You need a thousand men. Where do you get them? You must give up three destroyers and or rigatres.

You need a thousand men. Where do you get them? You must give up three destroyers and or rigatres.

I didn't know that.

 

Anyway, those thousand men need to be shaved for operating COST. I'm trying to get a fleet out there within your budget. Obviously I see a need for at least one Perth per carrier as a bodyguard. (Adams Class with the Tartar/Terrier mod) and two River Class per carrier (land the Seacat as useless and save 20 men per launcher there 120 men across a class of 6.)

 

You might as well land the Bofors guns and the associated air defense gun FCS for the carriers. That shaves off 100 men from each crew. That is 320 men total. Where do you get the other 680 men?   I frankly don't know. In Australia's AO one could down the RAN one Perth and get by........+310, that brings the savings to  630 men.  What can one do if one substitutes US frigates for the Type 12s? Nothing. The Rivers are clearly superior to everyything US as an ASW platform before the Knox Class. So you have to squeeze 370 men off the two carriers. Underman the swav divisions and go naval reserve to make up the grunt shortage during active operations. You could probably peacetime at 1500 crew and get away with it, but then you have at least a  90 day train up to wartime standards. That is a risk. Undermannning was a calculated risk that hobbled the US combat fleet during WW II for an entire year, until it trained up to full wartime strength for what it had on hand 7 december 1941. That policy's consequences continued to hobble the USN until 1943 when we finally had enough trained crew to man combat units. We nev er reached the levels we shpuld have had from the beginning until almost the close of the war.

 

So full manning and comprehensive training is far more important for the RAN than how big a carrier it is.........

 

If you trade in a Perth and a River you can have your Centaurs, just barely.

 

Herald

 

 

 

 

 

 

There were also three Daring class destroyers. Voyager (later replaced by Duchess after getting in the way of Melbourne), Vendetta & Vampire (crew ~300 each).

Don't you need your gun destroyers then? They were fairly useful ships.

However if not for their large crews i would have preferred "evolved-counties" with Tartar or Thunderbird rather then the Perths. They were larger ships, they had a flight deck and hanger, they had the same 4.5" gun as the rest of the fleet and as a final advantage? They looked way better.

At the beginning of 1962 before the first of the Perths was ordered, the RN consisted of the following ships:

3 x Daring class
1 x Battle (+ 1 in reserve)
2 x River Class Frigate (+1 as Survey Ship + 6 In reserve)
1 x Leander class cruiser (in Reserve)
2 x Majestic class (Sydney Recommissioned March)
2 x Grimsby class Sloop
2 x Q class Destroyer (+2 Reserve)

4 x River Class DE were already under construction and could not be cancelled.

Total Complement (Escorts): 2,066

HMAS Melbourne: 1,350

HMAS Sydney was about to recommission as a troop transport, melbourne - air group was 1,000 so probably about the same.

 

 HMS Centaur became available in 1965 and HMS Albion in 1973. The Implacables probably could have been modernized but i doubt the RAN could afford it if the RN couldn't. The 3 x Daring, 3 x Perth, 6 x River Force required ~3,600 Sailors to crew and the last of the other ships were decommissioned by the time the last River entered service. The RAN could probably crew two Carriers had either 1 or both of the last rivers not been ordered. The Centaurs in service had a larger crew then the Implacable class, though that may have been due to the more complex aircraft operated.

 

Stevo you are a mind reader. I have started a response the herald a couple of times suggesting a Tartar armed County for the similar reasons to those you outlined.
 

I imagine a County pretty much the same as the as the RN model forward of the aft funnel. The changes would be the replacement of the Seaslug launcher with a helicopter flight deck with a large hanger replacing the missile handling facilities and former helipad. A Mk13 launcher would be fitted where the Seaslug firecontrol radar was located with a pait of Tartar directors situated in the old hanger location. Finally an Ikara launcher would be fitted in a cutout on either bean below the old hanger position with the missiles being stored in the old Seaslug hanger.

Ikara in place of the two Sea Cat launchers?