Did some reading over the break and found a little jem that suggested when the RAN was shopping for DDG's they were really looking for a Sverdlov killer. 

They looked at the County, Adams and Brook (FFG 1) designs, they appearently prefered the County with its COSAG machinery, superior CIC and accomodation fit, helicopter hanger compatability with a number of existing RAN systems and its design heritage that traced back to the Darings, which would have made local construction easier.

 

How ever the prefered missile system was Tartar due to its automated launcher operation hence high rate of fire to better deal with a Sverdlov and the prefered launcher was the Mk-13 due to the 40 rounds it held as opposed to the 16 in the Mk-22 (Brook). 

 

The Brits were asked to rejig the County with a Mk-13 and Tartar in place of Sea Slug, they refused to do so leaving the Adams as the only viable option.

 

The Adams design was played with to a degree to try and work in a helicopter but the price was too high in that it would have cost one of the Mk-42's and half the steam plant.

 

Interestingly I have read that a number of the Super Daring design evolutions, that lead to the County, were actually armed with Tartar inplace of Sea Slug resulting in a significantly smaller cheaper hull once that ludicrus magazine had been removed.

 

One of these could have been used for the RAN but I still believe that the best option would have been to raise and convert the fantail into a flight deck (possibly with an Ikara mag worked in underneath / launcher in cutouts extreme aft or further forward Port / Starboard) and  replace the original flight deck and missile prep area with a new twin hanger.  The Mk-13 would then be installed forward of the hanger in place of the original hanger with the mag fitting in the aft section of the original Sea Slug mag superfiring over the hanger in a configuration similar to the Tromp, Audace and Cassard.  This would leave significant volume in what was the forward section of the Sea Slug hanger to be used for accomdation, stowage and maybe even additional command and control and maintenance spaces making the County DLG into a true CLG.

 

Expensive but it could have been done and I would suggest that through the life of the ships the common to the rest of the RAN guns, steam plant, and other systems would have resulted in very major savings in training, logistics and support that had to be duplicated for the Adams and their US systems.  They may well have worked out cheaper to own than the Adams.  Further, had they been built locally an extra hull could have been ordered as a replacement for the lost Voyager, instead of the final two Rivers that were built and another pair to replace the remaining Daring instead of the still born DDL and then FFG-07 (OHP) that were ordered.

 

With 6 Tartar County DLG / CLG's the RAN could have avoided the scope creep on the DDL (Tartar etc.) and built the large class of light destroyers as oringinally intended which would have negated the need to blow resourses on the FFG's, Attack Class Patrol Boats and subsequently the ANZAC's.

The DDG's were perfectly good enough for the SEATO missions they were ordered for and they turned out to be good enough for the service lives they led in reality.  During the early to mid 60's, when Indonesia was flexing their muscles and deploying a lot of Soviet gear, the DDG's were no where near enough, which is why the RAN were looking at replacement carriers with F-4B, Tracker and Tracer.

What happened was we got lucky and our strategic environment became more benign.  This was cutesy of Suharto seizing power in Indonesia.  Up until that point we were sh!tting ourselves, increasing defence spending, expanding the army, looking towards a nuclear weapon program, trying to buy all sorts of gear to catch up with what Indonesia had been gifted, and perhaps above all we committed to Vietnam in the hope of gaining favour, hence a concrete commitment to our defence from the US.

 

The powers that be didn't have crystal balls and were horrified when Indonesia began to assert themselves and the Kennedy administration appeared to be favouring them over us as they attempted to sway them away from Soviet influence.  Basically by the 60's we had lost our regional superiority as well as faith in the SEATO and ANZUS arrangements with the UK and US.  Every defence assumption up to that point had been wrong and there was neither the time nore the money to rectify the situation.

Wessex HAS 31, the Australian version of the RN FAA HAS 3, was the most effective ASW system in service with the ADF at the time.  It was so capable, and the threat from Indonesia and China's Russian supplied submarines seen to be so great, that the RAN seriously considered having the Perth (RAN Adams) Class built with hangers and flight deck in place of the aft Mk 42 5" gun.  This change, which would also have required half the boilers to be removed (cutting max speed to about 28kt), as well as being very expensive, was seen as too great a compromise and dropped.

 

The County on the other hand already had facilities for a HAS 3 while a Tartar County, with the space and weight saved by the deletion of Seaslug, could have easily been fitted to hanger and operate 2 or more HAS31's from a superior fantail arrangement.  This is while retaining their full medium gun armament, Seacat secondary missile armament and superior sensor, not to forget command and control fit.

 

The County was superior to the Adams in almost every way, it's only failing being the UK failed to improve Seaslug to the same degree as the US improved Tartar and then Standard.  Replace Seaslug with Tartar and make effective use of the saved space and weight and you would have an extremely capable multi role platform that could serve as the core of a surface action group, ASW group as well as a very effective carrier escort.

We had other ASW systems at the time, Ikara, P-2's, Trackers, Sea Kings etc, which were capable of dealing with the threat. The one or two extra choppers per task group on the Counties would have made no apprecable differance. Getting our area air defence capability late and overpriced because we insisted on Australianising them might have.

Ikara was most effective when used in conjunction with a dipping sonar helo.

 P-2 was a land based MPA that had it's own missions to conduct and were progressively replaced with the P-3 because they were not able to cope with the threat.

The Tracker didn't enter service until 1967 as a replacement for the Gannet.

The Seakings entered service in 1976 as replacements for the Wessex in the ASW role.

 When Melbourne was unavailable the fleet had no organic ASW capability out side the effective detection range of the RAN hull mounted sonar, i.e. only about 5 Nm on average! (Wessex could be operated from Sydney and were used to provide ASW cover for the South Vietnam transport missions)

 

All together having a pair of Wessex on each of our air defence ships would have made a massive difference to the RAN's ASW capability during the 1960's

Interesting link on Russian torpedos. Note that the homing torpedos  from the 1960's only have a homing range of about 800 metres, well within the 5km range of the hull mounted sonars.

http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WTRussian_post-WWII.htm

Conqueror used unguided Mk 8 torpedoes to sink General Belgrano in 1982. 

 

Dunking Sonar Helos were used as replacements for ships in the ASW screen with each helo able to substitute for a couple of frigates or DE's by dunking then moving on and dunking again.  Thus a largish ship with a couple of ASW helos could take the place of a squadron (3 to 4) ASW escorts.  This was the thinking behind the Invincible class, which was initially designed to embark a Sqn of 9 ASW Helo's and an area defence missile system.

 

Deployment by the RAN of a DLG or CG with 2 or more large helicopters would have permitted a reduction in the number of DE's ordered by the RAN, i.e. the final pair, Swan and Torrens that were ordered as replacements for the lost DD Voyager.

 

Take this a step further and cancel the expensive and not very effective modernisation of Vampire and Vendetta as well as the final  two DE's to pay for the extra cost of the Counties v the Adams and also a fourth hull.  The DDL project could now proceed along its original intent of being more a patrol frigate or sloop than a defacto AWD allowing the planned ten hulls to be built.  The original four DE's would be replaced during the 80's with a GP frigate design, perhaps more in line with the evolved DDL that was cancelled in favor of the OHP FFG's.  This would set the Counties to be replaced with either a Ticonderoga or Burke during the 90's.

 

Roll this all in with an SCB27 Modernised Essex flying Trackers and Phantoms and we could have taken responsibility for our own defence and declined to commit fully to Vietnam, there by saving more than enough money to pay for our new fleet.