And now for something completely different...RAAF chooses EE Lightning over Mirage.

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Subject: And now for something completely different...RAAF chooses EE Lightning over Mirage.
Volkodav 5/24/2009 4:55:42 AM

The Lightning was a contender for RAAF how serious a contender I don't know. The main choice always seemed to be between the Mirage and the Lockheed Starfighter with the Phantom and Lightning being only bit players. The Lightning was apparently ruled out due to it's lack of ground attack capability, not that the Mirage was a wiz in the air to ground department either. The RR Avon and Ferranti Airpass radar of the Lightning were actually considered for the baseline Mirage III EO as they would have offered significantly improved performance. Imagine now that the RAAF had selected an evolved derivative of the Lightning. Would we have used it in Vietnam? What modifications and improvements would it have incorporated? What upgrades would it received during its life? What weapons would it have been certified for,i.e. Sidewinder, Paveway? What would the sale to Australia have meant for the program as a whole and then for the British and Austrlaian aviation industries?

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Herald12345 6/10/2009 11:27:49 PM

Just looked at the Darings they only commissioned in 1957, 1958, 1959, so disposing of them in the early 1960's would be unpopular, so you'd probably end up keeping those and not getting the perths. Since they had a similar crew requirement to the Darings (slightly higher actually) you could possibly buy that third county class mod from not buying the perths, crewing it would be the problem though.

The Rivers are better helo ships than any modified Daring, The Adams was a heavily reworked Gearing and was a superb AAW ship, but do the same to the DARING class and see what happens?

http://www.hazegray.org/navhist/rn/destroyers/daring/daring1.jpg" height="404" width="800" />

I'm looking at suppressing D turret and installing a Mark 13 and shoving an Ikara between the funnels. Possible. Where do I put the radars without making her topheavy? Tough. No room for a helicopter at all. The hull is too narrow.

If you could remodel the rear superstructure of a Daring to fit a flight deck and hanger you could probably sell some River's back to the RN. I suppose it all depends on where we depart from reality. In reality though, the RAN should have no problems crewing their ships from 1951-1959 and 1964-1973 as during these periods Australia had national service.

National service fills out the numbers The thing about a Navy though is that from 1955 onward you need men for highly technical skills. I mean no disrerspect for RAN national service recruited members but your Navy was probably testing for men who could maintain missiles, torpedoes, propulsion plants, aircraft, electronic systems of all kinds, etc. You cannot pull them off the street teach them quickly to feed shells into a gun and expect to run a 1955 missile armed radar equopped Navy like that with such young teenagers. It doesn't work. It didn't work in WW II The USN tried that WW I approach and left 5,000+ dead sailors in Ironbottom Sound.

Shiphandling was and is physically and mentally tough before the electronics revolution hit. BUT.......Long before the Army types had to worry about ballistics tables or trig and algbebra, not to mention differential calculus. the Navy types under Stephen Decatur and Horatio Nelson had to worry about that math and science thing plus wind and wave and sail shiphandling!. Officers and technical men (Bosuns and mates) could not be fools. They had to go to fleet school to learn that naval technology and how to use it. A Navy that could recruit this talent straight in from its professional schools and merchant marine could use drafted landlubbers (swabs) to do the physical grunt work of working guns and sail, but the leadership had to be trained PROFESSIONALs. That weas 19th century. Now as I just said, in the 1950s you suddenly introduce radars, rockets, computers, helicopters, robot self-guided torpedoes, jet aircraft, a pair of modified and very advanced aricraft carriers, plus mine warfare, the very good Oberon submarine, all into the RAN in the space of ten years? Can you draft 10,000 young Australian men under a birth lottery, test them all, pull the TOP 4000, train them to their specialty within a year and hold on to them for two more years and MAN the 1955-1965 fleet I just described?

The difference between a 1962 Charles F Adams and an unmodifed 1949 Daring was technically GREATER than the difference between the USS Arkansas, and the USS Iowa.

That was the transformation the WWII RAN executed into the early 1960s RAN we see, that we are trying to IMPROVE and set in the ATL with real technology choices that Australia can afford. I figure I have about 4000 men realistically I can send to sea and pay for them and their tools with the means I have at the time. They must be schooled and led by a technically competent professional career leadership (this is as WESTERN navy) of at least 1000 officers and senior rates. The question of aviation personnel both fliers and technicians, etc. is on top of this pyramid and then you toss in the submariners.

I would be remiss; if I didn't consider these factors, and explain my thinking behind why I jettison the Darings and hang on to the Rivers.and the Perths, while trying to squeeze in a pair of heavily revised Counties. Notice that wherever I could, I use the simplest ship planforms, commom weapon sets, best British and American automation I can dig up for the time, to keep the manpower and t

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Volkodav 6/11/2009 1:26:25 AM

Prior to the FFG 7's no RAN surface combatants carried helicopters and even the OHP's were incapable of carrying the helo's we had, i.e. Sea King and Wessex. Any of the existing ships, Adams, Daring, River would expensive and time consuming t modify and the result would have been very compromised.

A regular County could operate a single Wessex while a Tartar County could have been designed to operate 2,or later a sing Seaking. By choosing the County the RAN would have dramatically increased their ASW capability when Melbourne was unavailable.

While a double ended derivative with 2 Mk13 would have had its advantages the issues with the early T3 systems would have made retaining the Mk6 4.5" twin in B position a sensible move.

Herald I hear you on your concerns about top weight but you have to factor in that the Mk13 would be mounted at the old flight deck level and that the Ikara would be fitted two decks lower in cutouts port and starboard perhaps between the funnels, or further aft, covered by doors.

The Counties, being DLG's would have brought so much more to the RAN than the Adams.

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Aussiegunneragain 6/11/2009 4:42:07 AM

I've always wondered why we didn't go for the Wasp (later Lynx for the RN) equipped Leanders like the Kiwi's and the Poms instead of the River's, at least for the last two ships. It had Seacat, Ikara or Exocet, Limbo and 4.5's as well as the Helo with antishipping and sub weapons. Much more useful.

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gf0012-aust 6/11/2009 5:39:03 AM

Prior to the FFG 7's no RAN surface combatants carried helicopters

I'm assuming that you're talking about frigates, destroyers and destroyer escorts?

my father serverd on HMAS Sydney during the Korean War and they had Bristol Sycamores on board. I have some happy snaps of some very iced over Sycamores when the ship was belted by Typhoon Ruth. They bent and lost a few aircraft in the storm.

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Volkodav 6/11/2009 7:22:39 AM

Prior to the FFG 7's no RAN surface combatants carried helicopters

I'm assuming that you're talking about frigates, destroyers and destroyer escorts?

Ah huh, small world, my dad was on Sydney in the late 50's when her deck was like a roller coaster and no longer suitable for flight ops.

Dad has some snaps from the Confrontation when he was on Queenbough escorting Centaur and (I think) Newfoundland.

The major problem the RAN had post war was the fact it was redesigned around the assumption we would have a pair of Light Fleet Carriers operating modern strike and ASW aircraft but then failed to maintain the capability. Dropping to one carrier and then failing to replace it with a more capable platform able to operate heavier aircraft cut the heart out of the RAN's post war doctrine.

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Herald12345 6/11/2009 12:22:06 PM

http://middle-watch.com/images/Ships/Leander_gun.jpg" width="3" height="1" />

Prior to the FFG 7's no RAN surface combatants carried helicopters and even the OHP's were incapable of carrying the helo's we had, i.e. Sea King and Wessex. Any of the existing ships, Adams, Daring, River would expensive and time consuming to modify and the result would have been very compromised.

Adams (Perths) could not operate helos, nor could the Darings unless you squared the fantails and actually bulged the hulls; Rivers (improved Leanders and Type 12s) would be able to do so-even with the Wessex. The British actually built and modified such hulls with such facilities for Wasps mid 60s. .

http://middle-watch.com/images/Ships/Ply_before_after.gif" width="800" height="562" />

Think early about US and British experience with ASW helos from 1952 onward and think who and what was effective (*the British)..You might have to buy a light helo (Wasp) as the Wessex is a bit large (Or make the shelter much larger, a Wessex will fit into a Leander rear end that is squared off). That is why I scrapped the Limbo mortar and Borfor 40s from the first place, landed Seacat outright, and suggested the 5' Mark 42 automatic instead of the 4.5' Mark 6 twin.)

You want to wind up with something like this:

http://middle-watch.com/images/Ships/Leander_gun.jpg" width="818" height="357" />

Notice the County style superstructure and radar fit? (fighter and naval aircraft director capability) She is all guns, sonars radar, and ASW helo. You don't have the Canadian VDS at the time so the helo gets moved further aft, the shelter is larger and Ikara is fitted amidships just aft the big 3d radar and the enlarged helo shelter.

The modified County carries a pair of Terrier/Tartar magazines AFT ahead of the shelter. C mount can be deep so she can carry Terriers. The D mount has to be shallow in order to fit her over the engine room spaces so she carries Tartar. Both missiles can smash Sverdlovs to scrap in the antisurface role, so get rid of that raised B position 4.5' Mark 6 twin and shove Ikara in there as the position is deep enough, and the deckhouse wide enough so you can store, assemble and feed Ikara rocket boosted torpedoes there without excessive topweight or fowling the radars. That gives you an aft ended two missile zone, anti-air warfare ship along with that impressive ASW capability you want. It also gives you something on the order of a Belknap or Leahy . Such a ship will be very expensive to buy. You want SIX of them?

While a double ended derivative with 2 Mk13 would have had its advantages the issues with the early T3 systems would have made retaining the Mk6 4.5" twin in B position a sensible move.

No it wouldn't. That is a flat statement based on the maximum AO air threat estimate faced (Badgers with free fall bombs and MiGs armed with Russian FFARS) and the THUNDERBIRD Type 83 Yellow River radar suggested for fit as the tracker illuminators for the Terrier/Tartar family (-track 8-12 able to engage 4.). Coupled with a 5' Mark 42 automatic this is sufficient for a carrier bodyguard ship. or expeditionary force escort. The gun work for ship to shore or ship versus ship would fall to the Rivers and the Perths. It should never get down to that against a Sverdlov or the Indonesian Rigas and Kronstadts anyway. I doubt the Indonesian Komars which were the major EFFECTIVE naval threat to RAN shups at the time would be able to get to sea or even survive in open ocean operations.

Herald

The Counties, being DLG's would have brought so much more to the RAN than the Adams.

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Herald12345 Follow up. 6/11/2009 2:47:45 PM

How do you fit this (CREF below) onto a launcher horizontal sideways on a ship with a <20 meter beam?

http://nuclear-weapons.info/images/Ikara-cutway.PNG" width="1100" height="825" />

Data source. Used under the GNU fair use conventions. All this work shown in the illustration as well as source data credited to the original author and not to be used for profit, or resale, in ANY way shape or fashiion

The Counties, being DLG's would have brought so much more to the RAN than the Adams.

The Counties were almost twice the size, more than twice the cost, and almost twice the armament (when Americanized) of an Adams, they'd BETTER bring more to the party than an Adams does, ship for ship, to the RAN fleet. At the overall cost out for a RAN County as I estimate it, as an equivalent to a US Truxton, the only thing missing here is the D2G nuclear reactor!

Herald

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gf0012-aust 6/11/2009 5:22:38 PM

Ah huh, small world, my dad was on Sydney in the late 50's when her deck was like a roller coaster and no longer suitable for flight ops.

Dad has some snaps from the Confrontation when he was on Queenbough escorting Centaur and (I think) Newfoundland.

very small world, my fathers first ship was Queenborough. You might want to run my surname past your dad and see of it rings a bell. Dad was a PO (Radio Tech). He also managed to get an observation seat on the USS New Jersey when it was on the gunline. he then ended up at Harman/Belconnen/Nowra (all Radio Tech) on leaving ships for "green sea" postings

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Volkodav 6/11/2009 8:43:32 PM

Already ran you surname past my parents when you mentioned the Darwin connection a while ago as my parents lived there on and off through the 60's and retired there in the late 90's. Your name didn't ring a bell but I don't doubt our families have crossed paths at some point.

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Volkodav 6/11/2009 10:43:44 PM

Herald, Ikara was fitted to each beam of the Perth Class inplace of the ASROC, 14 m beam, with no issues and in cutouts on the starboard side of the quarter deck of the Rivers,12.49m beam. Are you saying that a modified County, with beam of 16m and huge amounts of internal volume freed up through the deletion of the Seaslug magazine, couldn't have accommodated a pair of Ikara launchers and a couple of dozen missiles?

Also while I acknowledge that Terrier was a good missile I can not see the reason to compromise the County by trying to work in both the Terrier and Tartar, surely one or the other would suffice. If you want Terrier then why not go for a minimum change from the original design simply replacing Seaslug with Terrier. If both are needed then build the ships to operate in pairs, one with Tartar and two Wessex and the other with Terrier and one Wessex.

As to the comment that the County is more expensive than the Adams, steel is cheap and air is free so logic dictates that if you limit what you try to squeeze into this larger hull it should not cost much more than the smaller ship. Add to this the savings in training and logistics that County would deliver through its common heritage with the RAN's existing Destroyers and Frigates. The 1200psi steam plant, the complex Mk42 5" gun mount, and the cramped conditions onboard the Adams added many unseen costs to ownership that a modified County would not have had with its common steam plant to the Rivers and many other familiar systems already in service with the RAN.

The missile system would be new as would the gas turbines and the ship board helicopter capability but no more difficult to integrate into the RAN than the totally new Adams Class were. In the long term the Counties would provide very much more capability than the Adams as their larger size would permit them to serve as flagships while their helicopters and GT's would give the RAN the necessary corporate knowledge to better choose and introduce future generations of warships into service.

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