RN Nuclear NIGS ship

Hang on....
Trackwell is instead of 984 or 985.
It's another search and track radar.......


RF.....
Red Flax......a naval Green Flax? But that would be a Stage 1 and 1/2
 
Tzoli said:
The Stage 1 3/4 might be the one but the continuation of the same table shows Designs GW70-78 (In Friedman to 81) having explicitly Bristol 1 3/4 missiles
see attachment.
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That actually confirms to me that R.F. is in the same class as Stage 1 3/4, even if it isn't necessarily the same missile - compare GW 70 to GW 61-63, we see the same use of large numbers of single launchers and no 6" guns on a comparably-sized ship. Missile capacity is lower in the later projects, and 'Trackwell' has given way to Type 984 and dedicated illuminators.

My suspicion, and it is just suspicion, is that 'R.F.' was a precursor to Stage 1 3/4, and Trackwell was an envisaged multifunction radar for it, likely more capable than Type 985.
 
How much is the difference between Sage 1 3/4 and the Bloodhound Mk II?
 
Stage 1 and 3/4 was Blue Envoy, a reduced specification from Stage II Green Sparkler.
Range dropped from 200nm and the use of terminal ARH to 150nm and SARH. Both used Command Guidance.

Bloodhound MkII used elements of Blue Envoy to extend range from 50nm to 75nm.
 
RF....reduced firing? Essentially the Bloodhound and Thunderbird type launcher that is slow to load....hence the high number of launchers.
 
Can someone repeat the date for this table?
 
Just open it the designs proposed are in the first line. These designs we are discussing currently are from 1955 June and November. The RF from June, the Bristols from November
 
Hmmmm this is surely before the emergence of phased array radar technology as such.
So both Type 985 and this Trackwell are not necessarily the later options of PAR or FSR (Frequency Scanning Radar).....
 
So I've definitely got something wrong with the quote insert.

Link for example of Frequency Scanning Radar and quite relevant https://www.radartutorial.eu/19.kartei/11.ancient/karte107.en.html

JCF Fuller wrote
With regard to the radar, I have managed to do a bit more digging. The first proposal for a Frequency Scanning Radar is made by ASRE in 1957 and was for a 30ft x 30ft rotating array with a peak transmitter power of 2.5MW. The NIGS arrays were fixed and there would have been four per ship. Based on an ASWE report from 1961, they would have actually been 20ft wide and 15ft high (I was wrong again) with 88 phase changers, 88 frequency scanners and a feed line with 88 outputs. They would have been able to handle a peak power input of 2.5MW. R&D work seems to slow down with abandonment of NIGS but does not completely stop, in 1963 a report is commissioned from someone at Leeds University to look at high power ferromagnetic phase shifters. Later, in 1968 a large (6ft x 6ft based on photos) stacked phase shifting planar array is built and used to test mechanical and electrically controlled ferrite phase shifters. My radar knowledge is weak but the concept seems to have moved on and is now described as Phase Scanning. A peak power upto 4MW is referenced for this design.
Click to expand...

So now I've managed to mess up the quote ?

Frequency Scanning is that as you change frequency so the angle of emitted energy changes.

Phase Scanning is that by delaying the waveform each emitted wave overlaps such that the tangent of them is an angle you can control.
https://www.radartutorial.eu/06.antennas/Phased Array Antenna.en.html#fsa

It's possible that the early Type 985 in the GW59 (relook can't remember number) is this early rotating antenna. As such if it's been scaled down to fit it might drastically cut performance. Rotation would further reduce capability.
Equally this is so early it could actually be a maritime Type 84 set and the Type number reassigned to the later PAR system.......

This further raises the question "what is Trackwell?"
 
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A very interesting discovery.

I have always suspected that Type 985 was separate from the the NSR proposed for NIGS and I think this proves it.

Whatever system GW59 was designed around in 1955 could be considered as the first step on the path to NIGS. It has several similar features;
Multiple single-arm launchers - the Admiralty/ Ministry of Aviation Working Party in 1959 felt that single-arm launchers the right solution and they even discussed having separate high-angle and low-angle launchers, presumably to save power requirements for rapid elevation etc. How this would work in practice I'm not sure without a highly complicated magazine arrangement.

Sea Slug - GW59 only has 28 missiles (3.5 per launcher!) but the missiles seem to be Sea Slug as no other name is provided only non-Sea Slug missiles seemed to be named.

Type 985 - is a search and tracking radar, presumably one radar, sounds very similar in concept to NSR but must have been more than a speculative project in June 1955 as it was assigned a Type number. Two things stand out, the equipment weight for the ship is only 740 tons, some 300 tons lighter than the other GW designs around it and it needs a Type 992 target indication radar. So whatever the Type 985 is, its not a totally standalone system and its not very big. Maybe the Type 985 really is just a digital 984 with guidance added in?

Tonnage - interestingly GW59 is 10,500 tons and yet NIGS was meant to fit on a 6,000 ton hull, this indicates either more miniaturisation of the radar and missile for NIGS or wishful thinking in 1959! But at 540ft long, GW59 is almost County sized.

The other GW ships are interesting too;
GW61 to GW 63 have the mysterious 8 launchers for 32 "R.F." missiles, 1x Trackwell radar. What is interesting is that both ships are far larger than GW59 at 15,000-16,000 tons and 610-640ft long (County was 520ft). No other radar is specified at all, not even a basic Type 974 for navigation. I find this somewhat odd as all the other designs have other radar sensors listed.
Whatever Trackwell is it must be powerful, note that Type 985 on GW985 may be a search/track radar but still needs a Type 992Q for targeting info. Trackwell seems to be able to operate without it. If this is a track/scan radar then it predates the AN/SPG-59 by at least 3 years so cutting edge indeed. At 1,090 tons equipment weight for all 3 GW designs, it seems Trackwell is a large and heavy piece of kit contributing to the weight.

GW70 to GW78 all have the Bristol 1 3/4. Nearly all have 6x T.I.A., 7 of the ships have a dedicated telemetry link, 6 of the ships have a Beacon and oddly GW 72 and GW73 only have the beacon and no T.I.A.! Regardless of the gun armament options, all of these are big and heavy ships of cruiser size.

My money is on the R.F. and Trackwell being a proto-NIGS system, it looks a capable and heavy system and close to the things the 1959 working party were talking about. Whatever 985 is, it doesn't seem quite in the same league. NIGS seems to have followed the Bristol 1 3/4 system and added illuminators too.

My questions are:
Why was Type 985 not used on any other GW ship or with the R.F. missile system and was it really just linked to Sea Slug?
What is the R.F. missile?
What is Trackwell?
What is the T.I.A tracker?
Why where the Navy looking at essentially 3 different systems at the same time (Sea Slug with 985, R.F with Trackwell, Bristol Blue Envoy with 984 & TIAs)

To answer Tzoli's question;
NIGS = New Naval Guided Weapons System
 
I think your answer lies in these workbooks:
Type 985 with RF:
1030/3,
Drawing no.: 6159
Trackwell with RF:
631/7, 622/2, 840/6,
Drawing no.: 6161,62,63
TIA, Beacon and Telemetry with Bristol Missile:
840/6, 631/7,
Drawing no.: 6170,71,72,73,74,75 ,6216,17,20

We should ask our friends who live close to try and check these out! Or in the mean time the entire GW series documents!
 
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So Elliots achieve the first electrically scanned radar in MRS.5.
Prior to that there is electrically scanned in reception Winkle for ECM.

It's possible Trackwell is NSR yes. But this suggests Type 985 might start as replacement of the mechanically scanned Type 984.
The tonnage for 984 was I think 250 tons but this doesn't include 992 or 901 or other guidance systems.

However where is the illuminators for the missiles? Trackwell must be doing that as well, hence my suspicion this is similar to Tychon's SPG59
 
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Hood said:
Why where the Navy looking at essentially 3 different systems at the same time (Sea Slug with 985, R.F with Trackwell, Bristol Blue Envoy with 984 & TIAs)
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My guess there is that the Navy was examining its' options and trying to figure out exactly what it wanted from a cruiser and from its' guided missiles.

We only have the ship side of the debate - I assume that some of the iterations were because there was back-and-forth with the guided weapons people and the radar people about the size, weight and power requirements for their equipment, and what could be accomodated. Some of the studies may have shown that accomodating one requirement was only possible with unacceptable compromises in other areas, helping define the requirements for the combat system and the ship to carry it.
 
Another point.
What we call Track while Scan is essentially what Type 984 and CDS do.

What SPG59 does is Search, Track and Illuminate and does it effectively simultaneously.

While what we've read here about NSR and NIGS is the Illumination function is separate from a combined search and track set.

TIA could stand for Targe Illumination Array
As Type 86 Firelight and Type 87 Scorpion sets are actually a combination of tracking illuminators and height finding sets. Coupled ECM assessment equipment.
 
I've made a modification to my drawing of the NIGS Scheme 16 Nuclear DDG.
Here is the Scheme 17 the COSAG propulsion version:
RN-NIGS-Ship-17.png


not much change just made some decks more round and of course added the funnels.
 
I would presume that Freidman found them at the Brass Foundry, Greenwich. That is where DNC materials are generally archived.
 
Friedman's books refer so often to things that would be interesting to know more about.
It would almost be worth taking the what if references from various Friedman books and listing them in a thread here so people can follow them up.
 
uk 75 said:
It would almost be worth taking the what if references from various Friedman books and listing them in a thread here so people can follow them up.
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Would be a big job but might be fruitful, I doubt he lists every source but as someone else said the other day, his footnotes/endnotes are often more interesting in terms of details than the main text. Indeed they probably form about a quarter of his latest cold war subs book!
 
Yes he often states more detailed info in the footnotes or sometimes under drawings/pictures. Though I would be very happy if he would state what kind of lenght data a peculiar design had. It is often very difficult to determine if he states between perpendicular, waterline or overall length...
But the era sometimes help as WW1/pre-WW1 the dominant length data stated was pp, after WW1 and before Cold War the waterline length and for Cold War/Modern ships this changes to overall lenght.
 
The section @Tzoli quoted from Friedman's British Destroyers and Frigates of the Post War Era is largely referenced out to constructors notebooks which I understand are held at the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich. The only specific notebook he references is 1073/3. In that passage Friedman has the work on NIGS ships starting, at DNC's behest, in June 1959 which lines up nicely with the period during which the NIGS working party was active. The adapted Hampshire class drawings that were included in the final report of the NIGS working party were probably the end result of all that work but that is speculation by me until I see the constructors notebooks.

In general, ship images at Kew are rare, they do come up from time to time but usually as part of other reports. Frustratingly, many documents included in files refer to artists impressions or diagrams that have not been preserved within the file.

The Royal Navy's interest in nuclear propulsion for surface ships is another under appreciated and under studied part of the 1950s and early 1960s history. A lot of study work was undertaken looking at the advantages, disadvantages, appropriate reactor technologies, propulsion system configurations, etc.
 
Friedman states TIA is a 4ft tracker Illuminator.
 
Just seen a copy of Warship 2022 and the article on postwar RN radars.

Only bare snippets on Type 985, it was a study that ran 1956-60 and seemed to cover all the various approaches (frequency scanning, arrays, etc.) but it sounds like little got done before cancellation. But at least it covers dates to give us the timescale.

There was another requirement after this which 3 UK companies tendered for but it went to Broomstick.
The article also says that work on active arrays in the UK did not begin until 1977.
 
However....

SLA3
Frequency Scanning Phased Array Radar.
Precision Approach radar used since 1966.

SLA 3 - Radartutorial

www.radartutorial.eu www.radartutorial.eu

Which curiously shows X-band was achievable in that time.
 
I would put a slightly different spin on it. The ASRE, later ASWE, undertook a broad range of R&D work to explore various technologies. However, I can detect no formal programme for a post-984 radar until the late 1950s, I suspect it emerged out of the NIGS studies and 985 was simply a reserved designation for whatever a next-generation aircraft direction radar might be.

The naval Blue Envoy studies ended with the cancellation of the missile so never reached a full conclusion, but in 1956 the assumption was it would be paired with the Type 984, probably in modified form. There is an interesting proposal for a large rotating frequency scanning array from 1957 but I've not been able to tie it to any specific project. From then, through to at least the late 1960s, ASWE was very interested in Frequency Scanning radars.

My own opinion, and its nothing more than that, is that even if Blue Envoy hadn't been cancelled the RN would have eventually dropped it anyway as it was wholly unsuitable for ship fitting. The result would have been NIGS as we know it. Even if the RN had continued with Blue Envoy, in a world where it wasn't cancelled, I think its inevitable it would ultimately have been paired with a Frequency Scanning set.

1977 seems reasonable for starting work on AESA sets, the first naval AESA was the Japanese OPS-24 that was installed on a destroyer in 1988. Western industry was fairly dismissive of it at the time but that may have been sour grapes. Either way, whilst the Japanese system was first I don't think the UK effort was particularly far behind, if at all, in terms of actual technology. The time to get the MESAR research to sea, and the subsequent poor utilisation of it across the fleet, is a different matter (and well off-topic).
 
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Now that I have the Peter Marland article in front of me a few additional details.

Type 984 began as 'Project Postal' in 1947, designed early 1950s and a complete development model completed in 1955, installed in HMS Victorious in 1958. Marland puts the 984 with CDS and DPT as being about 5 years ahead of the USN.

Type 985 - a second generation set, experimental work 1956-60. Concepts studied included "frequency scanning, travelling wave tubes, phased arrays, multiple pulse-forming circuitry, and other techniques." Prior to the project definition phase it was replaced by Project 988 'Broomstick' in 1960 (itself cancelled in 1968).

NSR.7938 - Type 1015 for a new long-range radar [note that this designation was in the IFF numbering sequence for some unknown reason! It should probably have been 989]. Dual frequency UHF (430/600MHz) with back-to-back or wrap-around antennae to remove need for a masthead location. Studies included 'Broomstick', SPS-52 and three UK designs from EMI, Plessey and Marconi. Later studies included a modernised Type 965, SPS-40B, LW-08 and Selenia SPS-68. Cancelled in late 1971.
[The ASWE report I found at Kew - ASWE Laboratory Report XRA-63-5 A Study of a Proposed Radar System Employing Within-Pulse Electronic Scanning over 360° - dated August 1963 using a cylindrical array must be connected with this.]

There is no mention of 'Trackwell'. There is mention in the article of a Type 983/983 replacement for fighter direction in 1953, described as a "mini-984" with a V-beam. Since 'Trackwell' doesn't seem to need a 992Q TI radar its possible its an outgrowth of this 'mini-984' concept?

In all there seems to be a sense of confusion and overlapping work and the more we dig, the more we find a lack of concrete developments. It feels like when NIGS/985 were canned in 1960 in favour of newer missile and radar technology, that they were perhaps another 5-10 years away from operation. They were becoming superseded but certainly the overall radar development picture (see here for more on the Marland article) is one of downgrading, chopping, cancellation and losing the lead to US, Dutch and even Italian competitors. There does seem to have been a mismatch between the systems and the ships, really there should have been integrated development.
 
So according to these new findings, the Type 985's one version is the equivalent of the SPS-32/33 (Phased Arrays). What was the other types in USN service? Frequency scanning, travelling wave tubes and multiple pulse forming?

SPS-48 seems to be a frequency scanning type.
 
Almost all 3D radars in the USN are of the Frequency Scanning type, often refered to as "FRESCAN". SPS-26 was the first, developed into SPS-39, then SPS-52. SPS-48 replaced SPS-52 and is considered the ultimate USN FRESCAN radar. IIRC Broomstick used technology similar to the USN FRESCAN radars on it's 3D antenna's.
 
On a theoretical side one could replace the mechanical movement of feed horns in the Type 984 with electrical scan. But I'm unsure it's compatible with the 'lense'
It's certainly possible to replicate 984 in higher bands even to X-band accepting other compromises this could become very precise.

It's also clear the design could be scaled down, accepting greater limitations on range. I do like the idea.

But Trackwell seems to be doing everything like SPG59.
 

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