Talk:County-class destroyer

Sea Slug effective?

I think most sources would agree that Seaslug was not, in fact, a successful system. It had huge "ship impact" (the ship needed to be large and expensive, and to be designed around it) and, like other beam-riding missile systems, rendered the carrying ship vulnerable to beam-riding retaliation. These factors probably explain the comparatively short service lives of these large and costly ships.--Vvmodel (talk) 14:13, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

All these are true, but there were no other options at the time. With advances in missile, guidance and radar technologies these ships, designed around a specific weapon system, became obsolete.

Sv1xv (talk) 12:45, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

At the time of their design Seaslug and the ships it was fitted to were intended to counter high-flying enemy bombers with nuclear weapons attempting to bomb a fleet or convoy while in the open waters of the North Atlantic. As such, Sea Slug would have been effective.

Weapons such as Seaslug are the reason that it is no longer possible to use high-altitude bombing attacks against ships. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.149.247.115 (talk) 17:10, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Too focused on missile systems.

I think a lot of the missile data could be removed and used to bulk up the relevant articles. The article says little about the ships themselves. Irondome (talk) 03:56, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

I'd say you can't get away from the fact that the ship was built for the missile. It's more the lack of content on why the ships were needed and of coverage of their service that makes the missile info appear excessive. That said, I agree with your recent edit - the stuff trimmed was more appropriate for the missile articles. GraemeLeggett (talk) 05:20, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Would agree with all of the above points made. Irondome (talk) 05:26, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

The joy of tag bombing, a.k.a more cites needed!

The well-respected user Nick D introduced me to the phrase. At first I was in denial, but here I thought I must, and follow WP rules in talk follow up. We have lots of interesting new info being introduced into mainspace, but we are sorely lacking in cites. Any IP with pretensions of being a reborn Alfred Mahon could remove this material, and would get away with it. (Not any rebuff to contributing IPs with obvious knowledge, but PLEASE get a username and join the community. Most editors would strongly recommend you do.) Let us not get loose, lets get this good article up to a higher level by being well-cited. Cheers! Irondome (talk) 01:44, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Cruisers or Destroyers

Many writers see the County GMD's as destroyers, their workshops and spare part capacity offer 3 months supply and 45 days stores and provisions, cf a cruiser for 70 days( G. Moore. Daring to Devonshire. Warships 2005, pp 111-135). However the County class GMD's appear to have always been regarded as cruisers by the RN officers who served on them and were listed as cruisers by Janes Fighting Ships in the late 1970s and 1980s when John Moore was the editor. They partly seemed to have been concieved as playing the sort of flagship and gunboat role East of Suez that the earlier County class cruisers played in the 1930s and which the Colony class performed in the 1950-1960 period. The substantial accomodation for an Admiral and his staff and the sophisticated combination of fire control, gunfire computers and spotting capability for the forward twin gun mounts also seem to me to mark them as a cruiser. Another factor is that until rather late in the day in the evolution of the Cruiser-Destroyer into the final County design from 1955-59 the alternative option of fitting them out as essentially light all gun cruisers. When Seaslug was first put into the design in 1955 as the new first lord Mountbatten's instruction, provision was also still made for fitting a twin 3inch/70 ( ADM 167 142 Board of Admiralty 1955 & Warship 2005, p 124) as an alternative and even in 1957 the board still considered that the L/70 Bofors. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.98.212.2 (talk) 01:37, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Political role?

I think it's fair to say the following interesting addition to the lede needs some group consideration before inclusion. Obviously it needs copyediting. Then there may be questions about whether it duplicates existing content, whether there is enough verification, and whether the lede is the right place for it. Bjenks (talk) 04:12, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

The County class and the Seaslug missiles that it was finally decided to install on them, very late in the day, are political warships, a poorly intergrated package of good ship and a oversize missile, decided on in 1957 and with final approval to install and order production Seaslug missiles only in mid 1958. My view and that of experts is the system was not safe or effective for operational use. The final design and fitting out of the County class seems improvised at the last moment, with possibly the alternative armament of 10 remaining Twin 3 inch mounts ( for ten planned County class)and L70s sold off to Canada and cancelled probably in 1958 , as is the positioning of the helicopter facilities, which design and limited clearance had the personal input of First Lord Mountbatten ( Shore to Shore/ Mountbatten) and the unprotected magazine seems unacceptable. By 1956 the RN, Government and Sea Lords had comprehensive reports for all sources that the missile was of limited use, obsolete and of marginal against it expected targets even in the early 1960's. The RAF was most damming describing the Sea Slug missile as accurate only at 3-10 miles or heights of 1- 7.5 miles against subsonic targets. The Navy and industry sources suggested it was usable to a range of 17 miles and up to 9 miles against subsonic targets. The missile was fundamentally flawed by the beam riding that was inaccurate at more than l0 miles, jammable and poor in rain.<ref>J.Wise. Girdle Ness. Seaslug Missile Trials. Warship 2007, p19-21 </ref>. However the First Lord Earl Mountbatten and key Ministers believed their was no alternative to the Seaslug and main missile armament, for political approval and modern Tiger type guns were not the answer against long range and high targets. To admit failure would massively dent the credibility of the British Missile and advanced tech industry and science and it future possibility... The blow to the prestige of the RN and UK of accepting the more supperior US Terrier and relying on US Navy support and inventory was incompatibe with any independent UK role.<[nowiki></nowiki>

Leaving aside the polemical tone and the poor writing. It's more development stage material rather than lede, and doesn't cover if the issues were addressed after the reports were made (Similar missiles - Bloodhound and Thunderbird - were developed at the same time for the RAF and Army) not to mention the other background issues of the usual inter-service rivalry between RAF and the Navy - and the review leading to the 1957 Defence White Paper which cut most development on RAF aircraft of the future. It's not that unusual with governments to proceed with projects rather than buy in a project still under development (or developed by an ally) for those reasons given eg keeping a manufacturer in business, retaining expertise, not being dependent on another nation (see Brabazon Committee) and not a failing if the outcome is satisfactory. It's also based on a single source. GraemeLeggett (talk) 11:40, 11 September 2013 (UTC) Apologies, Much of my wiki material is written on the only suitable computers with good security ie, Bank and Library facilities and others with available and others with restricted availability. The RAF report on Seaslug, written at the highest levels of the RAF is distinguishable only in giving the Seaslug a much lesser envelope in range and height of possible effectiveness and in giving speed estimates of Seaslug MK 1 that unlike any other report or publication on Seaslug, gives Seaslug the same Mach 1.7 speed as Seaslug 2. Every other account of the missile gives its speed as about 680mp. However Norman Freidman in a footnote somewhere in either British cruisers or destroyers and frigates says that Seaslug 1 & 2 have the same speed. This suggests the beam riding was so uncontrollable that with the Mk 1 there was no possibility of it being directed into collision course with any aircraft faster than Mach 1, the RAF estimated that while technically circumstances existed where a Mach 1.2 target might be hit, in reality it was effectivelly impossible. In a way it would be rather like the problems a German jet or M-63 rockets had engaging a US bomber with guns or rockets in 1944, given the ultra high approach speed and minimal fuel. It made inflecting, Seaslug onto a supersonic Mig almost impossible.

Here is a copyedited version with obvious OR elements removed, which may help the discussion:

The County class warships, and the Sea Slug missiles that were belatedly installed on them, were created for political purposes, being a poorly integrated package of ship and missile, decided on in 1957 and implemented only six months before HMS Devonshire's keel was laid in 1959. Though not technically cruisers they were intended for a light-cruiser role as flagship, command ship and colonial presence. Additionally, they are platforms for the Sea Slug missile, an unwieldy, ineffective and experimental combination aimed at boosting Royal Navy prestige. Trials on RFA Girdle Ness enabled an enormous amount to be learned about fast missiles and the ability of the fully array of British radars 992,901,960,982,983, etc, to track them and control them. By 1956 the RN, Government and Sea Lords had comprehensive reports that the missile was of limited use against the targets expected in the early 1960s. The RAF's report was the most damning of all, describing the Sea Slug missile as accurate only at ranges of 3-10 miles or heights of 1 mile to 7.5 miles against subsonic targets. The Navy and industry sources suggested it was usable to a range of 17 miles and up to 9 miles against subsonic targets. The missile was fundamentally flawed by the beam riding that was inaccurate at more than l0 miles, jammable and poor in rain.. However the Sea Lords and Government believed they had no option than to use the Sea Slug and put it on the County class, since failure would destroy the credibility of the Government and Navy. Earl Mountbatten had strongly backed the programme and British missile industry. Accepting the alternative US Terrier missile was deemed unacceptable since it would necessitate US Navy support.

Bjenks (talk) 07:18, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

I wouldn't say "created for political purposes". It's that the project was kept going, despite problems, for political considerations. GraemeLeggett (talk) 11:39, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

The early missiles such as Seaslug were intended for the defence of fleets or convoys in the North Atlantic (such as had then-recently been employed in the Battle of the Atlantic) where the value of the target to the enemy was likely to justify their use of bomber aircraft armed with a single large early nuclear weapon approaching at high altitude - well out of the range of the fleet's AA guns. The missile was intended to destroy the bomber at sufficient range such that if the bomber's nuclear weapon then detonated it would be well out of the range at which it would cause damage to the fleet. The British guided missiles of the time were all designed on the assumption that the Royal Navy would be escorting large merchant ship convoys and any attacker would be using nuclear weapons (which at the time were physically large and required a large bomber aircraft to carry them, which in turn had to be at high altitude to escape from the blast of its own weapon), anything else was of much lower importance and could be dealt with using other means, guns, etc. So Seaslug was quite specialised in the role it was designed for - defence of convoys against nuclear-armed large bombers. It could also have been used against aircraft doing what the Focke-Wulf Condor had done earlier, flying around out of the range of the convoy's guns, radioing convoy position reports back for the opposing side's submarines.

So the criticism was invalid because the Seaslug system was never intended to 'shoot down MiGs', as the Soviets had no aircraft carriers at the time, and the only Warsaw Pact aircraft capable of carrying nuclear weapons far out into the North Atlantic were large, slow, long-range aircraft like the Tu-95 and similar. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.149.247.115 (talk) 17:42, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

The comment "Bears were formidable targets for a missile like Seaslug[citation needed]; the long-range Soviet turboprop aircraft flew at an altitude of 7.5 miles, at 572 mph (921 km/h)[25] and were barely within the engagement capability of Seaslug.[citation needed]" has been added to the text without references. The Tupolev Tu-95 "Bear" is subsonic and the quoted altitude of 7,500 m equals roughly 40,000 feet. The ceiling of Sea Slug Mk 2 was 65,000 feet (over 12 miles) with one test shot reaching 85,000 feet (see Wiki entry), the horizontal range 35,000 yards and speed c. 1.8 Mach, so it would have had ample capacity to down the Bear, which would not have been capable of violent evasive maneuvers in full load. I would suggest removing the comment as it has obviously been inserted with questionable intent and no factual evidence--Death Bredon (talk) 19:26, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion

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• 05 HMS Devonshire after explosion Lisbon Sept 76.jpeg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 10:23, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

Improiving the lead paragraphs

For a better article, the lead needs to be a summary of the whole article. At the moment it's very heavy on the design considerations (see Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section) GraemeLeggett (talk) 08:23, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

To be honest the whole article needs starting from fresh - like much of Wikipedia's coverage of post war British warship classes, it is full of OR and distractions from the actual topic.Nigel Ish (talk) 11:51, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

There seems to be a lot of facts, but also a lot of opinion involved. Questiobs I'm asking myself. Short of writing from scratch, what could i do? Is the structure right but content wrong or does the whole article need remodelling. Too much on the policy of design and not enough on service? Is there a good article on a post war RN class to serve as a template? GraemeLeggett (talk) 12:31, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

The trouble is it is impossible to distinguish the facts from the opinions - for format you are probably better looking at pre-war or WW2 Royal Navy warships (particularly destroyers), as some of those articles have passed GA reviews and are less polluted by post-war UK and NZ politics. It may also be helpful asking at WP:MILHIST or WP:SHIPS for help.Nigel Ish (talk) 13:13, 29 March 2020 (UTC)