Type 4X/ Type 83 Destroyer

Grey Havoc said:
With regards as to the 1960s and 1970s, British shipyards and/or naval architects did actually 'win' a fair few orders from Canada and Australia during this period, ranging from letters of intent to signed contracts. Unfortunately just about all of them ultimately ended up being cancelled for economic and/or political reasons.
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Do we have a thread on these designs?
 
@Grey Havoc: "... the utter and total failure that the Type 26 program has become .."

Is there anyone else you can point to that is banging the same drum? I've not read anything that echos your views. Not saying you are wrong, I don't know the inside story, but more facts rather than generalizations would be useful.

By the way, the UK T26 being built has a large and well equipped mission bay. Not sure why you think it was dropped from the design.
 
Grey Havoc said:
The F110 is actually a scaled down development of the Hobart design, Navanatia believing that it would save on time and development costs.
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I think your confusing the F110 with the Navantia F310 the five ship Norwegian Nansen Aegis class, reduced size F100s whose original design now dates back 22+ years. The F110 is a brand new design, no doubt based on their experience with the F100, with totally different systems and propulsion reflected in the crew approx. half the size, 120-130 vs 250, designed to replace the Santa Maria class, Spanish built Oliver Hazard Perrys.

 
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I don't think so. The fact that the F110 had commonality, both in hull and systems, with the Hobart-class was one of the major selling points of the design during the Future Frigate Program competition. (That may have actually backfired given the on-going problems the RAN have been having with their destroyers.)

With regards as the originally planned mission bay for the Type 26, it was dropped back in late 2011, along with the stern ramp and various other features, when the design was revised (really a totally new design in just about in all but name).


I'll have to finish up this post later, internet connection is acting up again, the joys of selling what used to be our national telecoms company to a succession of asset strippers. :(
 
The F110 is a NEW design, and understand no commonality in hull and all new systems, totally different, just one example the propulsion systems.

The F100/Hobart uses a conventional system using unsilenced diesels, GTs and MGR , Combined Diesels Or GTs, CODOG, with 2x Caterpiller Bravo 16V diesels, 5.65 MW each or 2x GE LM2500 GTs, both driving thru noisy MGR

F110 is a Hybrid Electric Drive, HED, system designed for minimum noise ASW ship, Combined Diesel-Electric and Diesel or Gas, CODELADOG, with 4x 3 MW encapsulated diesel gensets providing power to the 2x shaft mounted 3.4 MW electric motors and only 1x GE LM2500 driving thru a MGR for sprint speed.

That's why said previously F100/Hobart variant had no chance in the Australian competition as long as priority was a quiet HM&E for an ASW frigate.
 
Grey Havoc said:
Purpletrouble said:
Your first para has no relevance to your former claims. Indeed you now seem to be shifting to actually agree T26 is a capable design based around ASW.

Plans change, the barebones 3rd variant was never T26 but “C3” and the River2s have eventually occupied that slot (for better or worse).

T26 fills exactly the ASW/GP slot it was intended to, there is no reason why a GP T26 could not be built - except that what people want is a GP/ASW ship and not some oversilenced FFBNW thing. The latter evolved to T31 because of a concern T26 was costly due to the ASW role requirements and FFBNW would never be actioned (which it wouldn’t). It was also hoped to promote exports as the T26 was felt to be too capable and expensive to appeal overseas. That was the mistake and T31 is in my view merely a costly attempt at “anyone but BAE”, but which will bring a seperate strand of parts, weapons and training yet again. They’ll be the first to go.

No British warship has won a Canadian or Australian order since the 1960s, nearly 60 years ago. The 60 years prior to that they were practically 100% British. That should tell you something about how far we diverged and the idea any British design should automatically achieve their sales is patently absurd and that it has is a major sign the RN is getting its designs right after a long time of not.
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My apologies if I was not being clear enough about the original design, with two variants, being firmly in the past tense. The revised design does not have separate variants. Despite it being noticeably larger than the original design it also does not have a mission bay, which was supposed to be key to undertaking & supporting littoral operations. Incidentally, the revised design's ASW capability is worse than that of the old design GP variant. Even with much reduced capabilities overall, costs have skyrocketed on the program, to the point where the Royal Navy will be hard pressed to buy a mere three examples (compared to the old design's eleven frigates in two variants). Not to mention that a very short while ago the RN / MOD were seriously considering cancelling the program altogether; only the argument that more shipyards would be lost (with resulting politically toxic direct and indirect job losses) ultimately stayed their hand. With the ongoing fallout from the current crisis (including rapidly worsening programs costs if that was possible) that stay of execution may be reviewed in the very near future.

I should note in passing that the C3 (the so called 'Global Corvette', part of S2C2) concept predated the Type 26 program and was defunct by early 2010. The River class was strictly a political procurement solely designed to avoid (further) heavy contract penalties from a very poorly executed procurement program and to keep certain shipyards & their associated support infrastructure in business.

The Type 31e program is not a luxury; in light of the utter and total failure that the Type 26 program has become it is a vital necessity. And even that won't be able to really fill the gap left by the Type 26's crash & burn.

With regards as to the 1960s and 1970s, British shipyards and/or naval architects did actually 'win' a fair few orders from Canada and Australia during this period, ranging from letters of intent to signed contracts. Unfortunately just about all of them ultimately ended up being cancelled for economic and/or political reasons.


Cordy said:
Don't think the Navantia F100/Hobart was a serious contender for the Australian Hunter contract whose primary mission was ASW as it did not have the expensive silenced HED propulsion system with the shaft mounted electric motors (no noisy gearboxes in HED mode) as did both FREMM and T26
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Navanatia none the less believed, with a fair bit of justification, that they had the lock on the contract, F110 developmental delays notwithstanding. The F110 is actually a scaled down development of the Hobart design, Navanatia believing that it would save on time and development costs. Alas for them that proved somewhat wide of the mark. Eventually the damage to the company's reputation from various mishaps involving their hybrid designs worldwide (not to mention the continuing legal & political fallout) proved to be the deciding factor. The FREMM-IT proposal on the other hand in fell prey in part to it's own political woes, despite being arguably what the RAN actually needed.

With regards as to the Hunter design, only time will tell if the new radar and other systems can be indeed successfully integrated into a Type 26 based hull.
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I started a point by point reply but it got too complex so I will cut it down to the basics, you are pretty much factually wrong on most, if not all of your points.

The Type 26 still has a mission bay, it is relocated to forward of the hangar instead of under the heli deck.

The total planned build was 13 not 11 Type 26, 8 ASW and 5 GP, as one fore one replacements for the remaining Type 23.

The Type 26 program is not a failure, to claim it has failed is nothing but unsubstantiated hyperbola, i.e. the Type 43 was a failure, none were built, but the Type 26 has been ordered, is currently being built and has been exported.

The Type 31E is a strange one, I suspect it will eventually not be too different in cost to the Type 26 and why would anyone buy an export version of a Danish design anyway, why not just get the Danes to licence the design to them or a preferred builder.

You seem to have a real bee in your bonnet about the Type 26 that is preventing logical analysis of the facts.
 
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Grey Havoc said:
I don't think so. The fact that the F110 had commonality, both in hull and systems, with the Hobart-class was one of the major selling points of the design during the Future Frigate Program competition. (That may have actually backfired given the on-going problems the RAN have been having with their destroyers.)

With regards as the originally planned mission bay for the Type 26, it was dropped back in late 2011, along with the stern ramp and various other features, when the design was revised (really a totally new design in just about in all but name).


I'll have to finish up this post later, internet connection is acting up again, the joys of selling what used to be our national telecoms company to a succession of asset strippers. :(
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No wrong, the what was offered was a modified F-100 not the F-110.

The Type 26 has a mission bay forward of the hangar than can be accessed from the hangar meaning it can be used, as required for additional helicopters or UAVs, just google Type 26 mission deck and look at the images!

My dad worked at the bureau of Meteorology when I was quite young, his boss quite literally used to instruct the meteorology graduate to look out the window before issuing a forecast, at least that way they might get the next half hour right. Though an actual line he used I have taken it as a metaphor, to check my facts before digging in to defend an idea I have put forward, because I realise I could always be wrong, or more to the point, there may be things of which I was unaware when I formed my belief.
 
I’m really impressed with Type 26, having been on a couple of Type 23s on Ops, successful but they are hard to keep going and hard to do what they want to do and are worked hard to achieve that. T26 sorts all that out. Type 31 on the other hand is just daft in my view, lose the commonality but have to staff and resource 2 parallel builds - if we were doing them successively I could at least understand that. Plus a core rationale was something more appealling to export, yet T26 is storming that and T31 is a derivative of someone else’s export! Throw in new guns (now all 3 surface combatants will have different main guns! - btw 1939 rang and suggested a 4”, 2 different 4.7”, a 4.5” and 5.25” as options...).
 
They should just build the 26's imho but then again prevarication and changing horses is just another metaphor for government.
 
Certainly but for personnel numbers running off more Type 26, even if stripped down FFBNW than the 8 ASW TAS ships is the most logical case.
But as is systems modernising the Type 23s are scheduled to be cut out and installed into Type 26s to keep costs down.....likely to fall apart in reality of course.

However having the scope to increase capability of another 5 Type 26 upto the 8's standard is a potential way to rapidly expand capability numbers.

Really one has to assume that we have the intersection of politics and personnel limits to understand Type 31.
If the money was there, more crews would be trained up and retained. But is there now the capacity to do that? Or is it a much greater expense to resurrect that capacity to train and retain?

If the money was there, the Unit costs would fall if we built all 13 Type 26....which ought to be all 16....which ought to be all 20..really all 22...as originally planned back in the days of FSC.

Then again one could question the whole traditional ASW big ship solution here. The sheer lack of numbers raises the question about whether a more distributed solution using many smaller cheaper ships was possible and offers more potential for the future.......

If...dare we raise this? If it wasn't for the increasing slaughter of shipbuilding capacity in the UK leaving a Scottish yard to have the Type 26 assembly, and the increasing threat of Scotland ending the Union....then I think Type 31 would never have come about.

If it wasn't for BAE Systems turning a cheap solution into an expensive one, would government have started looking to alternative providers?
Then again should we have let BAE Systems takeover warships and let the alternatives die off through starvation?
Type 31 Has a whiff of potential to level up into much more than a patrol Frigate.

Since we're keeping overseas bases, is it right to pile increasingly Cruiser-like sustainability into a Frigate....?

If I was Boris, the temptation to bring work South of the border to somewhere like Sunderland and Newcastle would be powerful. A reward for voting Tory.....
 
Politics does very much raise it’s ugly head. Brown has a lot to answer for killing off non Scottish ship building. Although when you look more tri-service at aircraft and vehicles plus all the management and sustems work then the balance shifts again.

13 T26, 8 ASW replicates the T23 fleet and as you say gives fantastic flexibility. I also suspect 13 of one ship type will cost the same as 8/5 split over 2 where nominally 1 is cheaper. Certainly through life. At a time when the Canadians and Australians are going single ship/frigate and the mighty USN (10times as much money) isn’t parallel building frigates, the RN’s plan is stupid frankly.

In terms of BAES, they did what they were told/heavily incentivised to do and building stuff in the UK is very expensive especially the daft way we drag everything out. Defence/Govt just complain because they are stuffed full of people who have no idea about money - as they prove in every project across all departments. BAES’s margins are tiny in comparison to most industries, sometimes you wonder why they bother - I know their former CEO did!
 
Don't get me started on Brown and Blair.
Remember that prior to '97 the plan was to focus the surface and submarine fleets at Davenport leaving only SSBN in Scotland.......

Considering the success of Type 26, it seems odd we've not heard voices raised about ditching Type 31 for more Type 26 again.
The more we build, the cheaper they get. This was the lesson of Type 23, and the Arleigh Burkes.

Arguably expanding AAW by building Type 27 using the Type 26 hull if not outright licensing the Hunter's setup is now much cheaper than trying to build more Type 45s. Which would end up becoming Type 46 if only because no one would want new build early 2000's systems in the 2020s.
 
My take.

Frigates are the new cruisers, well actually they were the original cruisers, i.e. frigates, sloops and corvettes were "cruising" ships as opposed to ships of the line. When you are predominately deploying ships on independent ops they evolve more and more to multi role, self sufficient cruiser type vessels, that may or may not be stronger on one area than another. When you are exclusively operating in task forces, specialisation becomes key, with individual platforms complementing and supporting each other, covering each others weaknesses with their individual strengths, you could afford to have specialist towed array tugs that could lily pad a large ASW helo when they were directly supported by an aviation ship and an air defence ship.

The modern "Battle Line" is the task force that can contain cheap single role ships as well as capital ships (the black swan sloop concept?), the modern day cruisers are the multirole guided missile frigates and destroyers, capable on independent operations. The Type 26 is the spiritual successor to the cruiser, well in fact it could be said to be the spiritual successor to the battlecruiser, as in it is a hunter and killer of submarines, the successor to commerce raiders, while also filling the roles of scouting, screening major units and showing the flag.

This makes the Type 31e the modern sloop, similar roles but in lower threat environments and lacking the higher level capabilities. The destroyer these days is the battleship, more powerful and capable, with a longer reach than the frigate, but more specialised and less multirole. The can deploy independently but are usually retained within the taskforce where their capabilities are a force multiplier.

The Type 26 are as expensive as they are because of the systems they have to have to meet their capability requirements, not their size. Cutting their size will not make them cheaper, it will just make them less capable, as well as more difficult and expensive to maintain. Australia adopted the Type 26 because of the lessons learned (pain experienced) having to upgrade OHP FFGs and ANZAC class FFHs at great expense for little return, I actually expect the same to happen again with the Hobart class, too tight for any future growth to be sensible or economic, replacement after twenty or so years with an evolved Type 26 would likely be more sensible.
 
I have often bemoaned the Type 31 on these threads and have never found any redeeming factor for them.
The initial price tag of £250 million was laughable, at that price you could only get a ship delivered without any armament or high-end sensors and 'fitted for but not with' is not really a sustainable policy when the money will always go to new toys and the old get left behind.

I also don't like the Type 31e (e for export) gimmick. The Type 26 is already an export success. I don't see any market for cheap low-end frigates, the MoD must think its still 1960 or something? Many Asian and Latin American nations are building frigates in their own yards. The Gulf states have not followed this trend (though the UAE is now building up its warship building capability) and they have the money and desire to buy big shiny high-end toys like Type 26s. Navies with limited pockets but sizable areas of ocean to patrol are still better off with larger OPVs as they don't really need the limited frills a Type 31 provides.
Besides the last frigate exports of low-end VT F2000 designs to Brunei and Malaysia were not much to write home about and ended up with a string of disputes.

If my memory serves me right, wasn't stripping out equipment and putting it into new ships tried once before? I don't believe it ended well, this may well have an impact on the Type 26. We tend to forget the furore when the first Type 23s were delivered without a working combat system when CAAIS flopped. It turned out all right in the end, but its likely the first Type 26s will have teething problems.

Sadly, I think that the manpower problems will never be solved and moving forwards that will be the real brake on ships in service.
 
The alternative to the CIABuN (Cruiser in all but name), is distribution of capability. Smaller, much smaller, but networked together.
Which means you don't send individual ships anywhere alone except very low level policing duties.
 
The problem with smaller and more means a lot of the overhead is duplicated, especially people.

Such platforms also tend to lack range, seakeeping, damage absorbtion and habitability.

Above all they lack sensor space - T45 needs that mast to place Sampson up high, a smaller “Sampson” ship could not do that.

T26 seems perfect and the RN finally accepting a “frigate cruiser” as history has been pointing to for many decades (as it got right with T22s).
If it wasnt for lack of time with the T23s I’d suggest this years (or whenever) Defence Review bin T31 and just alter the build rate of T26. I really think it is completely pointless.
 
As the RN spends much of its time in roles that dont require a full blown weapons platform it has a long tradition of second tier ships like the Type 21s, Tribal Type 81s and so on.
In an ideal world we would afford all Type 26 but if Type 31 is the only way to get hull numbers lets hope they can be as good as those mentioned above
 
And all those ships were just as costly to build and run as their 1st rate partners, and were useless in a combat situation - so much so we were using a T21 as a mine plough. Their fates were all early - increasing their cost vs that of longer lasting 1st rate ships.
The RN’s historic strength has been that it is dispersed in peace and able to concentrate as needed in war where each ship can do both. A lot of the cost is in sensors, command system and above all, the people. All we do with T31 is limit what we get from it while still taking the costs, it is daft. A single T26 production line, with some kit not fitted, is both more capable and likely to be cheaper through life. Already people talk of discarding T31s at mid life and building another, so where is the cost saving bs T26?
 
Certainly every warship has a bare minimum number of personnel almost no matter the size.
Frankly one cook can produce meals for 1 to 100 people, but it's an irreducible number of 1 cook at the minimum. You can't have 0.3 of a cook.

Same for things like helicopter support staff. They can keep 1 helicopter going or 3. But you can't do without them and you can't cut below the minimum number or you don't get the capability.

And as you go through this it becomes obvious that the larger the numbers, the more efficient the individual cost.

So you have a trade off here. Distribution is graceful degradation.
While large single high value ships present a catastrophic loss.
But distribution costs more per unit, per person.
While large single high value ships are more efficient.
 
I have a lot of sympathy for your arguments. The problem is that full on wars are rarer for the RN than for air or ground units.
The Type 21s were used in the Falklands and suffered according to their numbers and exposure to protect more valuable assets.
But between their arrival in the 70s and sale of the remaining ones to Pakistan they were popular and well used ships.
The Cod Wars with Iceland highlighted the problem of using top rate frigates against gunboats. The older 2rate ships were more useful.
In the event of war with the Soviet Union the surface ships of the RN would have expected a short hectic life
 
T21s were popular because they had better accomodation, especially for Officers, and they were fast plus more readily available than legacy steam plant frigates. The RN had no plans for their retention and a much better ship for the cost could have been built with the same things that made them popular - including GT propulsion.

The T22B3s were regarded as the best british frigates - they were large and capable. Until cuts forced their retirement the 4 of them soaked up the overseas Dets in a way T23s have had to be pushed hard to do from a larger fleet.

The Cod War showed we needed OPVs, not 2nd tier, but 3rd. With Island/Castle and now Rivers - that segment is well covered.

T31 is the same mistake as T81/21, ships that cost as much as something better but are near useless for anything warlike, below which an OPV is fine. To be doing this in parallel to the definitive frigate is absurd.
 
@Hood
Think the T26 should be better than a T31, MoD budgeting £4 billion for the three T26s, £1.3 billion each whereas MoD paying less than that for all five T31s, so that's what get when you pay peanuts, even for £1.3 billion T26 only has an old tech radar compared with whats planned for the Australian and Canadian variants (and the F110).

PS video of the new tech on the Spanish F110 integrated mast with the new gen SPY-7 radar (expect it to be fitted on the Canadian T26)

 
I do get the point about quality and false economies. Grateful also for the amount of detail.that goes into replies here.
But numbers count, for both the politicians and the admirals.
On the T21s I would be interested to know what 8 alt T21s for the same money would have looked like.
T23 batch3s had a relatively short service life. Were they expensive to crew and operate? They were big ships but had no area air defence cap.
 
I think you mean the Type 22 Batch III, and yes they did.
 
Er yes, sorry overenthusiastic paws. Do you mean yes they did have area air defence or yes they were expensive to crew and operate?
 
T22B3s served over 20 years only being withdrawn for SDSR10 cuts which had nothing to do with capability but was all about money now (and not unreasonably given situation). They were kept instead of younger T23s which were sold off early 2000s.

With gun, sea wolf, CIWS, SSMs, EW, 2 Lynx hangar plus space for all the Op Atts they were perfect. Hence why they were kept and why they formed the basis of the (further afield/fighty) overseas Dets.

T21 alternate I’d look at the various design studies of Ikara/ASW frigates in the mis/late 60s DS381? Same GP capabilities, better ASW, GT powered - in essence a GP/ASW version of T42 perhaps with same hull, that were built in parallel. Of course it was actually the same “private is cheaper” BS that has pushed us to T31 now we see BAES as basically the entrenched “public/expensive” side.
 
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Crewing was higher vs T23 but not exprbitantly so, afterall basically the same systems and powerplant. Plus T23 figures when deployed are much higher than the figures you see bandied around, especially on wiki.
 
Cordy said:
@Hood
Think the T26 should be better than a T31, MoD budgeting £4 billion for the three T26s, £1.3 billion each whereas MoD paying less than that for all five T31s, so that's what get when you pay peanuts, even for £1.3 billion T26 only has an old tech radar compared with whats planned for the Australian and Canadian variants (and the F110).
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As always the devil is in the detail. What is in that £4B? a fair bit of infra for instance? lead parts & tooling for subsequent ships, Is F110 equivalent in the expensive bits that don’t show (eg. silencing, EW, stores, accomodation etc...).

The MoD will pay more than £1.3B for 5 T31s, we all know that. The headline will be adjusted for the politics but since (a) this is accoutancy and (b) nothing has hit the water yet, then I’d at least reserve some silence on cost comparisons.
 
Thanks for the Type 22 info.
I am not sure about your T21 option. The Treasury would have used a cheaper ASW frigate to undermine the T22 which the RN really.needed for N Atlantic ASW..By going with T21 the RN got valuable experience of operating gas turbine ships and 8 modern frigates that were at least as good as Leanders. Your option would have taken in-house design work away from T22 etc
 
Hmm? I’d have gone for one of the Ikara/ASW frigate studies (having also binned the GP Type 19 which was basically a 60’s LCS, the parallels being remarkable in both the reason for it and the requirement) which would be in-house.

Type22 would follow, as a development or as what we know - there being a lot of detail in this period affecting designs about massive hull sonars (and tie ups with other Navies). If we could build a GT T21 we could build a GT something else :)

AG Williams had a great site with an alt history which started at this point - I can’t recall T21 being part of it or what was instead of it, but there were viable options.

Just as we have now with choosing T31, T21 could have been different.

Undermining the definitive Eastlant T22 I get the point - but with 26 Leanders the RN was not short of GP ships.

ideally in the 60s you’d have:
1) Escort Cruiser, SAM plus helos plus command
2) Task Force Escort, Multi-role DLG similar to T82, intended 1-2 per task group for AAW and ASW. Would be expected to station keep for AAW role hence Ikara as stand-off ASW. Ideally a helo but probably not give cruiser and others. Probably 4-6 total built, 2 per carrier.
3) Radar Missile Picket, T42 with SAM plus GP bits (gun, helo) as succesor to radar pickets. 2-4 per task group as outer warning and AAW screen. Able to contribute to ASW with helo, and could suffice as sole AAW escort for 2nd tier groups (amphib/replentishment). Probably 10ish ships.
4) 1st Rate ASW Frigate, Ikara/Type22 type focussed on ASW screen and self defence. Probably 10-16 ships.

No pure GP or 2nd tier ships - use Leanders and any of those above as detached.
Also have Counties - consider a rebuild as DLH, or use as flagships for smaller task forces and replace with later T22s (eg Batch3 design).
For 80s look at Sea Dart 2, possibly retrofit T82/Escort cruisers. A new DLG could succeed them (aka Type 43) with 82s cascaded to replace Counties.
Type 23 as is to replace Leanders with something able to do modern ASW (since probably dont have enough T22s for the fleet anyway) as GP tasks overseas have of course dropped away but increased Atlantic focus with additional non-carrier groups centred on AOR.

anyway, rambling and beyond what we could do, but one can dream :)
 
In the spirit of Football team dream team I would go with more or less what was on the table in 1964
SSBN all 5 including Royal Sovereign
SSN as in real life
CV Eagle converted Queen Elizabeth ordered.in 1965
Prince of Wales to replace Eagle
Hermes sold to Australia in 1972
when QE enters service
CC The simple small crew ship shown in Brown/ Moore replaces Bulwark and Albion.But also as ASW ships. 4 in all.
County class build stops at 6 ships. Seaslug enhancement programme looks at options. If not, 4 more T62s ordered instead in the 70s
T82 4 ordered with Seadart and Ikara. Ikara replaced in 1984 with Harpoon.
T62 12 ordered from 1968. They resemble Batch 3 T42s but have Seaking hangar and lightweight Seawolf (Seacat 2 initially).
T22 12 ordered from 1968 with Batch 3 armament except lightweight Seawolf.
T12 Leanders and Rothesays serve as GP frigates (final 4 Leanders not ordered unless T62/T22 delayed) T81s etc sold off early.
All receive Seaking fir like Canadian ships.
Leander replacement design with Australia and Canada for 70s is the T21 in this reality
 
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I’d bin off the cruisers in return for a bigger carrier with helos on that (also easing strike and fighters) and to get the DLGs.

I’d keep Hermes and Bulwark as dual role CVS/LPH alongside the 2 LPDs as an amphibious sqn. Replace them in the 80s with LHD & LSDs post carrier program. After the falklands has vindicated amphibious ships :)

Sea Slug just give up on until can get Sea Dart in service. Focus on working on that and getting the Mk2, retrofit on T82s which could also get Harpoon or even TASM in the 80s. T43 I’d like but not the weird amidships real one, something double ended. Again AG Williams had some great ideas and using dual Ikara/Sea Dart launchers plus VLS.

I like sticking with the larger helo but the numbers are likely to be difficult. The Army is going to want something for utility & attack but if no Lynx it might get something better :)

T22/62 in parallel I like - although 42 is probably more AAW correct, perhaps 52 as compromise!

Leander I’d leave fairly as is, but I guess they’d need something to keep going, with Ikara on more T82s and a T22, and carriers so no need for so many SSMs then perhaps 4.5” Mk8, lightweight Sea Wolf and VDS plus improved Wasp. T22/DDG program likely to run through 70s and 80s as real. T23 then the as is successor to Leanders.
 
One does have to question why bother with the mk8 in 4.5" L55 when the French had a perfectly reasonable 100mm gun, and the Abbot was based around a 105mm?

But it's the failure to fund the ASWE C-band SSSR set (possibly Type 966?), which sticks out here.

By funding this, AAW Frigate is much more achievable, Sloop is too.
So either T42 or T82 or even both more achievable in weight/capability. Fidelity ensures 909 not needed, TIR set becomes lighter.

Distribute across the fleet and double up (back to back) for large ships (let's call that an AH Type 986).
Result is VSR sets proliferate, then even if bottleneck on Sea Dart ships, datalink gives picture and algorithm can sort priority.

Successor PAR 1970's-80's, AAW Sea Dart mkII not constrained by Type 909 size, weight and vertical search for target. VLS achievable by late 60's as per Sea Wolf.

However fund GAST.1210 SAM.72 XPX430 and ....Dire Wolf MSAM. Replacement of original SIGS and Thunderbird, result Type 22 is Spruance/Tico in miniature. Not T42 just T44, large scale production of T22 hull propulsion. Unitary fleet cuts unit costs = more for same cost or same for less cost.
Exports now possible. Likely Shah, Arab states, Dutch lured in?
Germans lured by battlefield defense, spread cost to BM.
Swedish possible....
System is system-C, draws French in, crotral stays South African?
 
Except that radar is barely on paper - let alone a reality. That seems insufficient to base the subsequent timeline although without the weight of 988 then perhaps T82 history would be different which would affect the others quite possibly as you suggest.

How was Sea Dart 2 constrained by 909, was that much less capable than the US illuminators for SM? I thought from previous posts it was over capable
 
IIRC the Type 909 had to be large and powerful to compensate for the insensitive polyrod antennas on Sea Dart.
 
Hobbes said:
IIRC the Type 909 had to be large and powerful to compensate for the insensitive polyrod antennas on Sea Dart.
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Partly, powerful Illumination doesn't need that size and weight, but discrete tracking and search does. The Decca set it's based on was a target tracking type.
Rumour is the power also might be used to 'burn through' jamming and rumours did include other capabilities. No clue what though.

However if we include Orange Nell or SIGS-16, then we can cut the size and weight and power needs of the TIR.
 
Purpletrouble said:
Except that radar is barely on paper - let alone a reality. That seems insufficient to base the subsequent timeline although without the weight of 988 then perhaps T82 history would be different which would affect the others quite possibly as you suggest.

How was Sea Dart 2 constrained by 909, was that much less capable than the US illuminators for SM? I thought from previous posts it was over capable
Click to expand...
Constraint is the same as any SARH terminal homing missile.
 
zen said:
Purpletrouble said:
Except that radar is barely on paper - let alone a reality. That seems insufficient to base the subsequent timeline although without the weight of 988 then perhaps T82 history would be different which would affect the others quite possibly as you suggest.

How was Sea Dart 2 constrained by 909, was that much less capable than the US illuminators for SM? I thought from previous posts it was over capable
Click to expand...
Constraint is the same as any SARH terminal homing missile.
Click to expand...
Sorry to be thick, but what? That the distance from 909 reduces the amount of reflected signal and thus the ability of the missile to pickup enough to home on?
What is different about 909 from US TIRs? As above in another thread iirc you stated 909 was overpowered?
What made SD2 constrained that SD1/improvements weren’t (or were they?)
 
Looks like it’s got a type number now, a general purpose one at that. Nothing too much more.

ukdefencejournal.org.uk

UK announces new Type 83 Destroyer

The Type 83 Destroyers will begin to replace the Type 45 Destroyers in the late 2030s.
ukdefencejournal.org.uk ukdefencejournal.org.uk


“The concept and assessment phase for our new Type 83 destroyer which will begin to
replace our Type 45 destroyers in the late 2030s.”
Click to expand...
 

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