Glimpse of RN Missile Ship design

[uk 75]

"WARSHIP" OF THE FUTURE. ARTISTS IMPRESSION OF A ROYAL NAVY GUIDED WEAPON SHIP.

www.iwm.org.uk

The War Museum has just published artist's impressions of RN ships before they were built.
One of them, attached below, shows a ship with a forward mounted CF299 missile launcher and dome radar. Or might it even be the fabled NIGS?

 

[starviking]

I think it might be something related to the T82: the forward missile track diverts after dropping something that dives into the sea, the rear track is going at moderate elevation with an apparent traditional missile at its head.

Best guess, someone has updated a British cruiser hull (the stacks indicate this) with the forthcoming T82 weapons systems as an illustration of ”things to come”.

Wish there was a better illustration!

 

[Hood]

Looks very much like a Town or Crown Colony-class cruiser with a SAM system and not sure what the twin-gun turrets are (don't look like 3in/70).
Hard time dating this, the use of a cruiser as a base ship seem early/mid-50s (note the DACR-esque gun secondaries but no Sea Cat for example) but the SAM and radar depictions look more like late 50s/early 60s.

Agreed with starviking, looks to be a 2-stage missile, I wonder if its a Orange Nell/SIGS-type SAM given that the target seems to be fairly low altitude?

 

[starviking]

Scratch that mooted Ikara launcher.

Looking at the illustration on the IWM website, there are 4 objects dropping into the sea from the forward missile track: Sea Slug boosters?

Also, the guns look ill-placed and I don’t recognize them.

With the mix of technology, Sea Slug, covered 909 guidance radars, this really does seem like artistic license.

 

[Tzoli]

To me the guns look like fully covered Bofors 40mm/70 m/48 guns, twins likely.
The hull indeed is of the standard RN cruiser type, Town/Crown Colony/Minotaur/Tiger but the GW series had similar hull shape as well.
There seems to be a Blast shield behind the aft missile launcher?
To missile launcher themselves.... I could see the cage like Sea Slug in them but these look to be covered, almost like those early Soviet Anti Ship Missile launchers in shape.

There were proposals to modernize the Crown Colonies (Fiji group) with Sea Slug missile launchers but the new armament would be 1x triple 6" turret, 1x twin Seal Slug Launchers and 4x twin Bofors!

 

[JFC Fuller]

@uk 75 , thanks for posting this, thats a fascinating image. At first glance the following stick out:

1. The hull and funnels look very 1930s-1950s in terms of aesthetic, note the torpedo tubes in a cutout at main deck level just aft of the aft funnel
2. The forward superstructure also has a distinct early 1950s feel to it, very reminiscent of the Fiji and Dido class modernisations, or perhaps more notably the '1960' cruiser concepts from 1948/49
3. The helicopter approaching the stern looks most like a Westland Dragonfly but it could also be a Sycamore, which again points to the early-mid 1950s
4. Gun turrets galore, two on the upper deck aft of the aft funnel, one on each bridge wing and two in B position in front of the bridge - another 1950s feature notable of missile ship and cruiser designs (e.g. a mix of Bofors and 3"/70s, perhaps in this case very early speculative concepts for the 3"/70 and/or DACR derivatives)
5. The missile launchers are hard to discern but again they have a distinct early 1950s look, perhaps a cage or pair of barrels, there might just be the outline of a pair of doors in the deck behind the forward launcher that could be representative of the early near vertical Seaslug loading concept, POPSY was also a vertical loading missile in concept
6. The only thing in the image that is genuinely unusual for the early 1950s is the domes over what I assume to be the illuminators

On balance, this looks like a heavily stylised and badly proportioned early 1950s stab at a generic future missile cruiser. Alternatively, its a later drawing and the artist was spectacularly ill-informed, especially given the quality of this County class drawing.

 

[Zoo Tycoon]

It’s got twin Type 909 style TIR’s (the domed radar, one about centre and one aft) which would put it as a semi active type system.

 

[starviking]

There seems to be a Blast shield behind the aft missile launcher?
To missile launcher themselves.... I could see the cage like Sea Slug in them but these look to be covered, almost like those early Soviet Anti Ship Missile launchers in shape.

The blast shield could be a retractable hangar mounting for the helicopter that is approaching.

As for the missile launchers, I wouldn’t read much into their appearance - at the resolution the artist is able to achieve I doubt he could accurately reflect the cagework of the Sea Slug launcher.

 

[starviking]

It’s got twin Type 909 style TIR’s (the domed radar, one about centre and one aft) which would put it as a semi active type system.

I was wondering if those were standing in for ‘modern’ air-search radars, given their size (they look much bigger than 909s. However, there does appear to be bedstead radar on the foremas, so perhaps they are TIRs after all.

 

[starviking]

Agreed with starviking, looks to be a 2-stage missile, I wonder if its a Orange Nell/SIGS-type SAM given that the target seems to be fairly low altitude?

Unless the missile is something akin to the Blue Slug SSM?

 

[zen]

Or......could this be Seaslug mkIII, with SARH? A brief moment before things shift into NIGS?

Orange Nell is smaller.

 

[TomS]

Gun turrets galore, two on the upper deck aft of the aft funnel, one on each bridge wing and two in B position in front of the bridge - another 1950s feature notable of missile ship and cruiser designs (e.g. a mix of Bofors and 3"/70s, perhaps in this case very early speculative concepts for the 3"/70 and/or DACR derivatives)

The fore and aft guns seem too small to be 3"/70s -- I don't think those could have fit side by side forward of the bridge on even a fairly large cruiser. But maybe they were a lot smaller in earlier concepts?

The bridge wing gun look like twin Bofors, just not quite in the right scale. Which is pretty typical of art like this, in my experience.

 

[Tzoli]

The twin 3" turrets were not that large. If my drawings are correct they are 4,2m long and 4,8-4,9m wide (Gunhouse without the ejection tray hatches) otherwise with the barrels and stuff 8,5m long altogether.

 

[Hood]

Yes, I'd be wary of reading too much into this artwork. Even the title seems very generic.
It would be more instructive to know why this painting was produced and what/who it was intended for. It might just be a public relations image.

It feels like a circa 1954-57 image to me given all the details we've drawn together.

 

[Tzoli]

Maybe an Artist impression of one the GW designs? Based on it's limited knowledge of a cruiser with set armaments?
GW.25B stands quite well:
2x2 Seaslug, 2x2 3", 4x2 40mm
GW.36:
2x2 Seaslug, 4x2 40mm
and the last but unlikely:
GW.82:
2x2 Seaslug, 2x2 3", 2x6 40mm