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Subject: Alternate Post WWII RAN: Carriers
Volkodav    7/2/2009 7:27:00 AM
Carrying on from the "gift" fleet on the Lightning post.
The RAN is gifted a number of modern ships including one, two or three Colossus class light fleet carriers.

How many would we get, which aircraft would we operate initially and which aircraft would succeed them post war then into the 50's. How would the carriers be modernised / modified, what roles would they be adapted to, how long would they serve and finally what, if anything, would they be replaced with?

 
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Herald12345       7/5/2009 12:03:02 PM

Let's look at the Dido as a refit.





 


You lose the C mount to save topweight for the radars. X and Y mounts go to install a Terrier/Tartar? The hull is not deep enough aft so you have to build a deck house to house the rotary magazine above your shaft tunnels (that is about how deep you go into the hull; its a roughly 5 meter + long missile, Tartar is. You also have to tear out the hoists and magazines and reframe aft of the after pole mast.. Ugh, expensive. Modified Fiji is better.

On the plus side you just might be able to fit an Ikara amidships between the funnels. I wouldn't, but you might consider it. 

Gives you a very big destroyer.
 
Steel is cheap and air is free, in this case the steel was free and with a crew of 480 a Dido's operating costs would have been much lower than a 10-15000 CL. The edge a 4.5" armed Dido would have had over a large, late war destroyers is their command facilities as well as their greater self maintenance and support capacity. They would have made ideal escort or strike group leaders.
 
Operating costs are not, I would argue..
. 
As for modernisation, the Mk.13 launcher with its concentric ring magazine, was designed to fit into the same space as a Mk. 42 5" gun so should have been able to fit the barbett originally designed for the much larger 5.25". The bridge superstructure could be cut down and remodelled with the tripod masts being replaced with lattice masts, or even better build macks to replace the masts and funnels. This would leave space and weight to install a Mk. 13 in either B or C(Q?) and X turrets while leaving her with 2 or 3 turrets, either 4.5" for an earlier modified Dido, or possibly Mk.42 5" to replace the 5.25" if she still had them at the time of her missile conversion. The 5" gun variant could be with paired AN/SPG-51 and AN/SPG-53 on top of the new bridge and another of each on a new deckhouse built between the aft funnel (or mack) and the aft Mk.13 (X position). Later the AN/SPG-53 could be upgraded to the C model to provide additional fire control channels.
 
Intererstimg.  While I appreciate the choice of US illumination radars: these missile radars were not ideal for fighter vector direction (being shorter ranged and not as target discriminating at long range) while the British 3 D air volume search radars were. Detection threshhold matters.  British radar Type 965 was superior to USN SPS-6 in this regard.  Mating it with Yellow River Type 83 still gives you a SARH RTG (1960) before the SPG-51D becomes SARH capable (around 1964-1966)  
.
 
 Let's look at the 5.25'/50 
 
 
 
Not the same I think. Volume appears to be different as you morph into the hoist..
 



Herald
 
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Volkodav       7/6/2009 8:12:23 AM
Intererstimg.  While I appreciate the choice of US illumination radars: these missile radars were not ideal for fighter vector direction (being shorter ranged and not as target discriminating at long range) while the British 3 D air volume search radars were. Detection threshhold matters.  British radar Type 965 was superior to USN SPS-6 in this regard.  Mating it with Yellow River Type 83 still gives you a SARH RTG (1960) before the SPG-51D becomes SARH capable (around 1964-1966)  
 
Whoops, left the search radars out but space and weight for a decent 3D radar was one of the reasons why I suggested macks to replace the separate masts and funnels.
 
I see a Dido missile cruiser conversion as being a task force flagship not just a large destroyer and carrier escort. Yes its more expensive to operate than a destroyer but it is double ended, carries better radars, is armoured, retains a useful number of guns and above all has those vital command and control spaces and flag staff. It is also cheaper to operate and has a smaller crew than a Minotaur. I am easy on the radar fit and would had been quite happy with Type 984 3D and Yellow River directors.
 
Oh by the way I was suggesting the 5"/54 Mk 42 Automatic DP mount, as used on the Adams class, as a replacement for the 5.25" DP's of an unmodified Dido as part of a missile cruiser conversion in the late 50's early 60's. Had the RAN acquired 4.5" armed Dido's rather than the 5.25" versions there would have been no point fitting Mk 42's.
 
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Herald12345       7/6/2009 5:28:10 PM

Intererstimg.  While I appreciate the choice of US illumination radars: these missile radars were not ideal for fighter vector direction (being shorter ranged and not as target discriminating at long range) while the British 3 D air volume search radars were. Detection threshhold matters.  British radar Type 965 was superior to USN SPS-6 in this regard.  Mating it with Yellow River Type 83 still gives you a SARH RTG (1960) before the SPG-51D becomes SARH capable (around 1964-1966)  

Whoops, left the search radars out but space and weight for a decent 3D radar was one of the reasons why I suggested macks to replace the separate masts and funnels.

Can it carry the weight of a 17 tonne radar?

I see a Dido missile cruiser conversion as being a task force flagship not just a large destroyer and carrier escort. Yes its more expensive to operate than a destroyer but it is double ended, carries better radars, is armoured, retains a useful number of guns and above all has those vital command and control spaces and flag staff. It is also cheaper to operate and has a smaller crew than a Minotaur. I am easy on the radar fit and would had been quite happy with Type 984 3D and Yellow River directors.

Yes but I posited a "short" Fiji as the free cruiser offered.  Minotaurs come later and definitely are manpower hogs..

Oh by the way I was suggesting the 5"/54 Mk 42 Automatic DP mount, as used on the Adams class, as a replacement for the 5.25" DP's of an unmodified Dido as part of a missile cruiser conversion in the late 50's early 60's. Had the RAN acquired 4.5" armed Dido's rather than the 5.25" versions there would have been no point fitting Mk 42's.
 
I thought we were discussing the 5'/38 TWIN which the Terrier/ Tartar WAS designed to replace?  The Mark 42 was similar in size and volume. below deck. She has a lot of hoist machimery.
 
My error again.


 
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Volkodav       7/6/2009 10:55:45 PM
I thought we were discussing the 5'/38 TWIN which the Terrier/ Tartar WAS designed to replace?  The Mark 42 was similar in size and volume. below deck. She has a lot of hoist machimery.
 
Well I've learnt something, I always thought the Tartar was designed to replace the Mk42, but now come to think of it I have read about proposed Terrier/Tartar Gearing conversions so the 5"/38 twin replacement makes sense. I suppose I have never put two and two in this case.
 
I think the thing with missiles and radars is that they were volume, rather than weight restricted making cruisers a better conversion option than destroyers.
 
A possible way ahead could have been to forget about expensive modernisations for any of the gift fleet, with the posible exception of a Terrier or Tartar missile conversion of the Minotaurs, and to go for new build ships from the late 50's onwards. Even with the cruiser, assuming they are converted to double ended ships with no 6" guns retained, would it not have been more sensible to go for new build Counties or Leahy's in the early 60's?
 
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Herald12345       7/7/2009 1:40:25 AM



I thought we were discussing the 5'/38 TWIN which the Terrier/ Tartar WAS designed to replace?  The Mark 42 was similar in size and volume. below deck. She has a lot of hoist machimery.




 

Well I've learnt something, I always thought the Tartar was designed to replace the Mk42, but now come to think of it I have read about proposed Terrier/Tartar Gearing conversions so the 5"/38 twin replacement makes sense. I suppose I have never put two and two in this case.

 

I think the thing with missiles and radars is that they were volume, rather than weight restricted making cruisers a better conversion option than destroyers.

 

A possible way ahead could have been to forget about expensive modernisations for any of the gift fleet, with the possible exception of a Terrier or Tartar missile conversion of the Minotaurs, and to go for new build ships from the late 50's onwards. Even with the cruiser, assuming they are converted to double ended ships with no 6" guns retained, would it not have been more sensible to go for new build Counties or Leahy's in the early 60's?


I honestly don't know. The Counties are very expensive. If at all possible, I would take at least some of the gift ships and make the Ikara, helo conversions on the basis of in-country work, wherever possible. The Counties I don't see Britain doing a one off or three off major design refit. The RN were committed to Sea Slug. Australia may have to do the Terrier conversions in her own yards or send the Counties she buys, to the US for the missile conversion work? The Fijis and Minotaurs might have to go to US yards for the magazine and launcher work as well, but here for omce I don't see why an Australian yard that could build Darings from the keel up could not do the work locally? 
 
What I'm saying, is that you have to look at your gift ships and see what you can afford. Its glib for me to say that youn can do this and do that, but you have to understand that your "gift fleet" now cuts into the RAN budget in ways that changes what I originally understood to be the costs.
 
This now resembles the USN GUPPY  program in some strange ways where you take a fleet of WW II ships and try to bring them up into the cold war standard. The British ships, because of their good surface ship hull volume design in the named classes we discuss, have enough internal working volume to make these changes work, I think.
 
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