Okay, but you would be stuck with expensive ships that obsolete rapidly..

The carriers and cruisers were as good as anything outside the USN/RN until the mid to late 50's. With the destroyers, there was less difference in capability between the C class or Battle class and the Daring class than there was between the Darings and the Adams.

I believe you are incorrect on the destroyers. The radars, missiles, and electronics conversion fit for one would be an obvious MAJOR difference  The Charles Adams class was unbelievably different to the Gearing she was based upon.  I don't see you doing to a Battle or C Class what we did to the Gearing to get to a Charles Adams.

The Adams were descended from the Forrest Sherman / Hull Class DD's of the 1950's which in turn descended from the Gearing / Sumner Class DD's of WWII and these from the Fletchers which were developed from the Bensons.

The Darings were stretched Battles and fell somewhere in between the Gearings and Forrest Shermans while the Battles corresponded to the Gearings, the C's to the Fletchers and the J's to the Bensons. There was a still born Super Daring that would have corresponded to the Forrest Sherman but been closer to the Mitscher Class DL in size and armament. It was through the Super Daring that the Daring evolved into the County.

That is hull and propulsion plant. As far as I can tell, the electronics fits paths are not similar tech trees at all. At that time British 3 D radars were quite superior and HUGE

You may have misunderstood what I was saying so I will rephrase it; the Daring had MORE in common, in terms of capability, with the C class and Battle Class than it did with the Adams Class. My proposition being that the RAN could have done without the Darings (which didn't enter service until the late 50's anyway) and gone straight from the FREE C's or Battles to a more capable DDG or DLG type in the early 60's.

Maybe. But now that I look at the Tigers, I see a different path where Australia could have picked up three of those as freebies instead of buying Adams/Perths and double ended those Tiger hulls in the early 1960s. How expensive a refit on a free hull? Don't know till I run some numbers. I'll have an answer Monday. Out of Australian manpower limit though. Where do you get 600 more men than you did with the Perths?? .

Further on this line Australia completed 8 River class frigates late in the war and another 4 to a modified design (Bay class) shortly after the war. Some of these ships saw extensive service into the 60's and in one case the 80's in a variety of roles including hydrogrphic survey and Oceanographic research. These ships could have been upgraded to serve into the 60's as second line ASW escorts and first rate offshore patrol ships that would have done the RAN very well in the Malayan Emergency, the Confrontation and Borneo. While not as capable as a Type 12 or the River class DE of the RAN they would have been good enough for ASW in the 50's and good enough for patrol duties into the 60's.

I have to agree with this. The D/E subs that the third tier talent used was not that good in the hands of tyro crews in your AO..

Basically the FREE WWII gear, as well as giving Australia one of the most powerful navies in the world through the forties and fifties, would have saved $millions that would otherwise have been needed to buy, build and modernise the ships we needed instead. This saved money could have been used to build a submarine flotilla a decade earlier, or to build / buy and modernise additional ships to take over from some of the 'gift ships' in the late 50's early 60's. End result Australia ends up with a much more powerful navy for far less money.

Point conceded. on the logic. Just want a BETTER selection of hulls than some of the junk toy specified that Britain offered. CREF this comment in bliie.

Maybe, if you could convert some of the WW II ships. Let's see what you propose.

Two Battles could be converted to Air Direction Destroyers, two to ASW destroyers with a pair of Limbos and better sonar, final two with helo deck and hanger and one Limbo. The C's would be a bigger issue as their small size would prevent extensive upgrades but they could receive similar upgrades to those that kept Cavalier in service with the RN into the 70's.

Where does the helo deck go on THAT fantail? No room for a decent shelter or land on amidships either on a Battle. Put an Ikara deckhouse and launcher aft and make them fighter director capable as well as ASW oriented.

I would confine the C's to simple air warning pickets, and limited ASW upgrades, maybe replace the aft mount with an Ikara house and launcher as per the Battles as soon as the Ikara becomes available , and save the forward guns for the gun destroyer role

The main benefit of the gift fleet is it would have permitted the RAN to skip ordering new ships of similar technology to replace the shagged pre war hulls that made up most of our fleet. i.e. it would have allowed us to skip building the Battles, the Darings, the early Rivers, buying Terrible, leasing Vengence, buying and paying to upgrade Majestic, modifying the Q's and Tribals

Okay, you still wind up modifying your gift carriers.

As an aside there were a series of concept designs to convert surplus Colossus and Majectic class carriers into missile cruisers. this involved cutting down the flight deck to hanger deck level at one or both ends and fitting a missile launchers with the missils stored in the some of the remaining hanger space. The remaining flight deck and hanger space would be used to operate a squadron of ASW helicopters. A simpler conversion of Australia's 'gift' carriers into CVHG's could have involved fitting a Mk10 Terrier launcher either end of the flight deck, of even a simpler setup with Tartar while retaining the hanger and flight deck space between the elevators for ASW helo's.

Ygh! That is a huge waste of hull and EXPENSIVE. You saw what the Swiftsure conversions did to obsolescing ships?. You received four ASW helos and then what? Not even a fighter director!

The Brits came to a similar conclusion and dropped the concept in favor of a 20,000t single ended  CG that sort of looked like a stretched Tiger with  twin Mk26 6" turrets on A and B position 4 twin Mk6 3" in the midrif and Seaslug, Terrier, Talos, or Thunderbird aft. This ship proved too expensive and was replaced in plans by the Counties.

Missile armed gun cruiser, but on a 20,000 tonne hull armed with a single Sea Slug launcher? The Tigers as Terrier conversions look better and better..

I still think that fitting Terrier, or Tartar and the necessary radars etc. to a Colossus while retaining the ability to operate a decent number of helicopters would be a good use of Free hulls that were borderline too small to be modernised to operate strike aircraft. They would make very effective ASW and Commando Carriers well into the 70's or even 80's for less than it cost to buy the two Majestics and to modernise one of them. At this point the RAN could look too buying two or more larger modern carriers.

The carrier hull compartmentalization is not designed for it. With a barbette ship (Tiger) the framing that you have to chop out and rebuild is much less, and if you can gut the barbette cylinder and fit the Terrier launcher revolver magazine inside it, you get an armored magazine as well as a reduced top-weight problem that allows you to fit a huge 983 3 D radar and the Type 83 Yellow Rivers for missile guidance.

A simple modernisation for the 'gift' cruisers would be the replacement of B turret with a Mk13 Tartar while keeping A and X for NGS.

Where do you stick the radars again? An air director center goes with such a set up.. If you are goung to gut that much superstructure and rebuild it to fit one into a "gun" cruiser, double end the ships, and go whole hog AAW. Save your gunfire line in your destroyers since they shpuld do well enough for shore fire gun support, and don't do a DDX "battleship" debacle forty years too early. Let Uncle make that mistake all by himself.. 

The Minataurs were pretty big ships and had a lot more free space and weight than the preceeding Crown Colony Class. Remember that Tartar was designed into the Adams and retrofitted to some Forrest Shermans. Also the Tigers were modernised Minataurs with the RN originally intending to rebuild Swiftsure and Superb to the same standard as the Tigers with one of the design features being the potential to replace any or all of Mk6 3" mounts with the then new Tartar.

Tartar won't fit a 3' Mark 6 mount space. Its too big. It has to be the 6' or nothing.

Okay, but you would be stuck with expensive ships that obsolete rapidly..

The carriers and cruisers were as good as anything outside the USN/RN until the mid to late 50's. With the destroyers, there was less difference in capability between the C class or Battle class and the Daring class than there was between the Darings and the Adams.

I believe you are incorrect on the destroyers. The radars, missiles, and electronics conversion fit for one would be an obvious MAJOR difference  The Charles Adams class was unbelievably different to the Gearing she was based upon.  I don't see you doing to a Battle or C Class what we did to the Gearing to get to a Charles Adams.

The Darings were stretched Battles and fell somewhere in between the Gearings and Forrest Shermans while the Battles corresponded to the Gearings, the C's to the Fletchers and the J's to the Bensons. There was a still born Super Daring that would have corresponded to the Forrest Sherman but been closer to the Mitscher Class DL in size and armament. It was through the Super Daring that the Daring evolved into the County.

That is hull and propulsion plant. As far as I can tell, the electronics fits paths are not similar tech trees at all. At that time British 3 D radars were quite superior and HUGE

You may have misunderstood what I was saying so I will rephrase it; the Daring had MORE in common, in terms of capability, with the C class and Battle Class than it did with the Adams Class. My proposition being that the RAN could have done without the Darings (which didn't enter service until the late 50's anyway) and gone straight from the FREE C's or Battles to a more capable DDG or DLG type in the early 60's.

Maybe. But now that I look at the Tigers, I see a different path where Australia could have picked up three of those as freebies instead of buying Adams/Perths and double ended those Tiger hulls in the early 1960s. How expensive a refit on a free hull? Don't know till I run some numbers. I'll have an answer Monday. Out of Australian manpower limit though. Where do you get 600 more men than you did with the Perths?? .

Further on this line Australia completed 8 River class frigates late in the war and another 4 to a modified design (Bay class) shortly after the war. Some of these ships saw extensive service into the 60's and in one case the 80's in a variety of roles including hydro-graphic survey and Oceanographic research. These ships could have been upgraded to serve into the 60's as second line ASW escorts and first rate offshore patrol ships that would have done the RAN very well in the Malayan Emergency, the Confrontation and Borneo. While not as capable as a Type 12 or the River class DE of the RAN they would have been good enough for ASW in the 50's and good enough for patrol duties into the 60's.

I have to agree with this. The D/E subs, that the third tier talent used, was not that good in the hands of tyro crews in your AO..

Basically the FREE WWII gear, as well as giving Australia one of the most powerful navies in the world through the forties and fifties, would have saved $millions that would otherwise have been needed to buy, build and modernise the ships we needed instead. This saved money could have been used to build a submarine flotilla a decade earlier, or to build / buy and modernise additional ships to take over from some of the 'gift ships' in the late 50's early 60's. End result Australia ends up with a much more powerful navy for far less money.

Point conceded. on the logic. Just want a BETTER selection of hulls than some of the junk you specified that Britain offered. CREF the comments in underline.

The British ships weren't all that thought out but neither were the US ones at the time. Destroyers without helicopters, whereas the British ships had helicopters, they just had weird missile systems.

I will say different missile systems as opposed to weird ones. We were a decade late on the helos, but in the early sixties we caught on. I note that the RAN was a little slow on the cruiser and frigate helo bandwagon too.

Maybe, if you could convert some of the WW II ships. Let's see what you propose.

Two Battles could be converted to Air Direction Destroyers, two to ASW destroyers with a pair of Limbos and better sonar, final two with helo deck and hanger and one Limbo. The C's would be a bigger issue as their small size would prevent extensive upgrades but they could receive similar upgrades to those that kept Cavalier in service with the RN into the 70's.

Where does the helo deck go on THAT fantail? No room for a decent shelter or land on amidships either on a Battle. Put an Ikara deck-house and launcher aft and make them fighter director capable as well as ASW oriented.

I would confine the C's to simple air warning pickets, and limited ASW upgrades, maybe replace the aft mount with an Ikara house and launcher as per the Battles as soon as the Ikara becomes available , and save the forward guns for the gun destroyer role.

The main benefit of the gift fleet is it would have permitted the RAN to skip ordering new ships of similar technology to replace the shagged pre war hulls that made up most of our fleet. i.e. it would have allowed us to skip building the Battles, the Darings, the early Rivers, buying Terrible, leasing Vengence, buying and paying to upgrade Majestic, modifying the Q's and Tribals

Okay, you still wind up modifying your gift carriers.

 Cheaper modifications then carried out on Melbourne though probably.

As an aside there were a series of concept designs to convert surplus Colossus and Majestic class carriers into missile cruisers. this involved cutting down the flight deck to hanger deck level at one or both ends and fitting a missile launchers with the missiles stored in the some of the remaining hanger space. The remaining flight deck and hanger space would be used to operate a squadron of ASW helicopters. A simpler conversion of Australia's 'gift' carriers into CVHG's could have involved fitting a Mk10 Terrier launcher either end of the flight deck, of even a simpler setup with Tartar while retaining the hanger and flight deck space between the elevators for ASW helo's.

Ygh! That is a huge waste of hull and EXPENSIVE. You saw what the Swiftsure conversions did to obsolescing ships?. You received four ASW helos and then what? Not even a fighter director!

The Brits came to a similar conclusion and dropped the concept in favor of a 20,000t single ended  CG that sort of looked like a stretched Tiger with  twin Mk26 6" turrets on A and B position 4 twin Mk6 3" in the midrif and Seaslug, Terrier, Talos, or Thunderbird aft. This ship proved too expensive and was replaced in plans by the Counties.

Missile armed gun cruiser, but on a 20,000 tonne hull armed with a single Sea Slug launcher? The Tigers as Terrier conversions look better and better..

I still think that fitting Terrier, or Tartar and the necessary radars etc. to a Colossus while retaining the ability to operate a decent number of helicopters would be a good use of Free hulls that were borderline too small to be modernised to operate strike aircraft. They would make very effective ASW and Commando Carriers well into the 70's or even 80's for less than it cost to buy the two Majestics and to modernise one of them. At this point the RAN could look too buying two or more larger modern carriers.

The carrier hull compartmentalization is not designed for it. With a barbette ship (Tiger) the framing that you have to chop out, and rebuild is much less; and if you can gut the barbette cylinder and fit the Terrier launcher revolver magazine inside it, you get an armored magazine as well as a reduced top-weight problem that allows you to fit a huge 983 3 D radar and the Type 83 Yellow Rivers for missile guidance.

A simple modernisation for the 'gift' cruisers would be the replacement of B turret with a Mk13 Tartar while keeping A and X for NGS.

Where do you stick the radars again? An air director center goes with such a set up.. If you are going to gut that much superstructure and rebuild it to fit one into a "gun" cruiser, double end the ships, and go whole hog AAW. Save your gunfire line in your destroyers since they should do well enough for shore fire gun support, and don't do a DDX "battleship" debacle forty years too early. Let Uncle make that mistake all by himself.. 

The Minataurs were pretty big ships and had a lot more free space and weight than the preceeding Crown Colony Class. Remember that Tartar was designed into the Adams and retrofitted to some Forrest Shermans. Also the Tigers were modernised Minataurs with the RN originally intending to rebuild Swiftsure and Superb to the same standard as the Tigers with one of the design features being the potential to replace any or all of Mk6 3" mounts with the then new Tartar.

Tartar won't fit a 3' Mark 6 mount space. Its too big. It has to be the 6' or nothing.

How about in place of the 3" in B turret, that might work since B turret was a 6" mount in the Minotaurs and the lions were just modernised Minotaurs.

Didn't the British naval architects have to remove that barbette to fit additional crew spacing as well as the 3' Mark 6? Maybe we should look at Minotaur itself for the mods?

A simple modernisation for the 'gift' cruisers would be the replacement of B turret with a Mk13 Tartar while keeping A and X for NGS.