County-class destroyer

Class overview
Builders:
Operators:
Preceded by: Daring class
Succeeded by: Type 82
Subclasses:
  • Batch 1
  • Batch 2
In commission: 16 November 1962 – 22 September 2006
Completed: 8
Cancelled: 2[1]
Laid up:
Lost:
General characteristics
Displacement: 6,200 tons
Length: 520.16 ft (158.54 m)
Beam: 54 ft (16 m)
Draught: 21 ft (6.4 m)
Propulsion:
Speed: 30 knots (56 km/h; 35 mph)
Range: 3,500 nm
Complement: 471 (33 officers, 438 ratings)
Armament:
Aircraft carried: 1 × Wessex HAS Mk 3 helicopter
Aviation facilities: Flight deck and enclosed hangar for embarking one helicopter

The County class was a class of guided missile destroyer, the first such vessels built by the Royal Navy. Designed specifically around the Seaslug anti-aircraft missile system, the primary role of these ships was area air-defence around the aircraft carrier task force in the nuclear-war environment.[2][3]

The class was designed as a hybrid cruiser-destroyer, with a much larger displacement (similar to that of the Dido-class cruiser) than its predecessor, the Daring class. During the final design period in 1956 - 1958 a full gun armament was envisaged,[4] based on a modern combined gas turbine and steam turbine ('COSAG') propulsion unit, as enlarged Daring fleet escorts, armed with 2 twin Mk 6 4.5, 2 twin L/70 40mm and a twin 3 inch/70. Only as late as 1958 was the decision made to fit the ships with guided missiles[5] on the insistence of the First Sea Lord, Admiral Mountbatten[6] and the Cabinet, despite staff reports over missile unreliability and inaccuracy,[7] and the vulnerability of the above-waterline missile magazine. Lord Mountbatten believed that describing the County class as destroyers rather than cruisers, and demonstrating the apparently impressive performance of Seaslug on the missile range against Gloster Meteor UC15 drones, he could justify a modern Royal Navy and a large number of County class 'destroyers'.[8] While short on the support and logistic spares stocks of a traditional cruiser, they were still envisaged by the DNC as being 'probably' used in the cruiser role[9] with space for Flag staff offices, and admiral's barge accommodation[10]:pp. 181–190 in the 1960s: the last decade when the UK oversaw significant colonial territory ("East of Suez"). Its missile capability had been overtaken by aircraft development by 1962–63, when HMS Devonshire and Hampshire entered service, but in the early and mid-1960s the modern lines of these guided-missile destroyers, with their traditional RN cruiser style and their impressive-looking missiles, enabled the overstretched Royal Navy to project sufficient power to close down the threat of a militant, left-leaning Indonesia to Malaysia and Borneo during the Indonesia-Malaysia confrontation.[11]

Ships of the class

Eight vessels were built in two batches between 1959 and 1970, the later four vessels carrying the improved Seaslug GWS2 and updated electronics requiring rearranged mastheads. The major identifying feature was the Batch 2 vessels' prominent "double-bedstead" AKE-2 antennas of the Type 965 air-search radar, and their taller foremast carrying the Type 992Q low-angle search radar.

Ships' names

Four of the "Counties" took names used by the famous three-funnelled interwar County-class cruisers: London, Norfolk, Devonshire and Kent. (The last of these, HMS Cumberland, had survived until 1959 as a trials ship). Devonshire, Hampshire, Antrim and Kent also inherited the names of Devonshire-class armoured cruisers of the First World War.

Four of the new ships were named after counties containing a Royal Navy Dockyard; these were: Devonshire (Devonport Dockyard), Hampshire (Portsmouth Dockyard), Kent (Chatham Dockyard), and Fife (Rosyth dockyard). Glamorgan and Antrim were named after the counties in Wales and Northern Ireland which contain the port cities and regional capitals of Cardiff and Belfast (by analogy to London, England). Norfolk commemorated the county of Nelson's birth, and the important 19th-century ports of Great Yarmouth and King's Lynn.

Three of the ships' names have been subsequently re-used: HMS London was a Type 22 frigate, in RN service from 1987–99, and now serving with the Romanian Naval Forces as Regina Maria. HMS Kent and HMS Norfolk are Type 23 Frigates, in service with the Royal Navy and the Chilean Navy (as Almirante Cochrane).

Ship Builder Laid Down Launched Commissioned Fate
Batch 1
Devonshire Cammell Laird, Birkenhead 9 March 1959 10 June 1960 15 November 1962 Sunk as target, 17 July 1984
Hampshire John Brown & Company, Clydebank 26 March 1959 16 March 1961 15 March 1963 Broken up at Briton Ferry, 1979
Kent Harland & Wolff, Belfast 1 March 1960 27 September 1961 15 August 1963 Broken up at Alang, 1998
London Swan Hunter, Wallsend 26 February 1960 7 December 1961 4 November 1963 Sold to Pakistan as Babur, March 1982
Batch 2
Fife Fairfield Shipbuilding, Govan 1 June 1962 9 July 1964 21 June 1966 Sold to Chile as Blanco Encalada, August 1987
Glamorgan Vickers-Armstrongs, Newcastle 13 September 1962 9 July 1964 14 October 1966 Sold to Chile as Almirante Latorre, September 1986
Antrim Upper Clyde Shipbuilders, Govan 20 January 1966 19 October 1967 14 July 1970 Sold to Chile as Almirante Cochrane, June 1984
Norfolk Swan Hunter, Wallsend 15 March 1966 16 November 1967 7 March 1970 Sold to Chile as Capitán Prat, April 1982

Design features

Batch 1 ship HMS Devonshire. Observe the single row of the Type 965 AKE-1 antenna and the short foremast carrying the Type 992P "cheese" antenna and a topmast supporting the ECM/ESM arrays.
Batch 2 ship HMS Norfolk following modification that has removed the 'B' turret and replaced it with four Exocet boxes

The County class was designed around the GWS1 Seaslug beam riding anti-aircraft missile system. Seaslug was a first-generation surface-to-air missile intended to hit high-flying nuclear-armed bombers and shadowing surveillance aircraft like the Tupolev Tu-95 "Bear", which could direct strikes against the British fleet from missile destroyers and cruise missile-armed submarines. Bears were formidable targets for a missile like Seaslug; the long-range Soviet turboprop aircraft flew at an altitude of 7.5 miles, at 572 mph (921 km/h)[12] and were barely within the engagement capability of Seaslug.

The Seaslug system was a large weapon. From the missile itself-6 m (19 ft 8 in)-long and weighing two tons, to its handling arrangements and electronics systems—even fitting a single system aboard a ship the size of the Counties was a challenge. The missile was stowed horizontally in a large magazine that took up a great deal of internal space. On the last four ships, some of the missiles were stored partly disassembled in the forward end of the magazine to enable the complement of missiles to be increased. These missiles had their wings and fins reattached before being moved into the aft sections of the handling spaces and eventually loaded onto the large twin launcher for firing. The electronics required for the Seaslug were the large Type 901 fire-control radar and the Type 965 air-search radar. These required a great deal of weight to be carried high up on the ship, further affecting ship layout. According to the Royal Navy architect, "Sea Slug did not live up to expectations" and was obsolete by 1957.[1]:pp.39, 188 Its ineffectiveness and dangerous missile fuel degraded the value of the class, which had potential as command ships, having more operations room space than later Type 42 destroyer and ADAWS and the MIL-STD-6011 communications system.

In 1960, because US-designed missiles were seen at the time to be superior to the Seaslug, the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) proposed a County class armed with the US Tartar missile and two additional modifications: hangar space for three Wessex helicopters and a steam propulsion system, rather than the combined steam and gas system used in the County class. However, the RAN instead decided to proceed with the Perth class (a modified version of the US Charles F. Adams class). Two different reasons have been put forward for the Australian decision: according to an Australian history, British authorities would not allow a steam-propelled variant of the County,[13] whereas, according to a British account, the re-design required to accommodate the Tartar missile would have taken longer than the RAN deemed to be acceptable.[14][15]

The US Terrier missile had some support amongst the RN staff, but consideration was not given to acquiring it for the second batch of four ships, as the County class were 'shop windows' for advanced UK technology, and it was vital for the British missile and aerospace industry to continue the Seaslug project, to allow the development of the much improved Sea Dart missile. Following problems with the original version, a reworked Action Data Automation Weapon System (ADAWS) was successfully trialled on HMS Norfolk in 1970.[10]:p.191 In the mid-1960s the County missile destroyers were assets; their impressive appearance and data links, feeding off the carriers' Type 984 radar, projected effective capability during the Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation.[16] The Mark 1 Seaslug was operationally reliable and proved useful as a missile target for the new Sea Dart missiles in the late 1970s and early 1980s. (The supersonic Mark 2 version proved less effective for this.) There are questions as to whether it was ever fully operational and there were problems with missiles breaking up when the boosters separated.[17]:p.192 Inaccuracy, primitive beam-riding guidance and lack of infrared homing or a proximity fuze in the Mk 1 made it of limited value.[1]:p. 39 Short-range air defence was provided by the GWS-22 Seacat anti-aircraft missile system, which made the Counties the first Royal Navy warships to be armed with two different types of guided missile.

Batch 2 improvements

As constructed, the County-class ships were armed with a pair of twin QF 4.5-inch gun mountings. The second batch of four ships (Antrim, Fife, Glamorgan and Norfolk) were refitted in the mid-1970s – their 'B'-position turrets were removed and replaced by four single MM38 Exocet surface-to-surface anti-ship-missile launcher boxes. This was partly to counter the continuing threat of Soviet gun- and missile-armed cruisers, but also because the two twin 4.5 mountings, located forward on the County-class, were cramped and hot to fire, with the heat from firing the upper gun being felt by the gun crew in the turret below; also, the forward twin turrets had space for only small magazines – only 225 shells for each gun, two-thirds of the magazine capacity for the same guns in the Leander (Type 12L) frigates.[17]:p.189 This made the County-class ships the only Royal Navy ships to be fitted with three separate types of guided missile: Seaslug, Seacat and Exocet. It also left the un-refitted ships as the last Royal Navy vessels able to fire a broadside from multiple main armament gun turrets. HMS London fired the last Royal Navy broadside on 10 December 1981 in the English Channel, after returning from its final deployment in the West Indies.[18] It had also fired off the last Seaslug Mk 1 stocks that year, as targets for Type 42 Sea Dart workups, prior to her hand-over to the Pakistani Navy. Sold by the British Government 23 March 1982, she sailed without notice from Portsmouth in late May 1982 for Pakistan during the Falklands crisis, and consideration may have been given to reclaiming it for war service.

Possible development

It was suggested by Vosper Thornycroft that the Counties could have been developed for the anti-submarine role by replacing the obsolete Seaslug GWS system with a larger hangar and flight deck and the possibility of removing Seaslug and rebuilding the missile tunnel as storage for extra Lynx helicopters[19] Certainly, these arrangements as originally installed to operate a single Wessex anti-submarine helicopter were problematic, with a hangar so cramped it took an hour to get the aircraft either in or out again, during which evolution the port Seacat launcher was unusable. However it was determined that beam-restrictions would still limit the Counties' helicopter operation in RN service to the obsolescent Wessex, as they were too narrow to handle the far more capable Sea King HAS. The Chilean navy, however, did convert two of the four ships they purchased along these lines.

1982 Falklands War

Antrim and Glamorgan both served in the Falklands War; Antrim was the flagship of Operation Paraquet, the recovery of South Georgia in April 1982. Her helicopter, a Westland Wessex HAS Mk 3, nicknamed "Humphrey", was responsible for the remarkable rescue of 16 Special Air Service operators from Fortuna Glacier and the subsequent detection and disabling of the Argentinian submarine Santa Fe. In San Carlos Water, Antrim was hit by a 1,000 lb (450 kg) bomb which failed to explode. Glamorgan, after many days on the "gun line" bombarding Port Stanley airfield, was hit by an Exocet launched from land at the end of the conflict. It destroyed her aircraft hangar and the port Seacat mounting. Fortunately, her captain's prompt reaction to visual detection of the incoming Exocet narrowly averted a hit on the fatally vulnerable Seaslug magazine, by turning the ship so as to give as little target as possible (the stern) to the incoming weapon. The ship suffered fourteen deaths, injuries, and was lucky to survive with extensive damage and flooding. Had the missile hit a few inches higher, the above waterline magazine would have blown in an explosive fireball and many of the crew[20] may have been lost.

Disposal

All eight of the class had short Royal Navy careers, serving on average less than 16 years. Only London of the first batch was transferred (to Pakistan) and served further, while the other three Batch 1 ships were decommissioned by 1980 with Hampshire being immediately scrapped in 1977, Devonshire sunk in weapons testing in 1984. Kent would serve as a floating (though immobile) accommodation and training ship in Portsmouth harbour until 1996. The four ships of Batch 2 however would be operated for 16 to 23 more years after sale to the Chilean Navy, in which they all received extensive upgrades and modernisation.

Construction programme

The ships were built at the major UK yards, with some of the machinery coming from Associated Electrical Industries of Manchester, Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company of Wallsend-on-Tyne, John I. Thornycroft & Company of Southampton, Yarrows of Glasgow, and the Wallsend Slipway and Engineering Company, Wallsend-on-Tyne.

Pennant Name Built by Ordered Laid down Launched Accepted
into service		 Commissioned Estimated
building cost[21]
D02 Devonshire Cammell Laird, Birkenhead[22] 24 January 1956[23] 9 March 1959[23] 10 June 1960[23] November 1962[22] 15 November 1962[23] £14,080,000[22]
D06 Hampshire John Brown & Company, Clydebank[22] 27 January 1956[23] 26 March 1959[23] 16 March 1961[23] March 1963[22] 15 March 1963[23] £12,625,000[22]
D12 Kent Harland & Wolff, Belfast[24] 6 February 1957[23] 1 March 1960[23] 27 September 1961[23] August 1963[24] 15 August 1963[23] £13,650,000[24]
D16 London Swan Hunter, Wallsend-on-Tyne[24] 6 February 1957[23] 26 February 1960[23] 7 December 1961[23] November 1963[24] 14 November 1963[23] £13,900,000[24]
D20 Fife Fairfields, Glasgow[25] 26 September 1961[23] 1 June 1962[23] 9 July 1964[23] June 1966[25] 21 June 1966[23] £15,250,000[25]
D19 Glamorgan Vickers Shipbuilding, Newcastle[25] 26 September 1961[23] 13 September 1962[23] 9 July 1964[23] October 1966[25] 11 October 1966[23] £14,100,000[25]
D21 Norfolk Swan Hunter[26] 5 January 1965[23] 15 March 1966[23] 16 November 1967[23] February 1970[26] 7 March 1970[23] £16,900,000[26]
D18 Antrim Upper Clyde Shipbuilders, Govan[27] 5 January 1965[23] 20 January 1966[23] 19 October 1967[23] November 1970[27] 14 July 1970[23] £16,350,000[27]

Cost of ownership

Running costs

Date Running cost What is included
1972–73 £500,000 Average annual maintenance cost per vessel for County-class destroyers[28]
1981–82 £7.0 million Average annual running cost of County-class destroyers at average 1981–82 prices and including associated aircraft costs but excluding the costs of major refits.[29]

Cost of major refits

Date Running cost What is included Citation
£5½ million – £8 million Cost of recently completed major refits for County-class destroyers. [30]

References

Notes
  1. 1 2 3 Brown D. K., Moore G., 'Rebuilding the Royal Navy : Warship Design Since 1945', ISBN 978-184832-150-2, Chatham Publishing, 2003
  2. ↑ Purvis,M.K., 'Post War RN Frigate and Guided Missile Destroyer Design 1944-1969', Transactions, Royal Institution of Naval Architects (RINA), 1974
  3. ↑ Marriott, Leo: Royal Navy Destroyers since 1945, ISBN 0-7110-1817-0, Ian Allan Ltd, 1989
  4. ↑ N. Hall. "County Class Missile Destroyers". Ships Monthly, May 2008, pp 48-51.
  5. ↑ J. Wise. "Girdle Ness. Seaslug Missile Trials". Warship 2007, pp19-21.
  6. ↑ A.Preston. Warships of the World. Jane's. London (1980), p103
  7. ↑ Wise. "Girdle Ness". Warship 2007, pp19-21
  8. ↑ B.Wilson. Empire of the Deep. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. London (2013) pp624-5
  9. ↑ N. Hall. Ships Monthly May 2008, p48
  10. 1 2 Friedman N. British Destroyers and Frigates: The Second World War and After. Seaforth UK, (2012)
  11. ↑ N. van der Bijl. Confrontation. The War with Indonesia 1962–66. Pen & Sword (2007) UK, pp 134–5, 139
  12. ↑ Gunston, B. The Encyclopedia of Russian Aircraft, 1875–1975. Motorbooks International, (rep Osprey, Reed, ed), WI, USA (2005) p. 425.
  13. ↑ Cooper, Alastair; cited by Stevens, David, ed. (2001). The Royal Australian Navy. The Australian Centenary History of Defence (vol. III); South Melbourne, Oxford University Press, pp. 190–1
  14. ↑ Friedman. British Destroyers & Frigates, UK (2010) p195.
  15. ↑ N. Friedman. British Destroyers & Frigates. Seaforth. Barnsley, UK (2010) p195.
  16. ↑ Wilson, B. Empire of the Deep. The Rise and Fall of the Royal Navy. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London (2013), p. 627 & spec, N. Hall, SM 12/20O8, p50, re HMS London role in Confrontation and Aden crisis as HMS Eagle escort 65-7.
  17. 1 2 Friedman N. British Destroyers and Frigates: The Second World War and After. Seaforth UK, (2006)
  18. ↑ Hall. Ships Monthly, Dec 2008, p51.
  19. ↑ A. Preston. Warships of the World. Jane's. London (1980), p103
  20. ↑ N. Hall. County Class, SM, May 08, p51.
  21. ↑ "Unit cost, i.e. excluding cost of certain items (e.g. aircraft, first outfit)."
    Text from Defences Estimates
  22. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Navy Estimates, 1963–64, page 70, Table 3 (Programme): List and particulars of new ships which have been accepted or are expected to be accepted into HM service during the Financial Year ended 31 March 1963
  23. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 Moore, George, "From Daring to Devonshire" in Warship 2005, Conway, 2005, ISBN 1-84486-003-5-page 133.
  24. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Defence Estimates, 1964–65, page 72, Table 3 (Programme): List and particulars of new ships which have been accepted or are expected to be accepted into HM service during the Financial Year ended 31 March 1964
  25. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Defence Estimates, 1967–68, page 75, Table 3 (Programme): List and particulars of new ships which have been accepted or are expected to be accepted into HM service during the Financial Year ended 31 March 1967
  26. 1 2 3 Defence Estimates, 1970–71, page XII-81, Table V: List and particulars of new ships which have been accepted or are expected to be accepted into HM service during the Financial Year ended 31 March 1970
  27. 1 2 3 Defence Estimates, 1971–72, page XII-81, Table V: List and particulars of new ships which have been accepted or are expected to be accepted into HM service during the Financial Year ended 31 March 1971
  28. ↑ Hansard HC Deb 16 December 1974 vol 883 c316W Question to the Secretary of State for Defence about the approximate annual average refit cost per vessel for (a) a County-class destroyer and (b) a Leander-class frigate, 16 December 1974.
  29. ↑ Hansard HC Deb 16 July 1982 vol 27 cc485-6W Question to the Secretary of State for Defence, 16 July 1982.
  30. ↑ Hansard HC Deb 16 December 1974 vol 883 c316W Question to the Secretary of State for Defence about the approximate cost of a long refit of (a) a Leander-class frigate and (b) a County-class destroyer, 16 December 1974.

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