employment and rising wages for young workers. This made it harder to recruit skilled people.

 

[Dilandu]

So I decided to experiment with "minimal" reconstruction; the rear 6-inch DP turret got removed (thus freeing about 160 tons of upper weight) and a "County"-like Seaslug system is fitted inside rear superstructure and deck below it.

* The whole missile system setup basically adopted from "County"-class as much as possible
* The major difference is, that storage magazine is placed below the ready-use magazine, with communication through elevator in check-out room (and maybe auxilary elevator in loader room - for redundance)
* The ready-use magazine is "two-lane" type, with missiles stored in line, behind each other
* The check-out room is squeezed between rear 3-inch mounts, which probably would made possible only one missile being checked in time (on the other hand, we have level below, so it stand to reason that two missiles actually could be readied)
* The total missile ammo supply could probably be increased about 50-100% in compairson with "County"-class (i.e. 36-to-48 missiles, with 12 in ready use magazine and the rest in storage magazine)
* Two Type 901 radars are installed on rear superstructure (albeit I think that Royal Navy actually favored two-ends radar arrangement, so one radar may be set on forward superstructure)
* All three 3-inch mounts are retained

 

[EwenS]

I am sure that either in Grove (Vanguard to Trident) or Wettern (Decline of British Seapower) there is a referemce to commandos rather than ASW for the Tigers.
Early artists impressions (I posted one a while back) showed a smaller shed than the hangar actually fitted and only two Wessex.

Tucked away in a footnote in Conrad Waters recent book "British Fiji Class Cruisers and their derivatives" (I haven't read that far yet) is the following:-

"Some weight was also attached to the possibility of utilising the converted ships for emergency troop transportation and lift, reflecting a similar, previous helicopter conversion proposal for the cruiser Belfast. However, the importance attached to this secondary role seems to have declined by the time the adjustments to operate Sea King helicopters were made. Significantly, no specific provision for troop accommodation was made in the converted design."

The author, having delved into the Ships Cover, noted 3 options for them in Sept 1963.

Scheme X - flight deck for 1 Wessex rotors spread. Hangar stowage for 3. Removal of Y turret. Time 9 months, cost £1.25m.

Scheme Y - flight deck for 2 Wessex rotors spread (but landing one at a time). Hangar space for 4 Wessex. Maintenance facilities to destroyer standards. Accomodation for FAA personnel.48xMk48 torpedoes. Removal of Y, Q2 & Q3 turrets. Time 12 months, cost £1.5m

Scheme Z - flight deck space for 2 Wessex rotors spread. Space to land both at the same time. Hangar space for 4 Wessex. Maintenance facilities to destroyer standards, accomodation & TT as in Y. Removal of Y turret (and maybe some of thec3" guns depending on topweight considerations). Time 15 months, cost £1.5m revised to £2.0m in Oct.

Z was chosen for development in 1964. The major change subsequently was to place the hangar at the forward end of the flight deck so eliminating the need for a lift and its associated weight. (So original plan mjust have been for hangar under the flight deck). Conversion cost then estimated at £2m plus £2m to refit the ships to serve into the 1970s.

Notably no mention of troop accommodation in any of these, and if the hangar was to be under the flight deck, just where is the space to be found for them? As rebuilt the space under the flight deck became cabins and messes.

The author also reproduces a 1964 graphic in which the hangar appears shorter than the final design. That was by virtue of the Wessex being narrower when folded, so allowing 2 to be stowed side by side in each half of the hangar.

The author iincludes a plan with Sea King showing only 3 would fit across the beam of the ship parked length wise.The fourth Sea King was accommodated at the fore end of the hangar, positioned across the ship. That necessitated an increase in hangar length, which in turn shortened the flight deck and meant only one Sea King could be operated at a time. The revised layout also shows provision for another Sea King to be parked folded across the front of the hangar.

The first RN Sea King order was placed in June 1966.

Sea King width - 16ft 4in
Wessex width - c13ft (wheel track 12ft.)

 

[DWG]

Tucked away in a footnote in Conrad Waters recent book "British Fiji Class Cruisers and their derivatives" (I haven't read that far yet) is the following:-

"Some weight was also attached to the possibility of utilising the converted ships for emergency troop transportation and lift, reflecting a similar, previous helicopter conversion proposal for the cruiser Belfast. However, the importance attached to this secondary role seems to have declined by the time the adjustments to operate Sea King helicopters were made. Significantly, no specific provision for troop accommodation was made in the converted design."

That shift in emphasis may be due to the evolution of helicopter ASW capability. If you have minimal ASW capability then troop lift is going to be the major driver in helicopter conversions, but as ASW capability, and the Russian submarine threat, increase, ASW is going to become the main driver, with troop lift as an optional extra.

 

[DWG]

I've been looking through the Wartime and Post War Cruiser chapters in Friedman, and there's a contradiction WRT 3"/70 mountings and magazines. Page 268 in the Wartime chapter, discussing the evolution of the Minotaurs, explicitly says the magazines needed to be in the same fore and aft positions as the mountings. Whereas the diagrams of various proposals in the Post War sections clearly show a mix of magazine below the mounting (feeding the aft of three and splitting the machinery spaces), and magazine midway between two mountings (the forward pair of three, magazine forward of the machinery spaces).

Potentially magazine design evolved to handle inclined feed at the rate needed by the 3"/70 at some point between the two?

 

[EwenS]

I've been looking through the Wartime and Post War Cruiser chapters in Friedman, and there's a contradiction WRT 3"/70 mountings and magazines. Page 268 in the Wartime chapter, discussing the evolution of the Minotaurs, explicitly says the magazines needed to be in the same fore and aft positions as the mountings. Whereas the diagrams of various proposals in the Post War sections clearly show a mix of magazine below the mounting (feeding the aft of three and splitting the machinery spaces), and magazine midway between two mountings (the forward pair of three, magazine forward of the machinery spaces).

Potentially magazine design evolved to handle inclined feed at the rate needed by the 3"/70 at some point between the two?

No contradiction in my view. I think there might be some misunderstanding about how the ammunition for these guns was delivered from magazine to breech. Unlike the twin 6" Mk.26 it was not directly from magazine to breech. This description is from the Navweaps site with my emphasis.

"There are two endless chain hoists on the non-rotating structure which each supply 25 rounds per minute. Each hoist feeds two ready-ammunition hoppers that rotate with the guns. The ammunition is loaded by hand into four hoppers and from these are passed automatically to continuously rotating feed rings, hoists and conveyors up to the loading tray where it is pushed into the breech by means of a spring rammer."

Britain 3"/70 (7.62 cm) Mark 6 - NavWeaps

navweaps.com

Note the location of the hoist relative to the hoppers in the diagram.

So it is a three stage process.
1. Hoist from magazine to under deck handling room / gun bay
2. Transfer by hand from hoist to hoppers within the gun bay.
3. Automatic transfer from hoppers to another set of hoists and conveyers that transfer the the ammunition from the gun bay to the gun breech.

So there is in fact no need for the turret and guns to be positioned directly above the magazines IF you are prepared to accept some horizontal movement of ammunition within step 2. But that necessitates the hoist from magazine emerging outwith the gun bay itself. Looking at the post war cruiser designs on p296-297 of Friedman, angled hoists from 3in magazine to emerge in the gun bays would not work as they would intrude on the machinery spaces.

The Tiger class made use of the existing magazine arrangements from the Fiji class. Q1 was fed from that part of the ship occupied by the earlier magazine for B turret. Q2 & Q3 utilised the earlier 4in magazine that was located between the after boiler room and after engine room. In all cases there were two hoists that ran from magazine to the gun bay directly under each turret.

Having to transfer the ammunition horizontally of course complicates things but is similar to what happened with the Towns. With them Groups 1 & 2 placed the 4in magazine aft of the after engine room meaning ammunition needed transferred forward to all the 4in mounts. In the Belfasts the 4in magazine was, as discussed earlier, forward of the forward boiler room raising the need for horizontal transfer aft to all mounts. So manual handling like this was not unknown to the RN.

In essence this manual stage is the same as used by the USN for its twin 5in/38 mounts.

The Fiji design was better in this respect because the 4in magazine was between the after boiler and engine rooms. The hoists therefore emerged at forecastle deck level between the 4in mounts and immediately to their rear. It also improved resistance to damage.

 

[DWG]

No contradiction in my view. I think there might be some misunderstanding about how the ammunition for these guns was delivered from magazine to breech. Unlike the twin 6" Mk.26 it was not directly from magazine to breech. This description is from the Navweaps site with my emphasis.

...

So it is a three stage process.
1. Hoist from magazine to under deck handling room / gun bay
2. Transfer by hand from hoist to hoppers within the gun bay.
3. Automatic transfer from hoppers to another set of hoists and conveyers that transfer the the ammunition from the gun bay to the gun breech.

So there is in fact no need for the turret and guns to be positioned directly above the magazines IF you are prepared to accept some horizontal movement of ammunition within step 2. But that necessitates the hoist from magazine emerging outwith the gun bay itself. Looking at the post war cruiser designs on p296-297 of Friedman, angled hoists from 3in magazine to emerge in the gun bays would not work as they would intrude on the machinery spaces.

That's certainly possible, but the mount illustration in Navweaps does show the hoists from the magazine emerging in the gunbay, and the number of crew to manually handle an offset vertical feed at 25rpm x 2 feeds per mount x 2 mounts in the Tigers* or 4 mounts in the Medium Cruisers**, in a more manpower sensitive Navy, is going to be excessive. (The conveyor used by the Illustrious class, see below, would obviously help, but is more of an issue in a gun-cruiser than a carrier, we'd be re-introducing the risks that saw casemates abandoned post-WWI)

* I'm presuming the forward centreline mount in the Tigers just sat over its magazine, and that appears to have been the plan for the aft pair of mounts (of 3 per side) in the Medium Cruisers.

** I'm now away from my copy of Friedman, so working from memory on the layouts. (Hmm, must check whether I have it on Kindle!) Can't recall what the other sketches for 3" armed cruisers imply wrt whether turrets are offset from magazines.

There is precedence for inclined hoists, the Navweaps entry for the 4.5" BD Mark II*** mountings on Ark Royal and Eagle states:

13b ^The post-war BD Mark II*** mountings used on HMS Ark Royal (1955) and HMS Eagle (1951) were equipped with Inclined Duplex Endless (IDE) chain hoists, one for each mounting. These hoists ran directly from the magazine to a gunbay in the mounting and could deliver thirty complete rounds per minute. Shells were raised from the gunbay by a short pusher hoist up to the gunhouse while the cartridges were passed by hand.

I'm not so sure this is incompatible with running through the machinery spaces, a narrow inclined feedway about 1.5m tall might cover it. So long as you're not directly impinging on a boiler or engine block, the possibility is there. Be interesting to check what lay in the way of the feeds on Ark Royal and Eagle, and whether IDE was a post-war development. (This is undoubtedly what started me thinking about inclined feeds).

There's also precedent for a somewhat more automated up-and-along arrangement in the 4.5" BD Mk II mountings for the Illustrious class (as mentioned above).

8b -^All of the Mark II-type mountings were cramped and difficult to maintain. These were BD (Between Deck) mountings ... The ammunition supply in Ark Royal (1937) was by two-stage electrically driven chain hoists, with the first stage running from the handling rooms to the upper deck and the second stage running from the upper deck to the gun positions. The Illustrious class had similar dual hoists, but on the upper deck there were horizontal conveyors which carried the shells over to the loading positions for the upper chain hoists. For the Implacable class, the magazines were located directly under the gun positions and so no horizontal conveyors were needed. The modernized battleships and battlecruiser used a single stage hoist that brought rounds up into the superstructure. For all of these ships, the hoists or conveyors did not come into the gunhouse. Instead, a human chain was used to carry the rounds from the hoists to a three-round scuttle on each side of the rear of the mounting.

 

[Siberia]

… was later widely admitted to be a serious mistake.

Admitted by whom? If the budget has been increased to be able to man and operate them I'm still not sure the 6-inch and 3-inch guns bring enough benefit to outweigh the advantages of alternative choices.