Type 4X/ Type 83 Destroyer

[Scott Kenny]

Point of clarification: Age of Sail frigates were cruisers. As were corvettes and even sloops. Cruiser was a mission description, not a ship type.

Fair enough, but the role of "largest ship not of the battle line" went from Frigates in age of sail to Cruisers today.

 

[Yellow Palace]

TBH, it doesn't matter what you call the ship.
he French frégate is translated into English differently for AAW and ASW ships, even when those ships are the same size. The Soviet Union built 'Large Anti-Submarine Ships'.

The question is, what job does it perform? The rest is just politics.

 

[BlackBat242]

TBH, it doesn't matter what you call the ship.
he French frégate is translated into English differently for AAW and ASW ships, even when those ships are the same size. The Soviet Union built 'Large Anti-Submarine Ships'.

The question is, what job does it perform? The rest is just politics.

And the JMSDF built 4 classes of "Helicopter carrying ASW Destroyers" - 2 with a small flight deck and a hangar for 3 helos, and two with full-length flight decks.

 

[Purpletrouble]

Fair enough, but the role of "largest ship not of the battle line" went from Frigates in age of sail to Cruisers today.

The traditional definition of a cruiser was “the largest ship that can be built in numbers.”

In the age of sail that was 3rd/4th rates whuch were around by the dozen vs the relatively few 1st/2nd rates.

Frigates were always relatively small ships (5th/6th rates) by comparison.

So I think there was always space between capital ships (1st/2nd rates) and frigates (5th+).

Post WW2 I think the DLGs built around the world were by definition cruisers as they were biggest things built in relatively large numbers but weren’t the smaller hulls that also abounded. Hence frigates would be more akin to the US/European DDG/FFs with corvettes being OPVs*, FACs and the smallest FF types.

The destroyer term wouldnt exist. Which is a great shame as its a good name. Which is why it has persisted and mucked my nice neat naming conventions right up ;-)

*I’d rebrand all OPVs as corvettes. A much nicer name and historically much more illiterate in terms of what they do plus the command level assigned.

 

[Purpletrouble]

At risk of following myself, I think the USN called it right by classing DLGs as frigates iniitally but only because at the time it expected continued construction of larger ships in numbers to be cruisers (3rd/4th rate) in which case the DLGs constituted that smaller 5th rate (carriers being 1st/2nd) and hence frigate was appropriate - especially given the original US frigates had been closer to 4th rates anyway vs other frigate types. Only when it becomes apparant the DLG is the ship to be built in numbers and anything bigger was essentially a capital ship, do they become cruisers, which arguably was about the time they re-rated them as such anyway and the original cruisers have nearly all gone.

It then confused things by calling its smaller DLGs destroyers (eg ABs*) and reusing frigates for smaller, single role ships that had previously just been residual destroyers and patrol vessels in a corvette style “escort” role.

The RN calling the Type 42s destroyers is where the UK went wrong perhaps, cementing a ASW frigate and AAW destroyer split that is entirely ahistoric. It later would only ever refer to the Invincibles as carriers having early on obsessed about calling them cruisers - the newer position being the reality that they were capital ships although 2nd rate vs a CV/CVN 1st rate.

Types 45 & 26 are in every respect, cruisers. Although perhaps the RN’s convention keeps the two other names going. Type 83 may disrupt this…

Personally with the advent of shipborne helicopters, I’d argue they (the helicopters) have taken on the original “destroyer” mantle (which was a merger of the offensive torpedo boat and its counter the TBD vessel) as a thing that explictly exists to counter/attack other ships(subs) by firing torpedos(missiles).

*the RN had wanted “70 cruisers” to provide for its global role with fleets and stations. The USN has 70 odd active and globally deployed with task forces and independently/surface groups…

 

[Cordy]

The Australian Institute reported that delays to starting Hunter build have mainly centred around the additional top weight of the CEAFAR AESA various radar band antennas, though significantly superior to the old gen Artisan S-band radar of the Type 26. The Australian developed CEAFAR was specified as the RAN wanted a much better anti-air warfare capability for its prime ASW ship, the additional topweight led to the beam having to be increased by 0.6m over the Type 26 plus a major increase in cooling capacity and crew numbers etc., even small changes to the dimensions of a ship involve significant recalculation and work for the naval architects which can see replicated with the Constellation where the hull dimensions were changed and the originally claimed 85% commonality to the parent Italian FREMM frigate now said to be under 15%, in effect a new ship, leading to a three year program delay, hopefully the max delay though as detail design still less than 80% complete time for some possible nasty surprises.

 

[bobthemonkey]

The Australian Institute reported that delays to starting Hunter build have mainly centred around the additional top weight of the CEAFAR AESA various radar band antennas, though significantly superior to the old gen Artisan S-band radar of the Type 26. The Australian developed CEAFAR was specified as the RAN wanted a much better anti-air warfare capability for its prime ASW ship, the additional topweight led to the beam having to be increased by 0.6m over the Type 26 plus a major increase in cooling capacity and crew numbers etc., even small changes to the dimensions of a ship involve significant recalculation and work for the naval architects which can see replicated with the Constellation where the hull dimensions were changed and the originally claimed 85% commonality to the parent Italian FREMM frigate now said to be under 15%, in effect a new ship, leading to a three year program delay, hopefully the max delay though as detail design still less than 80% complete time for some possible nasty surprises.

My understanding is that CEAFAR, while highly effective, is a particularly massive system. The Canadian implementation, using SPY-7 has been able to maintain the same beam as the baseline Type 26.

 

[TinWing]

My understanding is that CEAFAR, while highly effective, is a particularly massive system. The Canadian implementation, using SPY-7 has been able to maintain the same beam as the baseline Type 26.

The Australian government took majority ownership of CEA last year, effectively nationalizing the company. Generally speaking, nationalization is not a positive indicator for any business or sector. I do have to question why a modern active phased array radar isn’t scalable to fit any platform? Why pick a specialist ASW frigate if a supposedly high end AAW radar fitment was a primary consideration? It’s really difficult to judge the merits or success of CEAFAR, in any of its iterations. By all accounts, this company was relatively forward thinking when founded in the 1980s, so I’m not sure why CEA wasn’t acquired by a multinational prime contractor over the decades?

I can only hope that the ongoing Hunter class fiasco informs the decision making of the Royal Navy for the Type 83. For all I can know, maybe BAE could apply some of the Hunter engineering to a Type 26 based solution for the RN? More likely than not, it proves that an alternative concept is fully warranted, wether it is novel and innovative at 4,000 tons or essentially an AAW “Global Cruiser” inspired by the FSC studies of over 20 years ago?

 

[Cordy]

My limited understanding is that Northrop Grumman wanted the CEA radar tech and later bought a majority stake in the company and then the Australian Government took them over.