More thought on the County.

 

The RAN had traditionally operated almost equal numbers of destroyers and cruisers up until the early 40's when the number of cruisers was reduced through attrition while he number of destroyers increased through transfers from the UK (N and Q class) and local construction (Tribal class) a a far greater rate than attrition. At one point we were down to s single County class cruiser along with the obsolete HMAS Adelaide leading to the RAN relying on destroyer, inparticular the Tribals, filling roles that previously would have been assigned to a cruiser. This led to the misconception that the Tribals, in truth DL's rather than DD's were in actual fact almost as good as CL's.

 

This fiction that larger destroyers were interchangable with light cruisers persisted post war with the Darings and then the Adams in RAN service being seen by many as "almost" cruisers. In reality both were fleet destroyers and not even as capable as the DL and DLG designs being prepared and (sometimes) built in the US, UK and Europe.

 

The RAN's acquisition of two CVL's, whose strike aircraft were seen as the true replacement for gun cruisers, as well as plans to retain one CA in reserve and one CL as a combat capable training ship mitigated the fiction surrounding the fighting prowess of our destroyers into the mid 50's. Unfortunately by the late 50's the decission had been made to dispose of both cruisers, retire one carrier and convert the other into a helicopter only ASW carrier when her fixed wing aircraft (Seavenom and Gannet) reached the end of their useful lives. This plan effectively religated the RAN' future role to that of an ASW Flotilla.

 

What changed was Indonessias arms purchases and regional aspirations which saw a life extention for Melbourne with orders for Skyhawks and Trackers as well as the order of the three Adams class DDG's. 

 

What we needed to do was accept the two Majestic class CVL's as replacements for the County class CA's while acquiring a pair of new CL (Colony or Minatour class) or modernised CLAA (Dido class) to act as DL's to the various destroyer classes that made up the escort groups for the carriers during the early 50's / Korea.

 

Concurrent to this we would have purchased two of the four Centaurs still on the stocks at the end of the war and have them completed to the same standard as Hermes instead of modernising the Majectics, one of which would have become a training ship and the other would pass to reserve. This would have seen Australia enter the 60's which two modern carriers operating Seavixen and Gannet, with the potential to later add Bucaneer. At this point the logical decission would have been to replace the two cruisers and some of the destroyers with a number of DLG's (County, Leahy, Belknap) which would allow the remaining destroyers to be replaced with general purpose frigates (idealy broadbeam Leanders). The Majestics would be available for operation as training ships, ASW helicopter carriers, transports, or Commando Carriers as required.

 

Long term the DLG's would be replaced with AEGIS CG's and the frigates with something along the lines of the Type 23 Duke Class. The carriers would be initially be converted with skijumps for Sea Harrier and then both the Centaurs and the Majestics would be replaced with a class of three V/STOL carriers.

Herald

My mistake on the Badger K, the confusion comes from the Indonesian of the Badger B also being called the Badger KS.

My mistake on the Badger K, the confusion comes from the Indonesian of the Badger B also being called the Badger KS.
 

 

The point is that we couldn't afford a couple of Centaurs with airwings and escorts. Post WW2 we had defence spending of between 4% and 5% of GDP during the Korean War, during which time we managed to run the two Majestics. Once defence expenditure dropped to around 2.5% in the early 60's where it stayed until the mid 80's, we had to drop one of the carriers (see link below re defence expenditure). All that keeping defence at a higher level (say 3% to 4%) would have achieved would have been to maintain our two light carrier capability with the necessary upgrades and escorts. We might have swapped them for 1 Centaur, airwing and escorts but not two. 

 

The second point is that strike carriers weren't even the best way for us to defeat Indonesia as we had access to air bases within a reasonable range of anywhere where we would want to fight them. I do think the potential was there to increase the range of our land based air cover to improve coverage and persistance, either through improved tanking and/or more longer range aircraft. The light carriers were useful for the different task of being our contribution to allied efforts to ensure that materials got from Australia and the Middle East to potential areas of conflict with the Soviets and their allies, such as to Japan, the Korean Penninsula and in in the case of food back to the ME.

 

Even if our one Centaur had been available to go to sea against the Indo's when a conflict came around, placing close enough to Indonesian territory for it to effect a blockade or take strike action would have been far too risky in the face of airpower they had in the 60's. All they would have had to do would have been to tie up the interceptors with their land based fighters and let the Badgers launch. They were planning a raid with 6 Badgers (12 missiles) on the Dutch carrier Karal Doorman if it had come to blows over West Papua and even if the AS-1 was crap and our EW good you could count on at least one connecting with something per raid of that size. Remember thatwith all the great EW gear available in the 1980's even the USN didn't manage to stop all of the Exocets and crappy Silkworm missiles fired at them and the ships they escorted in the Persian Gulf tanker war. After 3 or 4 raids by the Indonesians you could count on the carrier being hit and with an 1300lb warhead on the missile, sunk. 

 

If we had chosen to spend more on defence I would rather have seen them upgrade the Sydney to the standard that the Melbourne was and supply it with a modern airwing and escort, so that we could always have a carrier on hand in case of war with the Soviets. I would also have upgraded our land based airpower capability with F-4's, tankers and maybe a squadron of some sort of medium/heavy bomber (Vulcans, B-47's, Victors all fit the bill) if we had any change, rather than tying up so much capital in the one Centaur led battle group.

maybe not.  they were gunshy and not too keen about travelling around without escorts - none of their fixed wing pointy jets could have gone the distance - and they had even less effective ground control of those aircraft.  Even in the 60's we had a signal reach advantage over the Indons. they'd never done low level strike - Plus, even that silly claim that an ex indon aviation general made about flying over Alice Springs  was caveated with them going high to avoid the Bloodhounds (even though there were none at Alice, and even though Alice served no strategic benefit so WTF would they even try to fly to it in the first place. :)

Perhaps, but the capability of a low level strike (with pop up in case of an anti-airfield attack) was there if they had have wised up to it.

Could a 1965 transfer of Centaur at scrap value have been paid for? Albion becomes available in 1973 but had been stripped of its catapult giving the option of either converting for Harriers or refitting the Arresting Wires and Catapult. Could the wires and catapult from Melbourne be transferred across?

 

Sea Vixens and A4's into the later 1978's when you refit them with a Ski Jump to carry Sea Harrier FRS.1. Replace with either the Invincible class or a stretched version by the late 1980's. When i talk about a stretched version of the Invincible class i'm fairly sure there were studies done in the 90's regarding a SLEP of the Invincibles including a hull plug forward of the island increasing the size of the airwing by a number of airframes.

It all comes down to priorities and ideology.

For instance National Service has been identified as one of the main factors Australia couldn't afford to mechanize the Army in the 50's or 60's. The cost of providing the necessary cadres to train intake after intake of national servicemen meant there was limited resources left to introduce new equipment and tactics, let alone a completely new order of battle. i.e. the government of the day chose to defend Australia with a conscripted Light Infantry Division and 2 CMF Light Infantry Divisions instead of the alternative of a regular Armoured Brigade and a regular Infantry Brigade, with the CMF providing another 2 brigades of each type. Two thirds the manpower similar cost, far more hiting power in a continental defence scenario. The trouble is the idea wasn't to defend Continental Australia from invasion it was to fight Indonesia in the Papuan Highlands.

 

The RAN at the same time was intended to provide an ASW escort group and a brigade amphibious lift in support of the RN in SEA. This priority was behind the RAN's concentration on ASW at a time when the regional submarine threat was minimal Common sense would have suggested that a smaller number of general purpose warships with decent Anti-air, surface and submarine capability would have been more useful than the slightly larger number of specialist ASW ships that were useless against air or surface targets (the Q class conversions) or of limited use (the River class) that formed a major part or our fleet.

 

The RAAF was operating a flying reserve using Mustangs, Vampires and Meteors. Large sums of money were being spent developing Australianised variants of types that were already approaching obsolescents, i.e the Avon Sabre when they entered servce. Instead the RAAF could have had reserve personnel working side by side with the regular personnel and have spent their cash on regularly updating their fleet with modern off the shelf types.

 

The money was there it was just being spent on other things that in hindsight may have been less useful or less value for money than what we could have had.

I am not in Volkadav's corner suggesting a fleet of Counties, and a couple squadrons of Vulcans. I'm just trying to figure out how to give Darwin a TALOS battery, swap Majestics for Centaurs find the men and money for a couple of Counties, four squadrons of Sea Vixens, at least four squadrons of Drakens and the NADGE*1 to go with it, and do a Canberra bomber upgrade. (Introduce the AGM 76 as a standoff missile for anti-airbase strikes.