AHC: Strong post-war Royal Navy?

[Mike D]

How did deployments to NI work? I'm only really familiar with Australian and British deployment patterns in S.E.A. in the 60s. Australia stationed a battalion in Malaya for 2 years (accompanied by families) and deployed it to the Confrontation for combat for 4 months, deployed SAS from Australia to Borneo for 6 months combat tours, deployed battalions to Vietnam (without families) for a year long tours. Britain did similar things; British battalions for a year, Gurkhas for 6 months and stationed troops doing 4 months combat tours.

Were units 'stationed' in NI (and Germany) or 'deployed' there, or a mixture? If its a mixture can that mix be changed to reduce the manpower burden? What about the drain on finances from the simple fact that NI was an operation zone from the 70s?

'Garrison Troops' in safer areas (I was Signals in Lisburn, so basically as safe as it got) were standard two year postings. Some infantry tours were also two years. Tours in the dangerous areas (South Armagh, Londonderry, West Belfast etc) were six month roulement tours. The roulement tours started out as four months but they did research and came up with six months as the ideal.

There were married quarters in some areas but the six month tours were obviously unaccompanied.

Edit - support units were fixed (15 Signal Regiment and 321 EOD Sqn for example, as well as the three brigade HQs) with personnel posted in and out. Infantry tours (along with the artillery and armour regiments that did them) rotated in and out as units. UDR/Royal Irish Home Service were also fixed and recruited from the local population and were a mix of full and part time.

 

[Zen9]

I think had they planned for Victorious to have the full spec from the beginning and realised the need for major overhaul of the plant and boilers etc... things could have proved quicker and cheaper than OTL. But it wouldn't be enough.
So yes, a more austere modernisation is far more likely to be cheaper, quicker and leaves replacement for something in the 1960's.
This lower spec is implimentable for the other Fleet Carriers, putting off the day of reckoning and perhaps leaving Hermes as the technology demonstrator.
Implimented then on Eagle, and the other two Audaciouses.

The problem is the late '50's is NIGS and Type 985 territory.

 

[Riain]

I think had they planned for Victorious to have the full spec from the beginning and realised the need for major overhaul of the plant and boilers etc

I don't think they could have done the former as the planning and decisions for Vics rebuild were made in 1948-49, although they should have known about the boilers then and replaced those. Steam catapults and angled decks were only entering the planning stages in 1952, by then the Vic would have been torn down and having boilers replaced. Perhaps these things could have been incorporated into her building back up by 1954, but only a 5.5 degree deck and 103' BS4 catapults like thew Ark Royal had in 1956. This would push the (planned) life of her rebuild back from OTL 15 years to 10 years, requiring her replacement to be in service by 1965 and designed and ordered in 1958-59 which is a much more politically suitable time to start a new carrier than 1953 or 1965.

Such a sequence, assuming the Eagle goes in for her rebuild from axial/interim angled flight deck to full angle and Type 984 rebuild in 1956 as per OTL, makes a decision about what to do with a 2nd new carrier and Ark Royal occur in about 1961-62. They could build a 2nd new carrier and do OTL's austere Phantomisation or Eagles rebuild on Ark, perhaps combined with making Hermes a 2nd line carrier line from 1965-66, filling the role that Centaur did 1960-65 with a single sqn of Sea Vixens.

Of course such capability decisions, when applied against the Korean War and Suez Crisis change Britain's foreign and defence policy outlook. There would be no Korean war 'panic' causing kneejerk reactions leading to the RN getting shit aircraft like the Attacker, nor would it take 3 months to get 3 carriers and 2 commando carriers into comission for Suez so it is likely to go that much better, especially without the shit aircraft cause by the Korean panic.

 

[Zen9]

I think that the 1952 process would run it's course in a more Austere Victorious rebuild and it would still produce the Medium Fleet CV of something between 35,000tons to 45,000tons. This being from '54 onwards and on the long-term plan from '56.
But by '58 it would be imperative to finalise the plans and get started. '65 is coming. ....
By '63 Ark Royal is in poor condition. Arguably being well into the build of the new CV, it would be argued that another should be built to replace her. Since once she is launched and being fitted out, the slip and staff would be available to start another.
Any changes would be incremental, and cheaper than starting the design process again.
This means that they could plan a successor to Eagle and the choice would be between a third Medium Fleet CV or a new design.
Come the crunch in '66-'67 the second is well under construction and they'd just cancel the third....going French in the long-term by scrapping Eagle in the 70's.

All this places stronger pressure on the DDG and possible CG efforts from the late 50's onwards. As these will firstly be seen as having a to have NIGS, and later SIGS.

 

[PSL]

The USN had the ability to put together such CVWs and CBGs with 48 Phantoms and 6 SAM escorts but didn't . They were satisfied with CVWs with 2 fighter squadrons and 3 attack squadrons and a carrier escorted by 2 Terrier and 2 Tartar ships. This says to me that the requirement for so many fighters and escorts for a single carrier is double and 2/3 of what is actually needed. Therefore its unreasonable to expect the RN to aim for it.



The same applies to missile firing bombers, ships and subs. It isn't reasonable to expect complete failure of your own weapons systems and complete success of the threat weapons systems.

Worse its normal- in good analysis - to assume a worse case scenario in order to see just how bad it could get. Typical wishful thinking cost the RN dearly in WW-II U-Boat war and Falklands etc. There was a Hansard's discussion in the 1950s that revealed a exercise featuring a single RN cruiser simulating a Sverdlov breaking through the GIUK , and according to internet hubris- an impossible feat. The RN battle group that was sent to intercept it, never even found it.

Glade to see this kind of wishful thinking is alive and kicking.

If the America exercise showed 1/3 of the bombers getting through, you should probably work from that assumption instead of pursuing questionable technical solutions. For example if the building of a carrier is delayed by 6-8 years its cost should go up by 40% or more. Politically that would cripple most building contracts- forcing corners to be cut in any compromised program.

 

[Riain]

What do you mean by Austere in regards to Victorious, not cutting her in half and stretching her or pulling her down to the hangar deck?

As for the Ark, if she underwent a rebuild like Eagle so much metal would be replaced that the poor condition would be removed for 15 years at least.

 

[Riain]

Worse its normal- in good analysis - to assume a worse case scenario in order to see just how bad it could get. Typical wishful thinking cost the RN dearly in WW-II U-Boat war and Falklands etc. There was a Hansard's discussion in the 1950s that revealed a exercise featuring a single RN cruiser simulating a Sverdlov breaking through the GIUK , and according to internet hubris- an impossible feat. The RN battle group that was sent to intercept it, never even found it.

Glade to see this kind of wishful thinking is alive and kicking.

If the America exercise showed 1/3 of the bombers getting through, you should probably work from that assumption instead of pursuing questionable technical solutions. For example if the building of a carrier is delayed by 6-8 years its cost should go up by 40% or more. Politically that would cripple most building contracts- forcing corners to be cut in any compromised program.

The military is awesome at identifying the worst case scenario, in my experience its like a disease with them, the real difficulty is to manage such risks. While it is entirely possible for a Sverdlov to break out into the Atlantic, the likelihood is somewhat low and the damage a single ship armed with guns is also somewhat low. Similarly on the opposite end of the spectrum it is unlikely that the RN would be wildly successful and wipe the floor with the Soviets with ease and no losses. So militaries aim for the missile and often have contingency plans in case of the ultra-good and ultra-bad cases.

I'd suggest that the AVMF can't put 50 bears in the air against an RN carrier, they don't have the numbers or the serviceability rates.

 

[Zen9]

Working on Standard D as per '56. But that's later than this scenario.

Estimated time for reconstruction, initially
By 1951 4.5 years
By 1952 it was 4 years 10 months.
Nov '52 it was expected to complete in Oct '56.
But in June '53 all the ultra modern features were approved and this pushed the estimate to well into 1958. Actually a bit pessimistic.

The more one looks at this the less attractive any modernisation of the Illustrious class looks. It would have been cheaper and simpler to build another 4 Hermes than bother with them. That or build new.

But the pre '53 design is valid enough to prove the utility of the steam catapults and interim angled deck.

Really didn't help having to complete different modernisation designs to different ships. This sucked design staff up like nothing and taxed the limited ship building workers considerably.
Implimenting one design on one type of CV would save a lot.

 

[PSL]

Working on Standard D as per '56. But that's later than this scenario.

Estimated time for reconstruction, initially
By 1951 4.5 years
By 1952 it was 4 years 10 months.
Nov '52 it was expected to complete in Oct '56.
But in June '53 all the ultra modern features were approved and this pushed the estimate to well into 1958. Actually a bit pessimistic.

The more one looks at this the less attractive any modernisation of the Illustrious class looks. It would have been cheaper and simpler to build another 4 Hermes than bother with them. That or build new.

But the pre '53 design is valid enough to prove the utility of the steam catapults and interim angled deck.

Really didn't help having to complete different modernisation designs to different ships. This sucked design staff up like nothing and taxed the limited ship building workers considerably.
Implimenting one design on one type of CV would save a lot.

Years of reading Hansard's the standard way HMG did away with annoying problems like older warships they could not afford [or didn't want ] to modernise is that one day a terrible fire breaks out in the engine room making the ship unsafe for further rebuild or even refit.

 

[PSL]

The military is awesome at identifying the worst case scenario, in my experience its like a disease with them, the real difficulty is to manage such risks. While it is entirely possible for a Sverdlov to break out into the Atlantic, the likelihood is somewhat low and the damage a single ship armed with guns is also somewhat low. Similarly on the opposite end of the spectrum it is unlikely that the RN would be wildly successful and wipe the floor with the Soviets with ease and no losses. So militaries aim for the missile and often have contingency plans in case of the ultra-good and ultra-bad cases.

I'd suggest that the AVMF can't put 50 bears in the air against an RN carrier, they don't have the numbers or the serviceability rates.

More wishful thinking.

The whole idea of such Catastrophizing a program is to build in "wiggle room". Its an admission there planning can't anticipate all possibilities. If you have trouble wrapping your head around that try telling it to some poor bugger who has to crew the ships or planes your throwing into battle.

Unfortunately that's why they always suffer such failures.

 

[Zen9]

TAU was based on lots of analysis of previous conflicts and it's conclusion is 32 aircraft for Defensive Ops and 64 for Offensive Ops.
96 in total.
This divided by 2 CVs. .....48 plus 2 SAR on each.
It's this that underpins CVA-01 and it's size.
However in the wider view this made each CV and airwing expensive to buy and fatally underminable if one cut one of the pair out....say as a need to save money.
This is were despite the increased total cost dividing the TAU by 3 results in individually cheaper CV and airwing. The cutting of one still undermines the TAU, but leave a reduced force viable.
This also plays to the conflict between efficiency and 'graceful degradation'.
As a single large CV is the most efficient. But the loss of it is catastrophic.
While if you loose 50% through one of a pair leaves you still able to conduct operations.
But loosing 33% leaves you 66% remaining capacity to fight.
Ergo a CV carrying 32 aircraft plus 2 SAR.
On the basis of their tables the 42,000ton ship is closest, and a mathematically project able ship of 45,000ton is ideal.

 

[Zen9]

Purchasing power.
In 1953 = 11.22
By '56 = 10.13
By '63 = 8.45
By '66 = 7.36

Fall is to 68% of 1953 purchasing power by '66. That if 100% is measured in '53. This is not a reduction of 68%, but of 32%.
18 million in '53 would rise by 32% to remain purchasing parity in '66. This would be 23.76 million.

10 million for aircraft in '57 would rise by 22% to 12.2 million in '66.

So a ship might cost 23 million and airwing 12 million resulting in a total of 45 million in '66 compared with 28 million in '57.

Defense Systems Inflation of course is a seperate figure.

 

[Zen9]

So in '67 it's 7.36.....
66 million?
Which would be 47.5 million in '56....
Which is wayyyyy more than the cost of a carrier at the time.
The 26 million cost of the 1952 CV in '53 would be 28.8 million in '56.

But 18.5 million might cover....oh I don't know. ....an airwing maybe

This is why Victorious is not a good measure as she ought to have cost 15.5 million by '56.
the near doubling from that is down to changes, delays, limited staff and likely US sourced 3" guns.

Oh yes projected cost of F4K was 1.2 million per plane, so that would be 14.4 million for 12....
But by time of arrival they cost 3.55 million per plane and 12 cost 42.6 million.

 

[Riain]

More wishful thinking.

The whole idea of such Catastrophizing a program is to build in "wiggle room". Its an admission there planning can't anticipate all possibilities. If you have trouble wrapping your head around that try telling it to some poor bugger who has to crew the ships or planes your throwing into battle.

Unfortunately that's why they always suffer such failures.

Not all all, its a simple matter of maths. While I don't doubt that the AVMF had over 50 Tu95s, they were in 2 regiments one allocated to the Pacific and the other allocated to the Northern Fleet. While a concentration is possible it would leave one ocean uncovered.

After the cancellation of NIGS it was assumed that the fleet would be defended by CAP fighters, and the maintain the required CAP each carrier would need 18 fighters, so with the standard tactical unit of 2 carriers thats 36 fighters. The other option was DLI which only required 12 fighter per carrier.

These numbers were worked out with reference to the reasonable worst case scenario, although they would not be driven by it as some measure of risk had to be accepted.

 

[Zen9]

No it was 18 on a single CV.
But 32 on a pair.
Assuming a 4 hour CAP.

 

[Riain]

No it was 18 on a single CV.
But 32 on a pair.
Assuming a 4 hour CAP.

Makes sense, similar 'efficiency' was found with AA escorts, doubling the number of carriers doesn't double the amount of escorts required. In both cases the numbers didn't just fall out of the sky, but were arrived at with reference to the threat level and the best way to deal with that threat given the resources available.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

I think it is too big a jump for the 50's.

But I also question the lack of marine Avon. As land based applications reached 21,000shp.

The USN was working on a single shafts ship of 35,000shp.

IOTL the earliest British marine gas turbines were the Metropolitan Vickers G.1 and G.2 which were based on their early aircraft gas turbines.

Therefore a Marine F.9 Sapphire would be more logical than a Marine Avon.

Going back to 1946 Rolls Royce was given a contract to produce a marine gas turbine. A pair of RM60 units were fitted to the war-build steam gunboat HMS Grey Goose, which was re-commissioned in 1955. Meanwhile English Electric was developing the EL60 and the plan was to fit it to the American-built Captain class frigate HMS Hotham for trials, but the project was abandoned in 1952. As far as I can tell the 60 in EL60 and RM 60 meant they produced 6,000 shp.

IOTL the practice of developing marine gas turbines from scratch proved to be very expensive so after the G.6 it was decided to revert to the practice of modifying existing aero engines for warship use. The result was the Marine Olympus and Marine Tyne.

ITTL in about 1946 could Metrovick be given a contract to develop a marine version of the Sapphire to compliment the G.2, while Bristol would be awarded contracts to develop marine versions of the Proteus and the BE.10 which would become the Olympus. That way we might get the prototype Marine Sapphire on Grey Goose, the prototype Marine Olympus on Hotham and more Proteus-powered Brave class fast attack craft built instead of the Deltic-diesel powered Dark class.

 

[Zen9]

I do like the idea of a marine Sapphire. Ultimately about the same horsepower as an Avon. But if anything earlier.

 

[Riain]

GTs drastically changed the cost structure of the RN, if they could have moved away from steam a decade earlier then they did then the budget crunch of the 60s which ruined the RN may have been mitigated enough to see the carriers built.

 

[Zen9]

One might envision an alternative Type 81 Tribal using Sapphire for 10,000-15,000shp and diesels for 4,000-5,000shp.....