Cruisers, Destroyers and Frigates

16 hours ago

On this day we pause to remember those past and present members of the Australian and New Zealand militaries.
They wore their nation's uniform, took the oath and served, fully aware that they may be called upon to make the ultimate sacrifice in the defence of their country.
Far too many did.
At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, we will remember them. ...

1 day ago

The Royal Australian Navy has operated four major classes of patrol boat in the decades since WW2

The first were the twenty vessels of the Attack class operated between 1967 and 1985, the first such vessels to be operated by the RAN since the Fairmile motor launches and other small warships of WW2.

These vessels helped re-establish the 'small-boat navy' ethos that had lain dormant in the RAN since the end of the Second World War and paved the way for patrols of Australia's territorial waters, later to become the Australian Exclusive Economic Zone.

They were replaced by the fifteen ships of the Fremantle class, which operated throughout Australian, South Pacific and South East Asian waters, often as far as Hong Kong, from 1979 to 2007.

The Fremantle’s, commencing in 2005, were replaced by the fourteen Armidale class patrol boats which remain in service today. These vessels have been extremely hard worked undertaking Australian border protection duties, particularly in Australia's northern waters in all weathers.

In turn the Armidale’s were supplemented by two leased Cape Class patrol boats, to ensure that border protection duties continue without interruption.

The Armidale class will be replaced in the next few years by the new Arafura class Offshore Patrol Vessels, much larger vessels more akin to the navy's major warships than the small ships of the patrol boat force.

That said, the patrol boats of the RAN have protected Australia for over half a century, a major achievement for such small vessels. ...

3 days ago

The Canberra class is a class of two Landing Helicopter Dock (LHD) ships built for the Royal Australian Navy, HMAS Canberra (III) and HMAS Adelaide (III).

At almost 30,000 tonnes full load, they are the largest warships ever operated by the RAN, displacing more than the battlecruiser HMAS Australia (I) at 21,000 tonnes or the aircraft carrier Melbourne (I) at 22,000 tonnes.

Each LHD can carry and support up to 18 helicopters, 110 vehicles and up to 1600 troops at full load. Together with the Landing Ship HMAS Choules (which can carry up to 32 Abrams tanks amongst other cargo and vehicles), the three ships provide the most capable amphibious force in the region and give Australia unparalleled disaster relief capability.

As may be expected, ships of this size (Length 230.82 m (757.3 ft), beam: 32.0 m (105.0 ft) and draft: 7.08 m (23.2 ft) equate to very large models, but that has not stopped members of Task Force 72 from starting the builds of these impressive vessels, with both Adelaide and Canberra builds underway. ...

4 days ago

The two major Axis powers in the lead up to WW2 actually found themselves facing similar problems when it came to their destroyers.

The German Navy would always be quantitatively inferior to the Royal Navy, the RN was a global navy with commensurate numbers, and that was before you added the Commonwealth navies contributions.

Meanwhile on the other side of the world, the Imperial Japanese Navy found itself in the same situation. Through history, arms limiitation treaty and the vast difference in industrial might, it was always going to be outnumbered by the US Navy.

Both navy's came to a similar strategy, if you couldn't match your enemies in numbers, then overwhelm them with quality, namely bigger better ships with heavier weapons.

The German Navy's Type 1934 destroyers were big and fast, significantly more so than the Royal Navy's inter-war destroyers, and where the Royal Navy destroyers might have 4 or 5 4.7-inch guns, the German Navy's newest destroyers operated with 5 or 6 5-inch guns, while later designs increased this to almost light cruiser capability with 5.9-inch guns.

In Japan, the Navy's strategists went down a similar path with the 1920s Special or Fubuki Class of destroyers. They mounted six 5-inch guns in three twin turrets, when the rest of the world's navy's were operating ships with a few open single gun mounts.

Already capable of outgunning the 'four stacker' WW1 era destroyers that made up the bulk of the US Navy at the time, the Special Class opened the way for the future torpedo-oriented IJN destroyer tactics, including in-combat torpedo reloading (a unique feature of Japanese destroyers) and eventually the fearsome Long Lance torpedo, the largest, fastest and most long-ranged torpedo of the war.

Ultimately, while outclassing their opposition, the advent of the Type 1934 and Special Class destroyers and their successors, simply drove their future adversaries, the Royal Navy and the US Navy to build larger, more powerful destroyers of their own, of which the Tribal and Fletcher class were the best known, in larger numbers than either Axis power could contemplate. ...

6 days ago

The allied powers went in very different directions in the lead up to WW2 when it came to destroyers.

Both the US Navy's Fletcher and the Royal Navy's Tribal class designs represented the climax of a long line of destroyer design for each navy, but delivered very different results.

The Fletcher was a true multi-purpose design, equipped with five of the best destroyer weapon of WW2, the 5 inch dual-purpose gun, as effective against aircraft as it was surface targets, plus two quintuple torpedo mounts.

The Tribal was originally armed with eight 4.7 inch, however this low angle mount was so ineffective against aircraft that one mount was replaced by a twin 4 inch AA mount in an attempt to bolster anti-aircraft defence. The design sacrificed so much for gun armament that it only mounted a single quad torpedo mount.

Why the differences?

Basically the Royal Navy was constrained by it's adherance to treaty requirements, technical limitations and by financial restrictions, plus a knowledge that they would be fighting in the constrained waters of the North Sea, English Channel and Mediteranean.

The US Navy built the best it could design, unhampered by economic considerations, building a vessel that could operate in the wide swathes of the Pacific and one which used higher pressure boilers to deliver more power for slighty smaller space.

The results were two destroyers, reflecting their nations abilities and needs, which both became timeless classics. ...