BRITISH GUIDED MISSILE DESTROYERS County-class, Type 82, Type 42 and Type 45 EDWARD HAMPSHIRE ILLUSTRATED BY PAUL WRIGHT Author Illustrator Discover more at www.ospreypublishing.com Edward Hampshire was educated at Magdalen College, Oxford Paul Wright has painted ships of all kinds for most of his and King’s College, London, where he gained a doctorate in career, specializing in steel and steam warships from the War Studies in 2008. He is currently a Senior Lecturer at the late 19th century to the present day. Paul’s art has illustrated Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst. Dr Hampshire wrote his the works of Patrick O’Brian, Dudley Pope and C.S. Forester doctoral thesis on British naval technology of the 1960s, and amongst others, and hangs in many corporate and private he is currently researching British defence policy of the late collections all over the world. A Member of the Royal Society 1970s and 1980s, in particular the 1981 Defence Review. 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Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrical, chemical, mechanical, optical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. Enquiries should be addressed to the Publishers. A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Print ISBN: 978 1 4728 1116 5 PDF ebook ISBN: 978 1 4728 1117 2 ePub ebook ISBN: 978 1 4728 1118 9 Index by Rob Munro Typeset in Sabon and Myriad Pro Originated by PDQ Media, Bungay, UK Osprey Publishing supports the Woodland Trust, the UK’s leading woodland conservation charity. Between 2014 and 2018 our donations will be spent on their Centenary Woods project in the UK. www.ospreypublishing.com Imperial War Museums Collections Many of the photos in this book come from the huge collections of IWM (Imperial War Museums) which cover all aspects of conflict involving Britain and the Commonwealth since the start of the twentieth century. These rich resources are available online to search, browse and buy at www. iwmcollections.org.uk. In addition to Collections Online, you can visit the Visitor Rooms where you can explore over 8 million photographs, thousands of hours of moving images, the largest sound archive of its kind in the world, thousands of diaries and letters written by people in wartime, and a huge reference library. To make an appointment, call (020) 7416 5320, or e-mail [email protected] Imperial War Museums www.iwm.org.uk CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 4 • British naval strategy, the air threat and guided missile destroyers WEAPONS AND SYSTEMS 7 • Countering the air threat • Sea Slug • Sea Dart • Sea Viper • Other weapon systems • Sensors, command and communication systems COUNTY-CLASS DESTROYERS 14 • Design development • Construction programme • In-service modifications TYPE 82 DESTROYER: HMS BRISTOL   19 • Design development • Construction programme • In-service modifications TYPE 42 DESTROYERS: SHEFFIELD CLASS 23 • Design development • Construction programme • In-service modifications TYPE 45 DESTROYERS: DARING CLASS 31 • Design development • Construction programme OPERATIONAL SERVICE 35 • Initial roles • The Falklands Campaign • The 1990–91 Gulf War • Operational deployments since 1991 • The fates of the British guided missile destroyers BIBLIOGRAPHY 47 INDEX 48 BRITISH GUIDED MISSILE DESTROYERS COUNTY-CLASS, TYPE 82, TYPE 42 AND TYPE 45 INTRODUCTION British naval strategy, the air threat and guided missile destroyers At the end of World War II, with the Axis powers defeated, the British economy and its infrastructure needed to be rebuilt, so spending money on new warships was consequently a low priority. Many ships laid down during the war were either put into reserve soon after completion or their construction was suspended; some unbuilt vessels were even broken up on the shipbuilders’ slips. However, the takeover of Eastern Europe by Soviet-backed communists and evidence that Stalin was investing in new armaments, including submarines, warships and bombers, caused British naval spending to rise. Investment in the emerging technology of anti-aircraft guided missiles began, designs for new frigates and destroyers were developed, and the building of A Tu16 Badger bomber with a ships, the construction of which had been suspended, was restarted. The single AS-6 Kingfish missile on Korean War and the explosion of the first Soviet atom bomb increased fears the port wing. The Kingfish was introduced in 1977 and was that a war with the Soviets and their allies was imminent, so defence spending carried on both Badger and increased yet further. Backfire bombers. It had a The Soviets had captured German guided-missile and jet-engine range of up to 350 nautical technology and were developing their own anti-ship guided missiles. In the miles and a speed of over Mach 2.5. (US Navy) last years of World War II, the Germans had developed the ability to pre- programme long-range missiles filled with explosives so that they would hit designated targets. Their accuracy was at best in the region of 6 to 12 miles – this range had been sufficient for the famous ‘doodlebug’ V1 and V2 aerial raids of 1944 and 1945. The Soviets developed this technology further and by the 1950s guided rockets were able to change their course in mid-flight, a vital pre-requisite for intercepting moving warships. With the earliest missiles, this was done by following a radar beam sent out by the launching aircraft and then, in the final stages of flight, from a radar on the missile itself, thus providing much greater accuracy than the German flying bombs from which they were derived. The first Soviet anti-ship missile, the AS-1 Kennel, 4 A photograph taken from the hangar of HMS Glasgow shows not only her Lynx helicopter secured to the ship’s flight deck but also a shadowing Soviet Kresta II class cruiser. (Imperial War Museum, CT 390) which was about the size of an aircraft and was reportedly based on the MiG 15 jet, appeared in 1958 and was launched from a Badger bomber. The British Sea Slug missile system was developed to counter Soviet bombers and subsonic aircraft-like missiles such as the Kennel. The Royal Navy planned for a ‘second Battle of the Atlantic’ in which convoys of US supplies and troops to Europe would have to be protected from Soviet attack by submarine, surface raider, aircraft or guided missile. When it became clear that the Soviet nuclear arsenal was growing, strategy shifted towards fighting a ‘broken-backed’ war in which naval forces would continue to protect US convoys even after nuclear exchanges had heavily damaged the infrastructure of many NATO states. During this period, design studies for air-defence ships focused on convoy missile escorts: vessels that could be built in some numbers but did not necessarily have the all-round ‘fleet capabilities’ necessary to operate in naval task forces. Following the 1957 Defence White Paper, in which it was acknowledged that maintaining a large reserve fleet was no longer viable and that nuclear exchanges would lessen the likelihood of a long-term convoy campaign, the Navy carved out a new strategy for itself as Britain began to withdraw from many of its colonies across the globe. The Soviets and their allies began to involve themselves in conflicts in decolonizing states, while Britain fought a series of ‘end-of-empire’ wars and insurgencies in Malaya, Kenya, Cyprus, Borneo and Aden. In this context, an ‘East of Suez’ strategy of worldwide deployment and mixed-capability task forces with a strong focus on capable ‘fleet’ vessels was developed. The County-class destroyers were one of the main products of this strategic focus. In addition, in the early 1960s the second generation of long-range Soviet missiles entered service, including long-range anti-ship missiles such as the AS-2 Kipper, the AS-5 Kelt and the ship-launched SS-N-3 Shaddock missile. Shorter-range missiles such as the SS-N-2 Styx also entered service. The Silkworm, a Chinese variant of the Styx, appeared in the 1970s. The British Sea Dart missile system was developed from the early 1960s onwards to deal with these new, relatively small, supersonic or near-supersonic high-altitude missiles. 5 HMS Hampshire anchored off By the mid-1960s the cost of the ‘East of Suez’ strategy caused a number Aden while supporting the of expensive defence programmes to be cancelled, including the CVA01 withdrawal of British forces in strike aircraft carrier. The Type 82 destroyer, the first ship to carry the Sea 1967. This operation was typical Dart missile system, had become the main air-defence escort for the carrier, of many during the ‘East of Suez’ period in which British so its cancellation meant that only one of the class was built. There followed naval units supported the a few years of strategic flux in which the ‘East of Suez’ strategy theoretically withdrawal from Empire, often remained in place, but many of the weapon systems to maintain it had been by aiding successor cancelled and the political will to continue such a world role was diminishing. governments fight insurgencies. (Imperial War In this vacuum, the Type 42 destroyer was developed as a cheaper ship to get Museum, HU 106855) as many Sea Dart air-defence missile systems to sea as quickly as possible. By 1968, after the Type 42 design had already been agreed, British naval strategy returned to a focus on the eastern Atlantic and a potential convoy war, lasting only a couple of days or weeks, against Soviet forces in a period of increasing tension before a possible nuclear exchange. Conflicts other than direct confrontation with the Soviets in the eastern Atlantic were now considered to be less likely. The late 1970s saw a leap in Soviet capabilities with the introduction of the supersonic Backfire bomber, which carried the Mach 2.5 AS-4 Kitchen or AS-6 Kingfish missiles and could be deployed in ‘regimental’ massed saturation attacks which could overwhelm a Type 42 destroyer. Designs such The swing-wing Tu22 Backfire bomber entered service in the mid-1970s. It could reach Mach 2, over double the speed of the Badger. (US DoD) 6 as the Type 43, Type 44 and the NFR90 were developed which would have a greater capacity to withstand such attacks. Despite the Falklands War, which highlighted the threat from sea- skimming anti-ship missiles such as Exocet, overall British naval strategy did not change significantly until the Soviet retreat from Eastern Europe and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989–91. From this time until the Strategic Defence Review of 1998, an ‘expeditionary warfare’ strategy was developed – with echoes of the ‘East of Suez’ strategy forty years earlier – in which British forces could be deployed globally to support peacekeeping, humanitarian intervention, defend British interests and, from 2001, to help fight the global ‘war on terror’. In this context the Horizon project and Type 45 destroyers were developed. The Type 45 finally enabled the Royal Navy to counter saturation attacks and complex threat environments, and perhaps even undertake theatre ballistic missile defence. In spite of these shifts in strategy, which suggested the need for different force mixes and types of vessels, the increased length of design development and procurement has meant that British air-defence destroyers have had to be flexible and adaptable warships, capable of many roles and able to be repeatedly updated over their increasingly long service lives. WEAPONS AND SYSTEMS Countering the air threat A Sea Cat launcher being The British, in common with the United States, developed two types of air- loaded. Unlike the complex defence missile systems in the 1940s and 1950s. The first type, medium-range below-decks loading system of the Sea Slug and Sea Dart, Sea ‘area defence’ systems that can defend a number of vessels and not just the Cat was manually loaded by ship that the system is on, was developed using innovations from World War crew members. This resulted in II Allied and Axis scientists, such as the German V1 and V2 guided rockets. minimal impact on the design Area defence is a complex task as it requires a missile to intercept a target and structure of warships, but did mean that crew were that might be flying past it, rather than one flying straight towards it. A large, vulnerable to the elements and medium- or long-range missile would therefore be needed, with sophisticated to enemy action. (MoD Naval ship-based and missile-based systems and radar to detect and track the target Historical Branch) and then guide the missile onto that target. Detection and tracking would be undertaken by air-search radar in aircraft or on board ship, while the fire- control radar for the missile system would ‘lock on’ to the target, and then help guide the missile to the target. The area- defence missile would often have its own homing capability for the final stages before interception. The second type of air- defence system is the short-range ‘point defence’ system, which in effect replaced the capability of ships’ short-range anti-aircraft 7 guns. Sea Cat was the first such point-defence anti-aircraft and anti-missile system, although its range of just 3 miles meant that it could only defend the ship from which it was fired, and was a system that would intercept the enemy with only seconds to go before impact. It also had a very limited capability against supersonic targets, and early versions required manual above- decks guidance to the target. However, Sea Cat proved successful, and was in service with the Royal Navy from 1960 to the 1990s and, consequently, was adopted by the navies of several other countries. The County-class destroyers were each fitted with two Sea Cat systems, each either side of the ship’s hangar. The successor to the Sea Cat was Sea Wolf, which was fitted to a number of British frigates between 1980 and the 2000s. Much updated, it is still in Royal Navy service today. It was much more effective at A Sea Slug firing from a County- intercepting supersonic targets, but was still a short-range point-defence class destroyer. Sea Slug was system unable to defend other vessels from attack (as was confirmed in the unique in that its four booster Falklands). Plans to fit BAC’s lightweight Sea Wolf launchers to Batch 3 Type rockets were wrapped around 42 destroyers were dropped in 1990, a few months before the first planned the front of the missile, not the rear. (MoD Naval Historical installation. Branch) Sea Slug The first British area-defence missile system was Sea Slug, designed by Armstrong Whitworth. Its development began in the last few months of World War II, but costs and complexity were severely underestimated and the missile and its system did not enter full service until 1961. Sea Slug had a range of 30,000 yards with a maximum altitude of 55,000 feet. The Sea Slug guidance radar, the Type 901, both tracked the target and guided the missile towards it. Because Sea Slug did not have its own homing capacity, guidance was less accurate the further away the target was, and the missile ‘rode’ the beam of the guidance radar to take it to its target. The missiles were stowed horizontally in a hangar-like structure below decks but above the waterline. Sea Slug Mk 1 was fitted to the trials ship Girdle Ness and to the first four County-class destroyers described on page 18. A modified Sea Slug system (Mk 2) was fitted to the second batch of County-class destroyers. Target selection in the ships’ operations room was semi-automated with only the decision to fire being made by an operations-room officer; this system – ADAWS (Action Data Automation Weapon System) – was the first of its kind installed in a Royal Navy vessel. Sea Slug Mk 2 also had an increased range of 49,000 yards and maximum altitude of 65,000 feet. By the Falklands conflict Sea Slug was obsolescent and was not used for air defence. However, Sea Slug missiles were used for rough-and- ready shore bombardment. 8