Q-band Tartar for the RN

[uk 75]

Belknap-class cruiser - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

The Belknap class would have provided Terrier/Standard ER and a DASH later LAMPS helo pad rather than Tartar/Standard MR. Arguably an off the shelf County class would then have been a better option. Seaslug was comparable with Terrier.
Would a Daring Tartar have had the same life expectancy as the three Adams class?
As for Q Band vs ordinary Tartar, RN was never going to get a missile other than Seaslug until CF299 replaced Blue Envoy/NIGS in the evolution chain. Seacat was the point defence replacement for the 40mm Bofors. Seawolf was originally supposed to use the Seacat spot until its launcher and radar grew too big. Orange Nell and Tartar had no platform once Seaslug and Seacat are adopted.

 

[Volkodav]

Belknap-class cruiser - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

The Belknap class would have provided Terrier/Standard ER and a DASH later LAMPS helo pad rather than Tartar/Standard MR. Arguably an off the shelf County class would then have been a better option. Seaslug was comparable with Terrier.
Would a Daring Tartar have had the same life expectancy as the three Adams class?
As for Q Band vs ordinary Tartar, RN was never going to get a missile other than Seaslug until CF299 replaced Blue Envoy/NIGS in the evolution chain. Seacat was the point defence replacement for the 40mm Bofors. Seawolf was originally supposed to use the Seacat spot until its launcher and radar grew too big. Orange Nell and Tartar had no platform once Seaslug and Seacat are adopted.

A Tartar Daring would have removed the need for the cancelled DDL program to ship Tartar increasing the likelihood that a "Tartarless" version of it or a modified Type 21 with US systems would have been produced in the 70s, followed by a replacement for the Daring in the 80s.

 

[uk 75]

I must admit to being puzzled why anyone would want Darings instead of the three Perths.

Perth-class destroyer - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

They always struck me as being the missile ships the UK and Canada should have had in the 60s and with the same armament. They later were upgraded to launch Harpoons from the Standard single launcher and shared Phalanx CWIS.
8 Perths for the RN and 4 for the RCN would have been much more use than the Countys and Iroquois. For that matter the RN would probably have been better off with the Perry class than the Type42s.

 

[JohnR]

I am intrigued by the layout of the proposed variant of County Class with Tartar for the RAN. The two layouts I imagine are; the replacement of B turret with the Mk-13 or by moving the helo facilities aft creating the landing pad over the original Seaslug position, with the hangar on the original landing pad, then placing the Mk -13 in the position of the original hangar like the Tromp class. I could even envision a double ended variant. The amount of available of internal space freed up by the replacement of Seaslug would be massive as most of the magazine space would be unused, although this would lend itself to extensive flag facilities with plenty of space for accommodation for flag staff.

 

[uk 75]

There is a complete mismatch between the County class and a Tartar equipped destroyer.
Replacing Seaslug with Terrier, which used a similar hangar arrangement would give a ship equivalent to the US Coontz class. But neither the RN or RAN wanted one.
A helicopter version of the County design with a single Tartar launcher forward and a single 5" gun turret would have needed too much design work which neither the UK or Australia wanted to do.

 

[Hood]

County could probably have been adapted for Tartar quite easily for the RAN, the big problem was that the RAN wanted both gun mounts, Terrier, two Sea Cat, Type 199 VDS and no less than 3 Wessex helicopters! They backed down to two Wessex but it was still a big ask and they didn't want the gas turbines so the whole machinery had to be replaced with something based on that in Daring for only 27kts. The work would have delayed design work on RN projects for 2-3 years.
So they said, stop messing about and;
a) buy some Leanders instead
b) just accept County with Tartar and stop dreaming about Daring Tartar because its a non-starter
c) stop messing with County and buy our new escort cruiser instead

The RAN then went with the Charles F. Adams, and didn't seem to mind the lack of helicopter capability after all...

 

[uk 75]

Hood
Do we have any official drawings of what an RAN County.with Tartar looked like?
The Chileans converted one to a helicopter carrier.. The Tartar launcher and magazine is so compact. It does show much better the US were at doing launchers than the UK.

 

[JohnR]

The Dariings had Mk VI turrets not Mk V, even their Battle class destroyers had Mk VI.

 

[JFC Fuller]

To be fair to to VADM Sir Henry Mackay Burrell, Australian Chief of the Naval Staff 1959-62, I can understand where he was coming from. At the time the Australians had just completed three Daring class ships, each had three twin 4.5" Mk.VI, single Limbo and six bofors barrels. The British were writing requirements for a Tatar class weapon that would fit in the physical space taken up by a single twin 4.5" Mk.VI mounting and magazine, Seacat was being sold as a direct replacement for Bofors mountings and the Australians managed to get their Ikara system to fit in the space taken up by a single Limbo system. The Perth class (2 x 5" mountings, 1 x Tartar system, 1 x Ikara system at under 4,000 tons standard displacement with an all-steam plant) ultimately gave them something conceptually very similar to a Daring design modernised with such substitutions. With the information they had available, the Australians may have imagined a Daring with those substitutions, still providing two 4.5" Mk.VI twin mountings, then scaled up a bit to take Wessex helicopters.

The County class was a very different ship, designed around a Terrier class missile, with novel COSAG machinery and morphing into such a size that the RN persistently flirted with nudging it up to cruiser standards.

 

[JohnR]

Why were the Australians against having a COSAG plant and wanted a purely steam plant?

 

[Hood]

Why were the Australians against having a COSAG plant and wanted a purely steam plant?

Friedman does not say. I presume it would have been a combination of factors; County was the first COGAS powerplant in the RN and indeed one of the first in the world, so there was an element of technical risk with a novel machinery set up and I guess they might have worried about engine failures and spares support. Also, they may have thought they would get better fuel economy and endurance with an all-steam plant and commonality if they could use the steam machinery from the Darings.

Apart from trying to shoehorn Wessex, I agree that on paper it must have seemed easy on paper to fit Daring with Tartar, as JFC says, these systems were advertised as like-for-like replacements. The reality was very different once they started to number crunch. The same happened when they tried to add SIGS to Leander, the result was unworkable. There is probably a mix of reasons, missiles and their magazines are not like guns, they need more electrical power and they are heavier than they 'look' - those launchers and magazine systems look small but are still heavy pieces of machinery. Also, there was probably an element of conservatism in the conversion calculations and some inexperience of estimating the weight and space requirements. Also, it was probably the case that Daring, County and Leander were built to the margins, they were optimised for what they were designed for and hence had little additional growth capacity and small changes had big knock-on effects.

 

[zen]

I always get the feeling it's a density issue. Gun systems are fairly high density. Whereas missile systems take up more volume, in effect lower density. So while you can squeeze in a gun system and as long as your buoyancy reserves aren't too bad, all is good.
But trying to squeeze in a missile system of similar weight, is going to take up so much more volume and requires so much more sensor clearances, that it demands a larger ship or untenable sacrifices elsewhere.

 

[JFC Fuller]

There appears to have been two main drivers behind the Australian Destroyer programme from 1959 to late 1960:

Cost: The Impact of the Charles F. Adams Class Guided Missile Destroyers on the Australian Navy book states that Hampshires would have required about 20% of the Australian Defence budget and that the Australian specific version was more expensive than the RN was paying for its version.

The fate of HMAS Melbourne and the Australian FAA: In 1959 it had been announced that HMAS Melbourne would be withdrawn when she was due for a refit in 1959, this would have denuded the RAN of an aviation platform. Sometime in 1961 the Australian cabinet agreed to retain Melbourne but only as an ASW carrier, the fixed wing aircraft would still have to go. Subsequently it was decided to retain Venoms and Gannets too and to replace them with A4Gs and Trackers respectively.

Taking these two drivers into account those early County class derivatives that the RN DNC worked on make much more sense. The 1 March 1960 sketch design for a Seaslug ship described by Friedman shows the impact of both these drivers, a lower SHP all steam machinery plant, a reduced gun armament and reduced Seaslug stowage compared to the RN County class. However, there is accommodation for two rather than one Wessex, helicopter carriage being more important with HMAS Melbourne to be withdrawn. The retention of Melbourne likely reduced the requirement for helicopter operations from the missile destroyers.

 

[uk 75]

The relationship between Terrier and Tartar units is interesting.
Italy operated both systems. Terrier on four cruisers and Tartar initially on 2 destroyers and later moved to Standard on 2 plus 2 destroyers.
The Netherlands had one Terrier equipped cruiser (another could have been converted). Like the UK with its Seaslug equipped Countys it then planned a destroyer replacement. Two large destroyers/frigates of the Tromp class entered service in the 70s. Two frigates were also given Standard launchers in the 80s.
Japan built its own Tartar equipped destroyer, the one off Amatzukaze, in the 60s. Further Standard equipped ships followed in the 70s and the 80s.
Germany like Australia adopted the Adams class. Three ships served until the 90s.
France operated two ships in the 60s with Terrierlike Masurca (Colbert joined in the 70s) but bought 4 Tartar launchers for its destroyers.
The UK had the largest number of Terrierlike ships with its 4 plus 2 plus 2 Countys. It did not acquire a Tartarlike system until Seadart arrived in the mid 70s.
Each nation found the mix of ships and missile systems that matched its needs and budgets.

 

[JohnR]

Am I imagining it or did W Germany have plans for an indigenous design prior to purchasing the CF Adam's?

Are their any images of the Australian version of County class?

 

[Pioneer]

To be fair to to VADM Sir Henry Mackay Burrell, Australian Chief of the Naval Staff 1959-62, I can understand where he was coming from. At the time the Australians had just completed three Daring class ships, each had three twin 4.5" Mk.VI, single Limbo and six bofors barrels. The British were writing requirements for a Tatar class weapon that would fit in the physical space taken up by a single twin 4.5" Mk.VI mounting and magazine, Seacat was being sold as a direct replacement for Bofors mountings and the Australians managed to get their Ikara system to fit in the space taken up by a single Limbo system. The Perth class (2 x 5" mountings, 1 x Tartar system, 1 x Ikara system at under 4,000 tons standard displacement with an all-steam plant) ultimately gave them something conceptually very similar to a Daring design modernised with such substitutions. With the information they had available, the Australians may have imagined a Daring with those substitutions, still providing two 4.5" Mk.VI twin mountings, then scaled up a bit to take Wessex helicopters.

The County class was a very different ship, designed around a Terrier class missile, with novel COSAG machinery and morphing into such a size that the RN persistently flirted with nudging it up to cruiser standards.

Is there drawings of this studied modified "Daring class ship"?

Regards
Pioneer

 

[uk 75]

Am I imagining it or did W Germany have plans for an indigenous design prior to purchasing the CF Adam's?

Are their any images of the Australian version of County class?

https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/posts/383339/bookmark

Not much is published but Germany did look at building a missile destroyer before buying the Adams class. They originally wanted 6 but reduced to three. A frigate armed with Tartar was designed in the late 60s but proved too costly and the Dutch Koertenaer class design was bought instead.