European NATO naval alternatives : 1950 - 1990

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Inspired by Tomo Pauk's "European NATO aircraft alternatives : 1950 - 1990"

What could've been done differently?
Submarines?
Frigates?
Destroyers?
CV's?
Fixed & rotary wing aircraft included?

I'll start from the obvious one, have the RN get three decent sized Malta CVA's into service after 1950 when all the post war modifications came in thus avoiding the CVA-01 project failure and allowing all the earlier designs, Centaur, Colossus etc to be disposed of.

A 5th & 6th "Resolution" class boat built instead of the four in the 1960's and a joint development of the SLBM with the French.
 

naraic

Efficiency is key. For the Royal Navy don't throw a fortune into refitting old carriers when you can get new builds. Get rid of battleships earlier. Don't spend a half million on a refit then when refit completes decide that the ship is going to be scrapped.
 

jsb

SealTheRealDeal said:
The UK skips Victorious' modernization and gets right to modernizing the newer and larger Implacable.
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I think with hindsight they should give up of them and start work on new post-war ships or just work on finishing Audacious, the issue is they need to anticipate how much smaller the RN will get and how much larger CVs need to be to operate modern late Cold War jets, they simply can't waste money on lots of ships early on.

They had in 1950,
Illustrious class 4 served from 40/41 to 53/55/57/69
Implacable 2 both served from 1944 to 55/56
Audacious 2 Both still building, finished 51 & 55 (if only this was an earlier pod they could have saved the 23% 3rd...) served till 72/79
Centaur 4 finished 53/54/54/54 served till 65/73/81/83
Lots of (8+2) Colossus class & (5) Majestic class ships (some for other navies and not all at the same time)

With hindsight, Vic should never have been rebuilt, as with hindsight all the Illustrious class are going to be cut soon anyway and are heavily damaged from war use, Fitting the 1 or 2 of the Implacable class with angle decks would probably keep them till 69 as they could then fly Buccs but is probably not great value, but would be better and cheaper than Vic in OTL as they are larger and newer hull in better condition.
But with hindsight, you really would be far better to just build a new larger CV (that will be more able to operate F4s etc...) once the Korean War finishes, say in 54/55, cutting all the Illustrious and cutting the Implacable as soon as the new larger CV is finished?

The real question with hindsight is can you build a very large "Centaur" class and design it for as much reduced manning as you can, ie do thing like not fit it with 4.5" guns etc and have as simply engines as you can?
 
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CV12Hornet

The Kortenaer class basically is the FREMM of its era, and very similar to the French Georges Leygues-class, German Bremen-class, and Italian Maestrale-class. So sure, you probably could've gotten a multinational project going in that time.

An earlier Horizon, no. By the time the French and Dutch are buying new AAW vessels, not only do they have a new frigate design they can adapt, but the likes of the Brits and Italians are either not buying any or are locked into national designs.
 

Schlock

I've always wondered what the various fleets would have been like if the European navies had standardised on a common launcher rail as a NATO standard, say the Mk 10 and later the Mk 26?

Suppose the SeaSlug had been designed to be tandem booster design compatible with the Mk.10 launcher? Would the missile have been adopted by more navies if that were the case? Would that have led to the Counties lasting longer in service? Would more of them have gone on to service with other navies? Would they have been refitted to mount SeaDart?
 

steamboy

Honestly one of the big problems NATO/Europe had with multinational weapons programs in the immediate post war era up to the 60's was the French. DeGaulle wrecked many joint weapons development programs because it was a case of

Germany] Okay we want this vehicle.
Italy] Sounds good, might we suggest this?
Denmark] Oh yeah thats good.
France] You're all wrong we want this vehicle that does not fit your requirements at all but fits ours, and we want to build it in France. If you say no we leave and take 25% of the funding for this project if not more with us.
Everyone] But...
France] YOU DARE! THAT'S IT I'M LEAVING!

France and Germany were developing a tank together until the French said 'non' and that it had to be built to all their requirements etc and ignored what the Germans wanted. Thats how we got the Leopard 1 and the AMX-30 instead of a joint desgin.
The Germany, France and Italy were actually looking at a joint nuclear weapons program, until France again said that it had to be the French weapon, built exclusively in France, when the others said no, DeGaulle threw a hissy fit and pulled out, gutting the program and killing it.

There's others for sure, but basically in the 40's - 50's if DeGaulle is around, don't involve the French in your weapons programs, they will try to take it over and ignore what everyone wants, and when called out on their bullshit, blame everyone else then leave.

If you look at the various joint projects the French were involved in that went ahead, they all happened AFTER DeGaulle was gone.
 
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steamboy

Schlock said:
I've always wondered what the various fleets would have been like if the European navies had standardised on a common launcher rail as a NATO standard, say the Mk 10 and later the Mk 26?

Suppose the SeaSlug had been designed to be tandem booster design compatible with the Mk.10 launcher? Would the missile have been adopted by more navies if that were the case? Would that have led to the Counties lasting longer in service? Would more of them have gone on to service with other navies? Would they have been refitted to mount SeaDart?
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With the Sea Slug, the RN could have worked on it to give it the upgrades the Bloodhound/Thunderbird got, or jointly develop the missile with the RAF/Army so all three branches get the same weapon system, allowing for ease of maintenance and upgradability. Of course this would cause turf wars between the branches but it could have been done.

Same with having a Sea Rapier if needed, there was plans for a ground mobile Sea Wolf carrier after all.

For joint things, have Goalkeeper instead of Phalanx be the go to for European ships CIWS.
 
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Pblouin21

Transformation of the Jeanne d'Arc helicopter carrier into a light aircraft carrier, with harriers, these planes had made landings on this ship.

Des Harriers pour la marine, 1973

Bonjour a tous A ma grande stupéfaction j'ai recemment découvert qu'en Octobre-- Novembre 1973 un prototype du Harrier avait apponté, non seulement sur le Foch, mais aussi sur la Jeanne d'Arc (!) Le contexte - crise de succession de l'Etendard IV (A-7 Corsair II ? trop lourd, trop cher. A-4 ? tro...
www.air-defense.net www.air-defense.net
 

Pblouin21

Porte-avions léger Jeanne d'Arc

Suite aux conversations sur les porte-avions légers, je me suis demandé quels auraient été les conséquences de la mise en service d’un porte-avions léger moderne. Mon point de divergence date de 1958 lors du lancement du croiseur porte-hélicoptères la Jeanne d’Arc. A cette époque, la marine est e...
www.air-defense.net www.air-defense.net
 

jsb

SealTheRealDeal said:
The Tigers are completed as guided missile cruisers (with Sea Slugs replacing the 3" guns). Basically a heavy duty counterpart to the County class destroyers being built at the same time.
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With hindsight, the Tigers should never have been build and definitely never rebuilt for helicopters, for similar crew size you can get a Colossus class if you are running it with a reduced helicopter only air group, so why run a Tiger that's far worse? You could even just fit missiles to the Colossus class if you are worried about surface or air threats and still have plenty of room for more helicopters.... ie fit Sea Slug to make a Colossus class DDH with say 9 Sea kings?
 

Peg Leg Pom

jsb said:
With hindsight, the Tigers should never have been build and definitely never rebuilt for helicopters, for similar crew size you can get a Colossus class if you are running it with a reduced helicopter only air group, so why run a Tiger that's far worse? You could even just fit missiles to the Colossus class if you are worried about surface or air threats and still have plenty of room for more helicopters.... ie fit Sea Slug to make a Colossus class DDH with say 9 Sea kings?
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You not only get a much better helicopter carrier but save a huge amount on the cost of the conversions, and Britain just happens to have a number of Colossus class ships waiting for disposal at the time + the Majestic class Leviathan that was never completed and ended up being striped for parts.

(Glory, Ocean, Theseus and Triumph are all available at the time the Tigers were earmarked for conversion)
 
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