GW96A Cruisers British Royal Navy

Pirate Pete

Pirate Pete

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The GW96A class Missile Cruiser was cancelled by the Royal Navy in 1957, but, I do not seem able to find any ‘definitive’ statement about who/why the decision was made. I appreciate that in reality they were harking back to a previous era as modern Frigates had an adequate cruising range and were far more economical manning wise and could, in effect do their jobs. They were after all harking back to ‘Flagships’ and ‘Showing the Flag’ type vessels.
Plans seems to have been 4 Cruisers and 10 County DDG’s, later 3 Cruisers and 16 Counties.
Of course, we never ever got even 10 Counties, so it could be seen as somewhat academic.
Reading D.K. Brown & Moore, ‘Rebuilding the Royal Navy’ it seems the design team were moved over to the Nuclear Submarine.
programme after cancellation.

What I’m looking for is the reason/decision to cancel. Was it Mountbatten as First Sea Lord and the ‘88’ manning numbers for the Navy, and/or were they sacrificed in order to save the Carrier Fleet?
 
It seems to have been a chaotic end and the writing was on the wall as early as 1956 - but there wasn't a cancellation as such as the ships were never ordered.

Partly it was due to the size of the cruiser, the Admiralty didn't want anything over 16,000 tons. Between April and May 1956 there was a massive splurge of designs. GW96 was the 'optimum cruiser' while GW90 was a pared back ship. Alongside these were GW 93, 94 and 95 with more Sea Slugs and 4.5in guns (or none).
Then by August the Deputy DNC said the future of the cruiser was so problematic that there was no point forming a Design Liaison Group. By the end the month the Controller pushed back the planning dates by a year. The first ship would not be ordered until April 1959 (to complete October 1963) and the third and last ship in April 1962 (complete October 1966).

Work on GW96 continued, new staff requirements in November 1956 called for 64 missiles and GW96 was revised (64 Sea Slug or 124 Terrier or 64 Talos or 22 Blue Envoy). By this time Red Shoes/Green Flax was mooted to replace Sea Slug. Then in January 1957 Controller suspended all work. By March the high cost was the justification to stop the cruiser, the formal end came on 11 April.
The smaller 4.5in armed GW57 design was already forming up to become the County-class we know. It gained a Wessex in October 1956, Type 984 was studied as late as March 1957 - partly to fill in the gap of not having 984-equipped cruisers. The Sketch design was approved on 11 April 1957 (the same meeting which killed the cruiser), though it would continue to evolve and grow before its final Board approval in May 1958.

By the summer of 1959 NIGS was already forming as a Sea Slug successor.

Not until March 1960 was the issue of cruisers to escort carriers raised again, this time by the Director of Plans. But this 10,000 ton cruiser would have Sea Slug Mk.2, a gun and 9 Wessex helicopters - it became the Escort Cruiser. D of P hoped three ships would be ordered 1962/3 and 1963/64 instead of DLG 7-10 (which would be deferred to post 1970). In November 1960 DLG 8-10 were indeed cut in favour of the Escort Cruisers, but DLG 5 & 6 were approved at Batch II Counties in the 1961/62 Programme. Not until 1962 were the second pair of Batch II ships (DLG 7 & 8) authorised as interim ships until the Sea Dart ships (at that time classified as frigates) entered service (by then the Escort Cruisers were mired in cost issues just as GW96 had been). It took until 1968 before the Command Cruiser (as the Escort Cruiser had morphed into) was approved. In some sense the three Invincibles built in the 1970s were the direct descendants of the three GW96 never built, just to a very different role.

As to the claim regarding the nuclear sub programme - D K Brown cites an Admiralty paper and he should probably know more than most as he had institutional knowledge. Friedman in his Cold War subs book doesn't mention this fact at all though.
The Operational Requirements had been drafted in 1956 and refined in 1957. It's not clear how much work was done on the actual submarine design before Rickover's offer in January 1958 a Skate powerplant and the agreement was not signed until July for a Skipjack rear-end. The original UK design with a UK powerplant was not due to finish design until 1959 to complete in 1962 (DNC stated in 1956 that his submarine team could do no other work except for the 'Improved Porpoise' - the Oberon-class). Certainly though the revised design (Design Study No.23) with the grafted-on US rear hull was read for October 1958, which implies enough of the design had been completed to have a useable forward-hull section. Plus presumably there were 22 previous design studies!
So we can infer that whatever personnel were moved certainly allowed timely execution of the design work.
 
The hybrid Seaslug/gun cruisers were intended to be a key part of carrier battlegroups. In addition to providing a twin-channel Seaslug system with a deep magazine they would also provide long-range 3D radar data, via Digital Plot Transmission, to the squadron of four guided missile destroyers for which they would also serve as a depot ship. The cruiser was a highly honed task force missile ship that had a pair of 6" turrets mounted forward because 1SL Rhoderick McGrigor had a sudden desire to include gun armed ships in the future new construction and modernisation programme in late 1954 - a desire that was part of a much wider, and near disastrous, recasting of the forward programme.

As to why they were abandoned. At a high level, you are correct that they were cancelled in order to protect the carrier fleet. To add a bit of depth, the Navy couldn't proceed with construction of the ships without Cabinet Defence Committee approval, in the environment of early 1957, with Sandys having been made Minister of Defence on 14th January, there was no way that was going to happen and the Navy was already engaged in a battle to protect the carrier force. 1SL Mountbatten (who claimed to have never liked the cruisers, but didn't really understand them at first either) pushed the Sea Lords to agree to remove them from the programme and that was that. The cruiser was dead in January 1957, Controller had informed DNC that no further work should be put into it by the 25th of that month, what happened subsequently was bureaucratic formality. There were attempts to recover some of the capability lost from the cancellation of the cruiser, one suggestion was for one in four of the guided missile destroyers to carry a Type 984 in place of its gun armament and Mountbatten himself called for a guided missile supply ship to accompany each 4 ship squadron of guided missile destroyers. It would carry enough Seaslugs to rearm the whole squadron along with simulator and maintenance facilities. Neither idea came to fruition.

There is no obvious relationship between the decision to abandon the cruisers and the SSN programme. Nor is there any relationship between the Seaslug cruisers and the later escort cruisers. Cruiser was a term that denoted moveable standards on endurance, maintainability and a few other characteristics. The post-war significance given to the term by a number of historians is wholly unwarranted and the analysis that gets built on top of that, e.g. "old thinking", is flawed.
 
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Thank you all - that has made things a lot clearer.
I have to say I have always had a bit of a ‘soft spot’ for the G96A’s - but that’s probably more to do with his impressive they looks rather than actual practicality within the Fleet structure…

As regards the later ‘Escort Cruiser’ - which gas been much discussed on this site, I feel they were a flawed idea - fine for smaller Navies who couldn’t afford Aircraft Carriers (yes, I know we finally gave them up too), but all they succeeded in doing, as far as I am concerned, was muddy the waters as regards the true capabilities of ‘proper’ carriers. They should have been quickly and definitively consigned to the waste bin if uselessness!
 
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The Royal Navy maintained its gun cruisers longer than was probably wise.. Modernisation of Swiftsure and Superb had to be abandoned. Others ships were sold or scrapped. By 1963 the RN was left with Belfast, and the three recently completed Tigers.
The G96s were similar to the various US single ended Terrier/Talos cruisers of the late 1950s. But by 1963 even the US had stopped converting cruisers and the only new-build was Long Beach.
Some accounts attribute the Escort Cruiser programme to Mountbatten. Given the successful use of Ocean and Theseus as helicopter carriers and the conversion of Albion and Bulwark to helicopter carrying commando ships, it is odd that ASW carriers were not developed.
However, the cruisers were justified as escorts for the new CVA01 freeing up space for fixed wing aircraft and providing extra missile launchers.
History was cruel. The ASW cruisers became the two unlovely Blake and Tiger conversions.. CVA01 gave way to Ark Royal after its 1970 conversion and return to service.
 
One other thing, until I think 1963 the Hybrid Guided Weapon (Cruiser) /Aircraft Carrier was a live program on the longterm books. This emerged from the Medium Fleet Carrier comparisons and was expected to be 30,000tons.

However that seems to have Blue Envoy, then NIGS or Bloodhound. Though I suspect Seaslug was also considered.
 
uk 75 said:
The Royal Navy maintained its gun cruisers longer than was probably wise.. Modernisation of Swiftsure and Superb had to be abandoned. Others ships were sold or scrapped. By 1963 the RN was left with Belfast, and the three recently completed Tigers.
Click to expand...

The cruisers were still useful in the decolonisation/confrontation era, not only in just showing the flag, but as locations for diplomatic discussions (Rhodesia), as well as stabilizations operations (Brunei Revolt).

If things had gotten even a little bit hotter in the Confrontation, or if decolonisation has been more troublesome, they would have definitely shown their worth.
 
The GW96A was designed to replace two of the four twin 3" with Tartar, ironically had these been updated with Standard, they would have had a superior AW capability than they had with SeaSlug. In fact, deleting SeaSlug during a MLU, would have made these ships ideal for conversion to operate helicopters.
 
Until 1966 the uncompleted aircraft carrier HMS Leviathan was available in Portsmouth for completion as a hybrid missile or commando ship.
www.google.com

Royal Navy Aircraft Carrier HMS Leviathan R97 - Destination's Journey

Leviathan was a Majestic Class fleet carrier built for the Royal Navy The ship was laid down on Oct 18 1943 and launched on Jun 7 1945 but not completed
www.google.com www.google.com
The new County class missile ships had a main battery of four 4.5" in two turrets and were more useful ships than the cruisers they replaced as destroyer leaders. Their availability from 1962 allowed the disposal of Belfast and the conversion of Blake and Tiger.
You will find threads comparing the Terrier/Tartar family with Seaslug and explaining why the US weapons were not adopted by the RN.
The 8 County class gave the RN a capability similar to Terrier into the 70s without using scarce Dollars and in greater numbers than any Navy outside the US/USSR.
Seadart (CF299) turned out heavier and with bulkier radars than Tartar but its performance matched Standard MR. Again the RN operated greater numbers of these ships than any non US/Soviet Navy.
 
uk 75 said:
Until 1966 the uncompleted aircraft carrier HMS Leviathan was available in Portsmouth for completion as a hybrid missile or commando ship.
www.google.com

Royal Navy Aircraft Carrier HMS Leviathan R97 - Destination's Journey

Leviathan was a Majestic Class fleet carrier built for the Royal Navy The ship was laid down on Oct 18 1943 and launched on Jun 7 1945 but not completed
www.google.com www.google.com
The new County class missile ships had a main battery of four 4.5" in two turrets and were more useful ships than the cruisers they replaced as destroyer leaders. Their availability from 1962 allowed the disposal of Belfast and the conversion of Blake and Tiger.
You will find threads comparing the Terrier/Tartar family with Seaslug and explaining why the US weapons were not adopted by the RN.
The 8 County class gave the RN a capability similar to Terrier into the 70s without using scarce Dollars and in greater numbers than any Navy outside the US/USSR.
Seadart (CF299) turned out heavier and with bulkier radars than Tartar but its performance matched Standard MR. Again the RN operated greater numbers of these ships than any non US/Soviet Navy.
Click to expand...
True, but GW96A was designed with the intent of replacing two of the twin 3" with Tartar. This isn't me saying "wouldn't it be cool", it is simply relaying information uncovered by Friedman.

As for the helicopter conversion in MLU, this was me speculating that such an option may have been considered if the ships had been available, and if they had been upgraded with Tartar/Standard.
 
Tartar would be in the general trend to see if was a viable solution and part of the need for anti-missile defence.
It would still hit the guidance and dollars issues and still not be realised.
Had the effort continued Orange Nell would also be investigated.
Had it been delayed, then SIGS.
 
uk 75 said:
Until 1966 the uncompleted aircraft carrier HMS Leviathan was available in Portsmouth for completion as a hybrid missile or commando ship.
www.google.com

Royal Navy Aircraft Carrier HMS Leviathan R97 - Destination's Journey

Leviathan was a Majestic Class fleet carrier built for the Royal Navy The ship was laid down on Oct 18 1943 and launched on Jun 7 1945 but not completed
www.google.com www.google.com
Click to expand...
Except by 1966 she was AIUI in a poor material state.

I have a reference that she had not been properly maintained during the 1950s while in use as an accommodation ship. Then she had been laid up in unmaintained reserve at a buoy in Fareham Creek from 1961 during which time she had been plundered, officially & unofficially, for spare parts to keep other ships of that generation going. So by the time it came to sell her machinery in 1966 for installation in the Karel Doorman her hull had been in the water for 20 years and she was in a generally considered to be in a very poor state.
 

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