There were, to my knowledge, at least two post-war schemes to fit Polaris missiles to surface ships.
1. The nuclear cruiser
Long Beach was originally slated to have a Regulus cruise missile launcher, which was then scrapped (but not before Revell tooled their kit of it... :wacko:) in favour of four Polaris tubes. These were in turn replaced (before construction began) by ASROC and 5" guns, the stategic role having now been totally abandoned in favour of carrier escort duties.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Long_Beach_(CGN-9)
2. The Italian WWII cruiser Giusseppe Garibaldi was rebuilt as a missile cruiser (1957 to 1961) with Terrier SAMs and four Polaris tubes aft. Launch testing was actually done on these tubes before the USA decided not to supply the missiles as part of the resolution of the Cuban missile crisis. Italy then pursued a national missile program called Alfa for a while before abandoning it in 1975 (four years after the cruiser had been scrapped).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_cruiser_Giuseppe_Garibaldi_(1936)
http://www.navypedia.org/ships/italy/it_cr_abruzzi.htm
The Italian cruiser was originally intended to be the first of a NATO Polaris cruiser force of 25 vessels:
Quote
During its reconstruction program in 1957-1961, the Italian cruiser Giuseppe Garibaldi was fitted for launch of four Polaris missiles, with launchers located in the aft part of the ship.
The successful tests held in 1961-1962, induced the United States to study a NATO Multilateral Nuclear Force (MLF), based on 25 international surface vessels from the US, United Kingdom, France, Italy, and West Germany, equipped with 200 Polaris nuclear missiles,[4] enabling European allies to participate in the management of the NATO nuclear deterrent.
The MLF plan, as well as the Italian Polaris Program, were abandoned, both for political reasons (in consequence of the Cuban Missile Crisis) and the initial operational availability of the first SSBN George Washington, which demonstrated the possibility to launch effectively SLBMs, solution preferred to surface-launched missiles.
Italy developed a domestic new version of the missile, the SLBM designated Alfa.[5] The program was cancelled in the 1975 after Italy signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
From here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UGM-27_Polaris
More here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multilateral_Force
Whatever the military/political questions one could raise about such schemes, they HAVE to be a fertile ground for whiffery:
What would the British, French and German ships have looked like? Re-vamped WWII vessels? New ships? Nuclear powered or conventional?
What if the Soviets had followed this line of thinking?
What if other nations had gone down this route: say escaping German scientists give a South American country missile technology and go on to develop nuclear warheads for them, but the country lacks submarine building expertise and so chooses to mount them on thir ex-western cruisers?
I suspect you wouldn't necessarily need a warship either. One would surmise that a container type vessel, with the appropriate modifications would make a suitable platform. They are, after all, vast things with lots of useable space.
Regards,
Mav
Weren't there also plans to possibly put Regulus, Polaris, or some other large missiles on the IOWA class battleships?
Well there is the French battleship Jean Bart available from Trumpeter in her 1955 fit so possible to do a French version with thier own SLBM. Due out any time now is the Trumpeter Ilalian Battleship Roma, now although she was the one sunk by the German glide bombs, she could be used as a basis for the Littorio or Vittorio Veneto modernised (these two ships are due out later in the year, but Roma had a revised bow for better seakeeping and this would probably have been retofitted later.
A Matchbox tiger could be adapted by loosing the hanger and flight deck withe space of the former aft turret to mount the Missile silos.
Quote from: Weaver on May 22, 2011, 05:51:42 AM
What would the British, French and German ships have looked like? Re-vamped WWII vessels? New ships? Nuclear powered or conventional?
An awful lot like standard merchant liners - the idea was that the MLF ships were to hide in the shipping lanes so that the Soviets would have to sink every merchant ship to be sure they'd got all the Polaris missiles. Of course, given that the Soviets planned on trying that anyway, it doesn't seem like such a good idea in retrospect. Incidentally, one of the ideas was to have multi-national crews on these ships, and the command arrangements were actually tried out on a USN destroyer with crew from several NATO nations.
There's a couple of files about the MLF here (http://www.alternatewars.com/SAC/SAC.htm), quite close to the bottom - search the page for 'MLF' or 'Polaris' if you don't want to scroll through.
Quote from: seadude on May 22, 2011, 06:57:45 AM
Weren't there also plans to possibly put Regulus, Polaris, or some other large missiles on the IOWA class battleships?
There were plans to do all sorts of odd things with the
Iowa class. Most of them seemed to amount to 'we have four big fast ships, what can we do with them?'
Quote from: RLBH on May 22, 2011, 07:43:48 AM
Quote from: Weaver on May 22, 2011, 05:51:42 AM
What would the British, French and German ships have looked like? Re-vamped WWII vessels? New ships? Nuclear powered or conventional?
An awful lot like standard merchant liners - the idea was that the MLF ships were to hide in the shipping lanes so that the Soviets would have to sink every merchant ship to be sure they'd got all the Polaris missiles. Of course, given that the Soviets planned on trying that anyway, it doesn't seem like such a good idea in retrospect. Incidentally, one of the ideas was to have multi-national crews on these ships, and the command arrangements were actually tried out on a USN destroyer with crew from several NATO nations.
There's a couple of files about the MLF here (http://www.alternatewars.com/SAC/SAC.htm), quite close to the bottom - search the page for 'MLF' or 'Polaris' if you don't want to scroll through.
Wow - those are a brilliant find - cheers! :thumbsup:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v666/Thorvic/Project%20Cancelled%202011/gg001.jpg (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v666/Thorvic/Project%20Cancelled%202011/gg001.jpg)
This might be of interest :thumbsup:
Was the Kirov ever planned for a ballistic missile fit? The Soviets armed her (him?) with just about every other weapon they could muster up...
I don't have the book in front of me, just a preview through Google Books, but Norman Friedman's
U.S. Battleships: An Illustrated Design History gives some text coverage to a proposal to fit out the Iowa class battleships as missile carriers. The quoted section yields the following:
QuoteEarly in 1959 this design was revised, with sixteen Polaris ballistic missiles added in tubes abaft the second funnel. It was estimated that such a conversion would take two and a half years (that is, July 1960 through January 1963) and would cost $115 million, $35 million of which would be attributable to Polaris. It appears that there was also an alternative with six 5in/38 and Regulus, without Tartar, priced at $82 million in October 1958.
The preview doesn't include the preceding page, but at the time, they were talking about a BBG, as depicted by JoeP in the Ships forum:
http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,30971.0.html
There were a variety of proposals which included all of the missiles on the Navy drawing boards at that time: Regulus, Talos, Tartar, Terrier, et al, plus various combinations of guns. The crux of the proposals was to see how quickly the Polaris missile could be made operational with the Navy. By the early 60s, the preference was for something much less expensive, like converting a seaplane tender.
The USN also launched a V-2 off of USS Midway, and there were early plans to convert Essexes into rocket-launching ships, removing a significant part of the after flight deck to make room for the equipment and gantry.
Arming naval vessels versus merchants depends on whether you plan for deterrence or stealth.
Of course, with merchants all the Soviets need to do is find a crewman to bribe. The naval vessels also have the advantage of being able to defend themselves.
I recall from a book about the rocket that at least one of the USN's Viking rockets was launched from the USS Norton Sound. There's a piccie in the book showing it standing on the launcher on the fantail of the ship, but needless to say I can't find the darn book now. :banghead:
How about this:
The USN donates some of it's surplus WWII cruisers to a new NATO CGB force, which allows nations without suitable ships for conversion (like Germany - all gone) to make a contribution by paying for the re-fits and operating them. Alternatively/additionally, a new-build, optionally-nuclear-powered CGB CGBN is designed, using hardware from various NATO countries, for the new force. It could have Mk-10s with Terrier/ASROC (and the Polaris, of course) from the USA, Seacats from the UK, 3" guns from Italy, Dutch radars etc...
Got an image of a double-ended Vittorio Veneto in my head, with the Polaris in the middle.... :wacko:
EDIT: or alternatively, and somewhat more modellably, a cut-down Long Beach. Going to do a profile of that....
Here we go, a NATO Polaris cruiser based on the technology of the USS Long Beach:
(https://www.whatifmodellers.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi35.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fd165%2Fhws5mp%2FThe%2520Whiffery%2Fprofiles%2FNATOPolariscruiser.png&hash=1a21a770ce22a2aefe1b764bde28eabce721b26a)
The hull is shortened, she only has one Mk.10 launcher forward and the Talos is replaced by another Mk.10 aft. Both Mk.10s have three magazine rings for a total capacity of 120 missiles, and can fire ASROC as well as Terrier. There's a British twin 3" Mk.6 forward and twin Seacats on the rear quarters for close-in defence. The eight Polaris are housed in a VERY heavily armoured compartment in the centre with double sides and bottom.
I know this isn't a "perfect" design with hindsight, but it represents the thinking of the time. In the early 1960s, Seacat was just about the only choice for point defence: Sea Sparrow et al didn't come along until the late 1960s.
Interesting. I think you need to add a crane of some sort for loading/unloading the Polaris tubes. IIRC Polaris was a fairly maintenance intensive missile, needing frequent servicing which could only be performed "out of the tube".
Nah they would just use a Support ship like the Submarine & Destroyer tenders to maintain the missiles.
Diorama with a modified Long Beach next to a Tender ? :thumbsup:
Thought long and hard about a crane, but went with Thorvic's theory in the end. You could turn one of those Sacramentos into a keen tender. Alternately, a small passenger liner might do, if you could find/build the neccessary cranes for it. Sounds daft, but go look at some tenders.....
Well you can get the US Dixie class WW2 Destroyer Tender and the Vulcan Class Submarine Tender that served the USN well into the 80's so either could be modernised as Cruiser Tender.
http://home.earthlink.net/~loosecannonproductions/index-aux.html (http://home.earthlink.net/~loosecannonproductions/index-aux.html)
http://home.earthlink.net/~loosecannonproductions/Kit10.html (http://home.earthlink.net/~loosecannonproductions/Kit10.html)
G
I suspect the Vulcan is a little small for a Polaris tender, though the shape and lines havn't changed much. Looking at the lines of tenders, it also occues to me that a kit of a cargo ship, WWII amphibious ship, or WWII escort carrier would do the job as well: they all have the right slab-sided, high-volume look.
The USN has destroyer/cruiser tenders which look very similar to the SSN and SSBN tenders, the only difference being that the latter have bays amidships for stowage of SLBMs and appropriate cranes to handle them. There are some excellent pictures on the the following site of the SSBN tender USS Simon Lake laid up in reserve at Norfolk, next to the USS McKee, an SSN tender. You can clearly see the adaptions needed for SLBM handling:
http://www.lastrosehomeport.com/navy_as33.html
(https://www.whatifmodellers.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi35.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fd165%2Fhws5mp%2FUSSSimonLake.jpg&hash=0ae5ac7e7a676fa80421d6551d4f63375e863081)
(The photos on the site are MUCH bigger and highly detailed :thumbsup:)
Here's a pic of the Simon lake transferring a Trident to an SSBN:
(https://www.whatifmodellers.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi35.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fd165%2Fhws5mp%2FUssSimonlaketrident.jpg&hash=0fc8f1821b42349f368d09f1d9515dad087a41d3)
From here: http://www.navsource.org/archives/09/36/3633.htm
I suspect that for cruiser work, the cranes would need more lift and longer reach, and possibly a "cranked" boom so that they could rotate the missile outboard while keeping it close to the rotation axis in order to avoid hitting the cruiser's superstructure (can't swing it right over a ship like you can with a sub).
I remember seeing those two ships sitting tied up. I passed them every time I crossed the Jordan Bridge from Portsmouth to South Norfolk (Chesapeake, really). Alas, the Jordan Bridge was condemned and scheduled for demolition in 2008, and the replacement span won't be ready until 2012. Every time that bridge lifted was a nifty photo op, either because of the ships tied up alongside or whatever was sailing on the river that caused the bridge to lift in the first place.
Back to the Modelling aspect of this concept, Dragon under their Cyberhobby wing are due to relaease the USS Albany as a guided missile conversion of a WW2 USN cruiser, that could be modified with Polaris in place of the aft Talos battery or some of the features of Albanys conversion could be applied to a WW2 cruiser kit so as to create a hybrid conversion - Just an alternative to the use of the Cyberhobby USS Long Beach kit or the Matchbox Tiger.
Unfortunately there are not many post war Cruisers kits available in 1/700, most tend to be WW2 thats available and the more expensive resin kits just cover the WW2 cruisers, conversions of those and later guided missile cruisers of the US & Soviet navies.
Battleships are a possibility, they were considered for conversion in the Post War period before their disposal, The RN KGV class survived till about 1958, the French Jean bart wasn't completed till the mid 50's so could be an ideal candidate and the USN were looking to make use of not only the Iowa class but also the earlier North Carolina class too ! Trumpeter have just released the Roma, although she was sunk her sisterships were scrapped post war but as being fairly modern ships in their era it would be a nice Whiff to have them survive longer and form the basis for a ballastic missile conversion.
G
"USN were looking to make use of not only the Iowa class but also the earlier North Carolina class too ! "
Really, this could be a good use of mid-50s thinking. Although the NC class was slower than the Iowas, they were still heavily armored. You really want to do it right? Pull the turret structures and you have room for three launchers for the big liquid fueled missiles. Plenty of room for fuel storage, and strong enough to survive a nuclear near-miss. Remember, this was before the days of real-time satellite and SIGINT. Send the NCs into the Pacific under radio silence on a cruise to nowhere, carrying three real ICBMs, and you have another nuclear deterrent.
Had a look at the Iowa class conversions booklet and it does cover the proposals for a hybrid Iowa with fwd guns and bridge retained with the midships and stern modernised with MACKS, Polaris, Talos and Terrier systems. Together with a full conversion with the new bridge and fwd turrets replaced by Talos as per a very large version of the Albany conversions. Both of these have 16 Polaris silos mounted in the revised superstructure aft of the rear funnel MACK.
G
Quote from: royabulgaf on June 01, 2011, 05:37:21 PM
Really, this could be a good use of mid-50s thinking. Although the NC class was slower than the Iowas, they were still heavily armored. You really want to do it right? Pull the turret structures and you have room for three launchers for the big liquid fueled missiles. Plenty of room for fuel storage, and strong enough to survive a nuclear near-miss. Remember, this was before the days of real-time satellite and SIGINT. Send the NCs into the Pacific under radio silence on a cruise to nowhere, carrying three real ICBMs, and you have another nuclear deterrent.
This idea would rely on the ship knowing EXACTLY where it was at all times as the targetting parameters would be changing as it sailed around the oceans. Had inertial navigation systems been developed enough by then for that to work? GPS hadn't been invented of course.
There's always celestial navigation; that gets you within 800 m of the correct position. With nuclear weapons, that's usually close enough.
Quote from: PR19_Kit on June 02, 2011, 03:09:42 AM
Quote from: royabulgaf on June 01, 2011, 05:37:21 PM
Really, this could be a good use of mid-50s thinking. Although the NC class was slower than the Iowas, they were still heavily armored. You really want to do it right? Pull the turret structures and you have room for three launchers for the big liquid fueled missiles. Plenty of room for fuel storage, and strong enough to survive a nuclear near-miss. Remember, this was before the days of real-time satellite and SIGINT. Send the NCs into the Pacific under radio silence on a cruise to nowhere, carrying three real ICBMs, and you have another nuclear deterrent.
This idea would rely on the ship knowing EXACTLY where it was at all times as the targetting parameters would be changing as it sailed around the oceans. Had inertial navigation systems been developed enough by then for that to work? GPS hadn't been invented of course.
Inertial Nav still isn't good enough today. Its why GPS was invented of course and why its predecessers LORAN-C, OMEGA and Decca were as well (the fUSSR developed their own CHAYKA system which was similar). All allowed radio silence for the receiver but of course the transmitters must blast out their signals and why they were always considered amongst the first targets in pre-emptive strike scenarios.
I can still remember the political ructions downunder when the USA wanted to build an OMEGA system in Australia for use by its SLBM carrying submarines in the early 1970s. It was the last OMEGA station built as a consequence. It was at Woodside, in Victoria (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VLF_Transmitter_Woodside) and was used until 2004. It had a 434 metre high tower(!) :o
Quote from: Hobbes on June 02, 2011, 03:19:59 AM
There's always celestial navigation; that gets you within 800 m of the correct position. With nuclear weapons, that's usually close enough.
Not when you're attempting a counter-force strike. Its OK for city busting, as Nagasaki showed but if you want to destroy a missile in its silo, you need better than 100 m accuracy (or REALLY BIG BOMBS!).
Quote from: rickshaw on June 02, 2011, 03:25:03 AM
Not when you're attempting a counter-force strike. Its OK for city busting, as Nagasaki showed but if you want to destroy a missile in its silo, you need better than 100 m accuracy (or REALLY BIG BOMBS!).
In the 1950s, and into the early 60s, half-mile accuracy with a four megaton device would be par for the course for attacking hard targets. For a deterrent ship with three big liquid-fuelled missiles, it's likely that non-time-critical targets would be allocated anyway, and most of those aren't particularly hardened.