Commonwealth Naval projects

[DarrenP]

The UK was looking at a Joint destroyer design with the Dutch so maybethe Dutch might have come in or the Tromp might have been the basis?

[Weaver]

Darren - LOVE the Iceni and the Brigante!

On the Brigante, I don't think you've allowed enough space for the "office" under the forward Type-909. Unfortunately, unlike Seawolf's 910s, the 909 can't simply be bolted to a flat surface: it has a container load of electronics directly underneath it. since the Seawolf VLS isn't fitted, why not put the 909, on it's office, in front of the bridge in B-position (as per Bristol), and then raise the bridge one level to see over it, which would also create more badly-needed command space. Also, I'd keep the Ikara, which this helo-less ship needs more, and dispense with the Harpoons, since Sea Dart has a pretty nasty anti-ship capability of it's own.

Ikara needs one or two small tracking radars (the dome above the bridge on Ikara Leanders, or either side of the bridge on Bristol). It should be easy enough to incorporate them into both these designs, but, since the thing was a maintenance pain anyway, I've always wondered whether a bit of software could have been developed to let an AAW tracker do the job. All it has to do is track the missile (which had a transponder IIRC) and feed that to the ASW control system: how hard can it be? (famous last words...)

[DarrenP]

With the Ikara In the B position it needs space for missile handling/preparation. Didin't know about Ikara tracking radar so am working on an update. I'd say the AAW radars could have been busy enough and with 70's/80's computers they may not have had the processing capability. Might plate the Mast in as well. Has been sugested by guys on ship bucket that the aft mounted Ikara may get in the way of the Towed array sonar. Given the class has 2 extremley potent ASW systems already with the Sea King/Sea Sprite or Sea Hawk/Lynx I might delete it as the towed array is very useful and for closer work it has the Torpedo tubes already.
Am also considering a Anglo/commonwealth/Dutch variant or similar design.

[Weaver]

Ah, I didn't realise that you had Ikara in B-pos on the Brigante. Why more it from the aft position, if the Iceni already has it there: it's an awful lot of hadling room and magazine to re-position?

The AAW trackers are only busy when they're actually guiding a SAM, which is far harder than tracking Ikara. In the unlikely event that an air-threat popped-up during the few minutes of an Ikara's flight, the tracker could always switch to the air threat and leave the Ikara to fend for itself. It had an autopilot and command guidance, so without a tracking input, it would simply continue to the last updated drop position and drop it's torpedo anyway. The torpedo would then start it's usual spiral search pattern and might very well hit the sub, even though it was dropped in a non-ideal position. Besides, if we're deploying Ikara in serious numbers into the 1980s, how hard would it be to fit the missile (which had 1960s electronics) with a more compact solid-state inertial guidance system and two-way digital datalink, so that it could tell the ASW fire-control system where it was, thereby eliminating the Ikara tracker all together?



I really don't think Ikara would get in the way of the towed array. As I said, it ALWAYS fires upwards at 55 deg, so it can clear deck obstacles quite close to it. The limbo mortar was in that position and that was "deep" mounting whereas the Ikara lanucher is just bolted to the deck: all the deep stuff is under the handing room which is under the flight deck. If you look at the stern of an original ASW Niteroi (Brazillian Vosper Mk.10) it has Ikara right above an enclosed towed-array room. Besides, we're designing these ships from scratch "along Iroquoi-ish lines", rather than literally adapting the Iroquois as it stands, so a minor stretch could be accomodated if it was a problem.

The point of Ikara is:

1. It's just about the only visible "Commonwealth" weapon system that isn't British or American, so it gives these ships part of their character,

2. It's an all-weather, fast reaction system. Helos get grounded by weather, break down and crash. Their reaction time is lousy, even when they're sat on the deck with engines running, and you can only keep them in that state for so long. What's more, for a towed-array ship, the helo might be 100 miles in the wrong direction when a pop-up threat emerges. Ikara has a far greater range than a torpedo and gets out to the limits of it's range MUCH faster. Basically Ikara is a better weapon, once launched, than ASROC, and that's still considered essential by those that can afford to carry it. The downside is that, in it's original form, it was more space-consuming and labour intensive than ASROC, which is why the RN and RAN dumped it as their budgets shrank and they couldn't afford to have everything they wanted.

[DarrenP]

good points weaver. With Sea Dart aboard it would need magazines as well so substituting the Ikara for seadart but feasible changes.

[Weaver]

Darren - would you mind if I "borrowed" your profiles to do a bit of remodelling of my own?

[DarrenP]

No problem I've borrowed from others and as long as they are credited.

[Weaver]

Okay, here we go:



909 tracker moved from behind bridge to B-pos.

Bridge made 1 deck higher.

Ikara replaced behind flight deck, slightly closer to it.

Under flight deck deckhouse extended to back edge of flight deck to accomodate Ikara handling room.

VDS replaced by towed array with cover to protect from Ikara exhaust.

[DarrenP]

mmmm nice one weaver

[DarrenP]

The Concept for the Brigante class would be as escorts for the CVA  Queen Elizabeth & Duke of  Edinburugh the Through deck cruisers Invincible, Illistrious and Indomitible or the Helecopter carriers Indefatiguible and Implacable. The difference between the 2 Through deck cruisers have ski jump for sea harrier and Helecopter carriers don't. The RCN purchased 1 Through deck cruiser and the RAN Purchased 2 Through deck cruisers
HMCS Bonaventure
HMAS Canberra
HMAS Hobart

[pyro-manic]

Looks good, Weaver. Quick tip - save your images as .png, rather than .jpg. That way you'll avoid that "fuzziness" that the jpg compression causes.

[Weaver]

Looks good, Weaver. Quick tip - save your images as .png, rather than .jpg. That way you'll avoid that "fuzziness" that the jpg compression causes.

Ahhh - the original image is a .BMP because I assumed that photobucket converted everything to a .JPEG anyway. However, I've now tried your suggestion out, and it's left it as a .PNG. I've also increased the pic size, so it keeps the original Shipbucket template size.

[Weaver]

Just for comparison, this is the Type-84 Super-Bristol which I came up with a while ago. Significantly stretched and probably displacing around 8000 tons, it had double-ended Sea-Dart (essential for a really high-threat enviroment) and used Aussie-style (Perth-class) side-mounted Ikara. It would probably have had a Oto-Melara 76mm gun in place of the Mk.8, but I hadn't even heard of Shipbucket when I did this so I couldn't find a suitable image.





This is the "Batch II" version. It has a ficticious Sea-Dart VLS system using 6-round rotary launchers that are fed by offset 6-round magazines below deck and can be mounted either at the deck edge or on the centreline. This ship has five: two either side of the rear 909s and one inbetween the forward 909 and the turret. It also has a single, Niteroi-style Ikara launcher aft, which gives the ship back it's helo platform.



I may re-do something like this to Shipbucket standards now that I've got my head around it. Need to find time though...

[Hobbes]

Replacing the huge Type 909s with a more sensible system seems a logical next step. Or even splitting the assembly; the 909s were built sa a unit with the office/equipment room underneath to facilitate testing, but there's no technical reason they can't be split.

The Sea Dart VLS is an interesting idea, but I doubt having a magazine underneath the launcher is feasible. The Sea Dart is 4.4 m long, stacking them 2 high would mean the launcher is 10 m high, that's 4 decks.

[DarrenP]

Weaver with the 909 radar in that position it is more masked by the super structure. You could also shorten the deckhouse its on and reinstate the harpoos which give it a bit more reach and punch.