Tiger-class cruiser

The Tiger-class cruisers were a group of three post-Second World War cruisers of the Royal Navy. They were the last all-gun cruisers completed for the Royal Navy. The three ships came from an order of eight Minotaur-class cruisers ordered in 1941–2, work on the second group of three ships being effectively suspended in mid-1944. The cruisers were finally completed in a changed design, after a very long delay, entering service in the 1960s as the Tiger-class.

Not to be confused with Tiger-class battlecruiser.

HMS Tiger before conversion
Class overview
Name: Tiger class
Operators:  Royal Navy
Preceded by: Minotaur class
Succeeded by: None
Built: 1941–1961
In commission: 1959–1979
Completed: 3
Retired: 3
General characteristics
Class and type: Light cruiser
Displacement: 11,700 tons (12,080 tons after conversion of Blake and Tiger)
Length: 555.5 ft (169.3 m)
Beam: 64 ft (20 m)
Draught: 23 ft (7.0 m)
Installed power: 80,000 shp (60 MW)
Propulsion:
Speed: 31.5 knots (58.3 km/h)
Range: 8,000 nautical miles (14,816.0 km) at 16 knots (30 km/h)
Complement: 716 (Tiger and Blake: 885 post-conversion)
Sensors and
processing systems:
  • Tiger and Blake post-conversion:
  • 1 × Type 965 air-surveillance radar with outfit AKE(1) aerial
  • 1 × Type 992Q target-indication radar
  • 2 × Type 903 gunfire-control radars (MRS 3 system)
  • 2 × Type 904 Seacat fire-control radars (GWS 22 system)
Armament:
  • As built:
  • 2 × twin Mk.24 6-inch gun turrets
  • with QF 6 inch Mark N5 guns and RP15 (hydraulic) or RP53 (electric) RPC
  • 3 × twin Mk.6 3-inch gun turrets
  • with QF Mk.N1 guns
  • Tiger and Blake post-conversion:
  • 1 × twin 6-inch Mk.24 gun turret
  • 1 × twin 3-inch Mk.6 gun turret
  • 2 × quad Sea Cat missile launchers
Armour:
  • Belt 3.5–3.25 in (89–83 mm)
  • Bulkheads 2–1.5 in (51–38 mm)
  • Turrets 2–1 in (51–25 mm)
  • Crowns of engine room and magazines 2 in (51 mm)
Aircraft carried:

Amid cancellations of warship production due to necessary post-war austerity the three hulls were available but construction was delayed by both the Korean War and the Suez Crisis. By the time final approval was given to complete them as anti-aircraft cruisers in November 1954, both.the hulls and machinery were out of date. The Royal Navy's first ships with guided missiles, the County-class destroyers, were ordered less than two years later and entered service only four years after HMS Tiger.

In 1964 the Tigers were approved for conversion into helicopter-carrying cruisers. Their intended purpose then changed from carrying four Westland Wessex helicopters for amphibious operations to four Westland Sea King helicopters for anti-submarine work. The conversion of HMS Blake and Tiger carried out between 1965 and 1972 proved much more expensive and difficult than was anticipated and the conversion of Lion was cancelled as a result.

Lion was scrapped in 1975, having already been used as a source of spares for her sisters. With limited manpower, limited resources, and better ships available the Tiger and Blake were decommissioned in the late 1970s and placed in reserve.

When the Falklands War broke out in 1982, consideration was given to returning both ships to service but work to refurbishing was cancelled as it would not have been finished before the end of hostilities. Blake was scrapped in 1982 and Tiger in 1986.

Design and commissioning

Development of the Tiger class

The Tiger-class cruisers developed from the Minotaur-class[note 1] light cruisers, laid down in 1942–3, but production of the 1942 Design Light Fleet Carriers was given priority and the Minotaur design was viewed as obsolete by 1944 – the extra weight required by war requirements for radar, electronics and anti-aircraft armament exceeding the structural strength and deep-water stability limits. The design also lacked the speed and size for action in the Pacific and Arctic. Even the Town-class and County-class cruisers had inadequate speed against German warships in the Battle of the North Cape in December 1943, or the extra armour to protect added wiring and electronics. Accordingly, only the first HMS Superb, was completed, largely fitted out to the earlier Minotaur specifications of HMS Swiftsure and Minotaur. Minotaur, and the 1943 Crown Colony-class ship HMS Uganda were given to Canada in April 1944. Churchill strongly supported and approved a similar plan to transfer two incomplete Tiger cruisers to Australia[1]

Australia's war cabinet had approved new construction of a cruiser and destroyer for 6.5 million pounds on 4 April 1944, partly to replace the sunk HMAS Sydney and seriously damaged HMAS Hobart. At Chequers on 18–21 May 1944 the Australian prime minister John Curtin agreed if an acceptable option of the transfer of new RN units, despite Royal Australian Air Force opposition and support for local shipyards building warships, and provided Royal Australian Navy (RAN) crew was available for HMS Defence and Blake as renamed RAN cruisers[2] by October 1945, they would operate as escorts for British carrier groups in the Pacific war against Japan which was expected to continue to the end of 1946. The RAN ships would be re-armed with twin 5.25-inch gun turrets[3] or triple 5.25-inch turrets; a 1942 design option for NZ and RAN cruisers.[4] [5]

The RAN strongly supported the purchase but General MacArthur, the supreme allied commander of the war in the Pacific, advised that Australia in reality depended on the US Navy and should prioritise air defence of its own land bases, not small carriers and cruisers. The Australian government feared they were being sold unwanted pups and preferred to build locally. However, in February 1945, the Australian government and its Defence Committee accepted the two-Tiger offer. The British Treasury would not gift the cruisers to Australia as they had done so for the Royal Canadian Navy and on 11 April 1945 the UK Exchequer demanded 9 million pounds for the later Lion and Blake.[6]

In mid-1945 the UK faced ruination from Lend-Lease payments, which led in September 1945 to the cancellation of the second batch of 25 Mk 37 Type 275 DP directors from the US for the Tigers. The UK wanted payment for the two Tigers or equivalent writing-off of RN repair bills in Australian dockyards. The RN had sufficient cruisers of quality and insufficient skilled naval ratings to man them and construction had been suspended by late 1944 after Defence was launched in September 1944.

Immediately post-war, sufficient work was done that Tiger and Blake could be launched, albeit in a lesser state of completion. In June 1945 the Australian government rejected the purchase of Defence and Blake; it had insufficient manpower for the cruisers in addition to new carriers and destroyers. As the Tigers were nowhere near commissioning, the RAN were offered the transfer of two cruisers, one Town and one Colony-class while the Tigers were completed; this was rejected as the two RAN County-class heavy cruisers were deemed to be good to 1950.[7][8]

In 1944–45 it had been hoped that the new large Battle-class and Daring-class destroyers would be developed as substitutes for cruisers in many roles, but the First Sea Lord, Andrew Cunningham, realised that the UK budget could not support increasing the destroyer's size from 2,800 to 3,500 tons required for a three-turret ship with adequate AA and A/S fire control. With the Neptune-class scrapped, the suspended ships were the only cruiser hull option viable past 1965 and worth considering for rearmament. By 1946, nine Mk 24 turrets were 75–80% percent complete with three further turrets partially complete for either the Tiger or Neptune-class cruisers. These turrets were a more advanced version of the wartime Mk 23 triple 6-inch. The new Mk 24 6-inch mounts were interim electric turrets with remote power-control and power-worked breech. The heavier Mk 24 offered a dual purpose gun with just 60-degree elevation.[note 2]

The Tiger design had a broader 64 ft (20 m) beam from HMS Superb on which to accommodate the larger turrets. But it was preferred to complete Superb with the older Mk 23 turrets in 1945, a 64 ft beam 'Swiftsure'. The 1942 Tiger design was redesigned with better protection and internal division to take advantage of a three turret design with four 40 mm "Stabilized tachymetric anti-aircraft gun" (STAAG) for close defence with Type 262 radar, AIO, and more pumps and generators. However, by early 1944 it was obvious the turret weight, crewing, and electrical requirements of the Tiger design required a larger design. By March 1944 Defence and Blake were all but signed off for transfer to the RAN to be completed as 5.25-inch gun cruisers.[9] British production of 5.25 turrets was slow and little work was done on the cruisers other than to launch Defence in September 1944.[9][10][11][12] The fact that they were years from commissioning guaranteed Australia rejected the deal.

Another two Tiger-class cruisers were cancelled. HMS Hawke was laid down in July 1943, and HMS Bellerophon possibly had a keel laid down. Work on all the cruisers other than Superb effectively stopped after mid-1944. It appears that the 1942 programme Hawke and Bellerophon were destroyed in 1944 and reordered as improved Belfast- and Neptune- class cruisers in February 1944 and February 1945. Janes Fighting Ships 1944–45, states that Hawke was laid down in August 1944[13] as a Tiger. The naval authorities of the time and through the Cold War hold that the Neptune class were very much under construction, the main and secondary twin 4.5-inch turrets, boilers and machinery for the first three ships ordered and being built in advance of the hull construction, as it was planned to get the first two Lion-class battleships underway.[14] At the end of the war it was thought Bellphorons hull was already under construction at Newcastle, but HMS Hawke (2) an Improved Belfast with 76m beam or the first Neptune was almost ready to launch in Portsmouth dockyard[15]

The more advanced of the two ships, HMS Hawke, was broken up in 1947, a controversial decision as although she was still on the slip in the Portsmouth dockyard her boilers and machinery were complete and her new 6-inch guns nearly so.[16]

The whole class, which was constructed within a tight, cramped, and near impossible to modernise citadel, was nearly superseded by the completely redesigned N2 8500-ton 1944 cruiser, within the same 555 ft × 64 ft (169 m × 20 m) box of the Colony/Minotaur design, which was approved by the Admiralty Board on 16 July 1943.[17][18] The design had four twin automatic 5.25-inch guns, better range, internal space and subdivision and economical 48,000 hp machinery for 28 knots (52 km/h). Twenty four of twenty-five leading RN admirals and the Sea Lords favoured the N2 and preferred the lighter DP 5.25 turrets; the incoming new First Sea Lord Andrew Cunningham disagreed believing 6-inch guns were essential. By 1944 the 5.25 RP10 was an improved surface and DP weapon, compared with the 1942 Mediterranean operations.[note 3] Development of two new prototype automatic 5.25-inch twin turrets continued at Vickers till 1948.[19]


Larger cruisers had been seen necessary to carry a conventional cruiser gun armament with modern systems since 1944 but never seemed realistic projects affordable in post war conditions. The Neptune-class design was abandoned in 1946 and replaced by a 15,000-ton Minotaur class design. The completed Minotaur design of 1951 with 5x2, twin 6-inch and 4 twin 3-inch/70. was considered by the Attlee cabinet under the expanded 1951 Korean war programme but was far too large and expensive.

In 1948 the Royal Navy had proposed in "Ships of The Future Navy" to replace 23 cruisers and 58 fleet destroyers with 50 light cruisers with Cruiser/Destroyers - four 5-inch guns, torpedoes, anti-submarine mortar and "good radar" on 4–5,000 tons displacement built to destroyer standards.Moore[20] The Admiralty offered the government two such proposals in 1951: a new broad beam Bellona class with 4 twin Mk 6 4.5 and an enlarged version of US Mitscher- and Forrest Sherman-class destroyers with British machinery and sensors with 3 single US 5-inch/54 and two twin US 3-inch/50.

However, the second Churchill government elected in 1951 favoured the RAF and reduced the naval budget. With the RN priority being anti-submarine frigates, restart of work on the Tiger cruisers was delayed by three years (as was any further cruiser reconstructions) to 1954. Reconstructing the 5,500-ton Bellona-class cruiser, HMS Royalist, which had powerful and reliable guns for high level AA engagement seemed less risky than adopting the still troublesome USN 5/54[21] or the planned British 5-inch gun. In some ways it was the powerful light gunship that 'cruiser destroyers' were meant to be but, over-equipped with guns and radar processing, leaving the crew little space and comfort. Post-war Britain saw itself as an air missile consumer and economic needs were better met by using the big shipyard slips which could have built large cruisers for building fast ocean passenger liners.[22]

Plans to build the 15,000-ton 1947 Minotaurs had been suspended by 1949.[23] Designs in the mid-1950s as guided missile cruisers were opposed by DG Ships, "other voices within the Admiralty" and finally Earl Mountbatten (who became First Sea Lord in 1955). At the point of cancellation the GW96A design was 18,000 tons. Moore[24]

The decision not to complete the new Tigers in the late 1940s was due to the desire to reassess cruiser design; furthermore, the provision of effective anti-aircraft (AA) fire-control to engage jet aircraft was beyond UK industrial capability in the first post-war decade.[25] Consequently, higher priority was given to the battleship HMS Vanguard, the Battle-class destroyer, and to the new aircraft carriers Eagle and Ark Royal for allocation of the 26 US-supplied medium-range anti-aircraft Mk 37/275 directors (delivered through Lend-Lease in 1944/5)[26] The US supplied version of Type 275 High Altitude/Low Altitude DCT were stabilised and tracked multiple air targets of Mach 1.5+, the US directors were light years superior to fragile UK versions, of Type 275, the only medium range AA fire control until 1955, which could barely distinguish transonic targets at Mach 0.8.[27] The 1947–49 period saw a peace dividend, and frigate construction became the priority in the Korean War.[28]

By 1949 two alternative fits for the Tigers had been drawn up: one as pure anti-aircraft cruisers with six twin mountings of the new 3-inch 70 calibre design, and one with QF 6-inch Mark N5 guns in two twin Mark 26 automatic mountings and three twin 3-inch/70s. In historical terms, this represented a light armament, and similar US weapons introduced on USS Worcester had experienced considerable problems with jamming and had performed below expectation, being largely prototypes for 8-inch/55[29] A third lower-cost option of fitting two Mk 24 turrets in 'A' and 'B' positions and two to four Daring class's semi-automatic Mk 6 twin 4.5-in 'X' and 'Y' and on the flanks was considered during the Korean War.[30] However the mix of Mk 24 triples and Mk 6 4.5-inch mounts required a crew of crew of 900+[31] But like the Colony-class in the 1950s, only 1, A 6-inch turret, would have been manned and as with proposed, 1951 Bellona Mk 2, the main armament was the four twin Mk 6 4.5 turrets for AA defence, but the RN 4.5-inch was not a good postwar AA weapon.[32] The six Mk 24 turrets and not even, finished or tested.[note 4] However, much of the original DC wiring used by the Mk 24 turrets had been stripped from the Tigers in 1948; there was a strong desire that the new cruisers should have AC power, not DC or dual.[35]

There was great doubt of the merits of completing the Tigers, given that Soviet Tupolev Tu-95 "Bear" turboprop and Tupolev Tu-16 "Badger" jet bombers flew faster and higher than anticipated just as the Mikoyan MiG-15 fighter demonstrated in the Korean War from 1950, which added to the argument for missile equipped-ships for anti-aircraft defence. The Sverdlov class 6.9-inch armour and speed and range also outclassed the two turret Tigers. Even six-inch bombardment was increasingly unacceptable to the Royal Navy after Korea and was allowed only on the first day of Operation Musketeer after strong political opposition. The RN staff were completely divided over the development of new AA guns larger than 4-inch post war including Charles Lillicrap, the Director of Naval Construction, in 1946 who saw the new 3-inch/70 as eliminating the need for the new Mk 26 DP and advocating suspending cruiser design (due to irrevocable divisions within the RN over future gun development) as much as lack of finance. [36] That and the fact the new twin 3-inch/70 and twin Mk 26 6-inch were six years from being tested led to both Tigers and Minotaurs being suspended in 1947, and slowed work on the new six-inch and proposed new 5-inch guns. The proven Mk 23 seemed more than adequate for GFS and its efficiency was improved in the 1950s.[note 5]

While the 1945 names finally selected for the Tiger class, Lion, Tiger, Hawke and Blake, suggest strong Admiralty support for the class, many of the leading RN naval architects favored scrapping them all in 1947. The Director of Naval Construction (DNC) informed the Acting Chief of Naval Staff that the Tigers were nearly structurally complete, making substantial modernization or adding real aircraft direction capability impossible[37] and the later war priority of heavy 6-inch turrets and close-range AA weaponry to counter the Japanese air threat meant they were the least suitable Royal Navy cruiser class for modernization. Unlike the Colony class, the Minotaur class could only be rearmed with three medium main turrets due to weight and internal-volume restrictions,[38] whereas all the other cruiser types could be refitted with four modern medium turrets on the centreline. A decision to approve rearming the Tigers with fully automatic Mk 26s was made in late 1954. Of the suspended Minotaurs, Bellerophon was completed as Tiger becoming the lead ship of the new Tiger class, Blake was completed under her own name,[note 6] and Defence was completed as Lion.

Revised design

In 1954 construction of the three ships resumed using a revised design mounting new automatic 6-inch and 3-inch guns. It had been intended to fit a tertiary battery of three or four twin 40mm guns to counter head-on air attack over the bow, with ac STAAG Mk 2 and then twin L70s under the bridge wings, but the house abandoned both in 1959 and the dated twin L60/MRS8 new on Hermes and Belfast in 1959 was viewed as obsolescent.

Completing the cruisers was a controversial decision, reflecting exaggerated concern about Soviet Sverdlov cruiser construction, described as "chilling" by the director plans.[39] The threat of the new Sverdlov-class cruisers was to be countered by the Blackburn Buccaneer strike aircraft, the Tigers lacking the speed, range, armament and armour required and cruisers in number being seen as too expensive and as an outdated solution.[40] Immediately post-war, the carrier and cruiser might have been complementary in the old cruiser role of defence of and attack on trade,[41] but by 1954 trade protection was better provided by large carriers and by small and intermediate light fleet carriers operating the Hawker Sea Hawk and de Havilland Sea Venom fighters. For Australia by HMAS Melbourne with Sea Venom fighters[42] and by the Canadian HMCS Bonaventure with McDonnell F2H Banshee fighters and 4X2 3-inch AA provided, as a priority for this role. Hercules, completed for India as Vikrant and equipped with Sea Hawks and French Bréguet 1050 Alizé turboprop a/s strike planes, demonstrated its Sea Hawks in the classic attack-on-trade role to effect in the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971.

The November 1954 cabinet meeting that decided the fate of the Royal Navy took six hours. Churchill was determined to limit the defence budget and the Royal Navy with a view to developing nuclear weapons and the less-vulnerable land-based airpower of the RAF.[43] Two alternative cruiser designs were considered, with 60,000 shp COSAG propulsion foreshadowing the County-class destroyers, a 10,000 ton design, with three 6-inch twin and 4 twin 40mm, secondly an 8000-ton cruiser, a Mod N2, with six 5-inch (3x2) and ten 40mm. Performance of a new twin 5-inch (a large twin 5/56) firing 'light' 58 lb (26 kg) shells, in a Dido-size 95-ton turret, offered less than the French cruiser De Grasse twin 127 mm (5 inch) using US ammunition or the Dutch 4-inch. The RN twin 5-inch in A and B positions was reconsidered and rejected in 1955 for the "Medium Seaslug cruiser" due to expectations of eight years to develop and as missiles were expected to be the 1960s. Dual development of the twin 5-inch and Seaslug was unaffordable. At the same time the Sea Lords rejected the proposal for a flotilla of fast escorts (4,500 ton Darings with three 4.5-inch turrets) as unbalanced and under-armed; they wanted missiles on future warships.[44] The actual weight of these proposals varied, depending on speed and on light armour of 225 to 500 tons.[45]

However the cheaper legacy Tigers were approved in 1954, the Royal Navy estimating completion in three years for £6 million compared with 5 years and £12m for a new cruiser.[46] The new automatic twin 6-inch and twin 3-inch DP guns designed for larger cruisers like the Minotaur were approved for production for the Tigers and for other warships, but no other RN design would ever fit them. The modernised Tigers were an interim measure with the expectation that guided missile equipped ships were "at least ten years away"[46][47] "increasingly floating bull's-eyes".[48] Old cruisers could be reconstructed as more useful than frigates to impress the provinces and colonies. The events of 1956 of a long-delayed and bungled Suez operation revealed that even a Conservative cabinet would not use six-inch cruiser guns in artillery support, let alone on a city like Alexandria. The visit of Soviet leaders to Britain in May 1956 on the Sverdlov-class cruiser Ordzhonikidze saw Nikita Khrushchev cut off his cruiser-building programme - the Sverdlov was an obsolescent relic,[49] only good for state visits and target hulks - in favour of new missile-destroyers.

The 1957 Defence White Paper under Duncan Sandys on the future of the British armed forces proposed to reduce the active cruiser fleet[50] the Tigers and Swiftsure and Superb [note 7] would enter service as interim anti-aircraft ships, until the County-class destroyers were commissioned. The older Towns Belfast and Liverpool were larger and more effective than other WWII legacy cruiser and in the early 1950s, stillborn designs fitting them with three of the new Mk 26 turrets were prepared. But by 1953 – 15 years after commissioning – they were too old for real modernisation.[51] By 1954, time meant that only the Tigers' and Swiftsures rebuild could be contemplated. With missiles and consumer demand, replacing guns and refitted gun cruisers were mothballed, and by 1960 consideration was being given to fitting HMS Blake and its half-sister Swiftsure with Sea Slug missiles.

As gun cruisers, Tiger served for eight years, Lion for five years, and Blake for two years. By 1961 it w the new USN guided AA missiles, nb Terrier had failed dismally in test before JFK on Memorial Day 1961,[52] London and that the new Sea Slug armament of the County-class was possibly even less impressive on test in Australia at Woomera. But it was too late, the RN cruiser fleet had been reduced to HMS Belfast and Bermuda and the three flawed Tigers. The new Mk 26 Twin 6-inch gun proved the overweight anachronism which its critics claimed. The Tigers' main armament almost always jammed within 30 seconds of opening fire,[53] and the Tigers were very different from the rest of the RN fleet, causing logistics and supply issues and increasing costs,[54] the RN mainly being deployed in SE Asia and Middle East waters in the 1960s. These issues and the "unfashionable" heavy guns condemned the class, In contrast, HMS Belfast, in reserve in 1965, had fired its 6-inch guns for days while supporting the Battle of Inchon during the Korean War in 1950.[55]

A modest refit would have allowed the WWII-era Newfoundland, Ceylon and Belfast to run until 1966. Worse the three Tiger cruisers, while virtually identical, externally, were three unique ships electrically, and only Tiger saw significant service in gun configuration. Blake was essentially an experimental cruiser with very fast all-electric turrets to engage Mach 2.5 air targets with RP 55 degrees/second, training and elevation, in reserve in 1963 for lack of 85 technical staff including 31 electricians.[56][57] At the same time the new County, Leander and Tribal class – all with significant manpower requirements – were commissioning.[56] Lion after eight years in Gareloch had deteriorated before reconstruction as a Tiger[58] and had to be withdrawn from operations "East of Suez" in 1963 due to boiler, mechanical and gun-jamming problems. HMNZS Royalist, with many RN crew, was reactivated as a surface escort for carrier groups in Southeast Asia in 1964 to deter the threat of the Indonesian Sverdlov; and in a brief tour in 1965 to support the amphibious carriers with AD and GFS potential, but by 1966 Royalist, like Blake and Lion, was unsustainable in the year of maximum danger in the confrontation with Indonesia. The large RN Darings were refitted with MRS3 fire-control in 1961–65 to provide a substitute for the failed Tiger cruisers (the final RAN Daring upgrade in 68–71 to Vampire and Vendetta with new Dutch Radar and Fire Control and Operations room, delivered a Daring-cruiser) to counter the Sverdlovs and Indonesian destroyers. The Darings' three main turrets gave them an advantage over the Tigers two turrets, guaranteeing at least one was available. The AD modernised Battles, and the County-class destroyers also substituted for the Tigers in ground support and fleet-escort roles.

Conversions
Blake operating in the English Channel with USS Nimitz in 1975

By 1964 the Conservative Government and half the naval staff saw the Tigers as no longer affordable or credible in the surface combat or fleet air defence role, and would have preferred to decommission them but given they were technically only three years old and built at immense expense, scrapping them was politically impossible. They approved conversion into helicopter carriers; carrying Westland Wessex helicopters primarily to land troops in Royal Marine Commando operations. A large hangar replaced the 'Y' turret, the forward turrets were retained for gunfire support and anti-surface vessel warfare. Intended provide extra powerful vessels to support and conduct amphibious operations east of Suez where it was difficult logistically for the Royal Navy to sustain even one operational carrier and one commando carrier in 1963–64. The original plan retained the full three twin 3-inch mounts or CIWS with full update of the sonar and radar including Type 965M AW but replacing the Type 992 target indicator radar with the slower Type 993. British Army preference in 1964 with the Indonesian confrontation building was to retain the Tigers with their full two turret 6-inch gun armament for bombardment.[59][60][61]

IN 1963 three configurations were considered for the conversion to helicopter carriers: Schemes "X", "Y" and "Z". X was deck space for one helicopter and a hanger for three at the cost of the rear 6-inch turret, Y gave deck space for two Wessex helicopters and hangar for four once the 6-inch and 3-inch armament were removed, Z was same deck space and hangar capacity as Y but two helicopters could take off (or land) at once. Z was chosen as the best option even for a projected six-year lifespan and expected to take 15 months and £2 million per ship. [62] The final cost was £12 million in dockyard costs for all three including refits at the same time and £10.5 million for the helicopters. It was recognised that 75 pilots would also be needed at a time when the FAA was 37 pilots short.[62]

To avoid the political problem of scrapping new cruisers as well as the aircraft carriers, the Labour Government elected in October 1964 decided to retain large ships for command and flagship roles and accepted the RN and MoD argument that three Tiger cruisers would in some way replace the anti-submarine warfare role provided in the past provided by aircraft carriers; in theory providing twelve dipping sonar- and torpedo- equipped helicopters (4 x 3) on a 30 knot hull with considerable self-defence capability. At the time the Royal Navy was mostly concentrated on east of Suez operations and the anti-submarine deterrent role was chiefly to counter slow Indonesian and Chinese diesel-powered submarines. In theory even one Tiger might be available to threaten nuclear depth charge use and free space on aircraft carriers like Hermes and Victorious for strike and air combat aircraft. However, major exercises conducted in 1965 with modernised WWII-era cruisers like the USS Topeka and HMNZS Royalist suggested they were not suitable platforms for tracking modern submarines.[63]

The government continued the conversion of Tiger and Blake after deciding on further ship cuts and a faster phase-out of carriers in 1968. However, during the conversion of Blake the plan was changed to allow the cruisers to operate four of the more capable Westland Sea King helicopters, although only three Sea Kings could actually ever be accommodated and serviced in the longer hangar which extended further into the main structure of the ship, and greater cost and forcing the replacement of the side 3-inch gun mounts (which fire arcs were now too restricted) with much less effective Seacat guided weapon system.[64][65] The low priority given to deterrence of Soviet submarines in the Northern Atlantic by the MoD is reflected in the decision to convert a suitable anti-submarine helicopter platform, the carrier Hermes into an amphibious carrier. The suggestion of the captain of the aircraft carrier Bulwark in 1966 that Bulwark and the other light fleet carriers be developed for the 'cruiser' role, carrying Hawker Siddeley Harrier VSTOL aircraft and anti-submarine helicopters, as well as troop- and commando-carrying helicopters was rejected despite the argument their capacity was under-utilised.[66] The later advent of the Invincible-class aircraft carriers would seem to add weight to this proposal. Hermes and Bulwark were larger, and offered better silencing and hangar capacity. The government's priority was to arm aircraft in West Germany with tactical and thermonuclear weapons and, secondly, amphibious support of the British Army in Norway. Provision of nuclear depth charges for anti-submarine, aircraft carriers and destroyers and frigates was limited and late, although approval to wire all the Leander, Rothesay and County class ships for triggering NDB was given in 1969, and frigates and destroyers offered quieter listening platforms than the old Tigers.

The proposed class of four large Type 82 destroyers fitted with nuclear Ikara anti-submarine missiles could have been a more reliable nuclear deterrent, but the Ikara was ultimately fitted only to carry conventional Mark 46 torpedoes and only one Type 82 air defence destroyer, HMS Bristol, was built. Bristol lacked a helicopter hangar, and was plagued by problems common with dated and complex steam propulsion. Crewing and developing large cruiser size warships with steam propulsion was becoming more difficult in the RN, contributing to the issues in Tiger and the much later Type 82 destroyer. With no other approved option, in 1965 work began on Blake to convert her to a helicopter cruiser while Tiger began her conversion in 1968. The structural modernisation work on these old hulls was difficult and expensive. However, the ships successfully served as helicopter command cruisers and provided an argument to justify construction of their replacement, the Invincible-class "through deck cruisers". Lion's conversion was cancelled due to rising cost and that it was obvious by 1969 that Blake's conversion was unsatisfactory. Lion remained operational until late 1965, after which she was placed in reserve. In the event she was used as a parts source for the conversion of Tiger. The conversion of two or three County-class guided missile destroyers as anti-submarine helicopter cruisers might have provided a quite effective anti-submarine vessel, as Chile did with two of its second-hand County-class ships. Running on their steam turbines alone, the County-class was a quiet anti-submarine platform; three RN County-class vessels were expensively updated in the late 1970s with Exocet and improved C4. Glamorgan proved useful in the 'cruiser' role in the Falklands War, being faster through rough seas than even Hermes. Without proper modernisation and removal of the Sea Slug missile system, their helicopter capabilities were cumbersome and limited.

The Tigers as half heavy gun cruiser and half short life anti-submarine carrier suited the Royal Navy as flagships with good communications and some modern sensors but they did not really add to task force defence and needed protection themselves.[67]

The conversions left Tiger and Blake some 380 tons heavier with a full displacement of 12,080 tons and their crew complements increased by 169 to 885. Originally, Lion was also to have been converted, although this never materialised: Blake's conversion had been more expensive than envisaged (£5.5 million) and so funds were no longer available. At £13.25 million Tiger's conversion cost even more such was the level of inflation at the time. After much material was stripped off her for use as spares for her sisters, Lion was subsequently sold for breaking up in 1975.

Obsolescence and decommissioning
The decommissioned HMS Tiger at Portsmouth Navy Days in 1980, showing the helicopter deck and hangar added in 1968–71.
Another view of HMS Tiger on the same day, showing the 6-inch guns which were retained in the conversion.

In 1969, Blake returned to service followed by Tiger in 1972. However, the large crews and limited helicopter capacity made Tiger's further fleet service limited to less than nine years. After spending seven years in reserve, the decision was made in 1973 to strip Lion for spares to maintain Blake and Tiger, and Lion was sold for scrap in 1975.

The cutback in operating funds and manpower, faced by the Royal Navy when the new Conservative government limited fuel and operating allowances in a policy of tight monetary control, and the belief in the economy of Hawker Siddeley Nimrod maritime patrol aircraft and submarines for anti-submarine operations quickened their demise. The recommissioning of the carrier Bulwark and conversion of Hermes into a helicopter carrier and then an anti-submarine carrier meant that they could carry twice as many Sea Kings as could the Tigers in anti-submarine warfare, vital against the Soviet Union submarine threat in the Atlantic Ocean, and decreased the importance of the Tigers even further. As well-armed command ships, including twin twin 4.7 guns and standard SM2 the Dutch Tromp and De Ruyter were particularly vital stand-in destroyer leader ships working with RN carriers from the mid-1970s. Operating alone as a RN task force, carriers could not be risked in blue water operations without an escort of Type 42 destroyers, Type 22 frigates or Sea Wolf-equipped Leander-class frigates. The true manpower requirements for open water and power projection were too high in terms of fiscal cost for the UK spending 5.2 percent of GNP on defence in 1981 to justify the Tigers. During the Falklands War, the Belgarnos ability to efficiently fight her armament is doubtful and her two Exocet-armed FRAM 2 Allen M. Sumner-class escorts may have represented a greater threat to the Task Force.[68] The rapid-firing guns of 'Tiger' and 'Blake', and their flight-decks and facilities to refuel and maintain on station Sea King helicopters and possibly VSTOL Harrier jump-jets, were arguments used to justify approving emergency reactivation as landing pads during the Falklands War. The stock of 3-inch ammunition held for the Tigers, however, was more useful for the Canadian St. Laurent class.

In April 1978, Tiger was withdrawn from service, followed by Blake in 1979; both ships were laid up in reserve at Chatham Dockyard. When Blake was decommissioned in 1979, she was the last cruiser to serve in the Royal Navy and her passing was marked on 6 December 1979 when she ceremonially fired her 6-inch guns for the last time in the English Channel. Just a few days after the Falklands War started, both Blake and Tiger were rapidly surveyed to determine their condition for possible reactivation. The survey determined both ships to be in very good condition; they were put into dry-dock (Blake at Chatham, and Tiger at Portsmouth) and round-the-clock work on reactivation was immediately begun. By mid-May it was determined that the ships would not be completed in time to take part in the war and the work was stopped. Ships such as the Tigers required large crews, their Seacat missile was useless and the 6-inch guns were too unreliable for useful GFS. The cruisers needed heavy repairs to machinery and rewiring. Attempts to maintain more modern hulls for emergency reactivation, such as the amphibious assault ships Intrepid and Fearless, proved useful, and retaining County-class destroyers HMS Devonshire and HMS Kent with a cheap extended flight deck for Sea Kings replacing the Sea Slug launcher at Chatham dockyard, similarly half-manned and permanently maintained might have allowed a heavier GFS capability to actually fight in the Falklands War.

The Tiger "helicopter cruisers" were often described and viewed in the Royal Navy as "hideous and useless hybrids".[69]

Though Chile showed some interest in acquiring both ships, the sale did not proceed and the ships sat at anchor in an unmaintained condition until sold. Blake was then sold for breaking up in late 1982, followed by Tiger in 1986.

Ships of the class
Pennant Name (a) Hull builder
(b) Main machinery manufacturers		 Laid down Launched Accepted into service Commissioned Decommissioned Estimated building cost[70]
C20 Tiger (ex-Bellerophon) [71] (a) & (b) John Brown and Co Ltd, Clydebank.[72] 1 October 1941 [71] 25 October 1945 [71] March 1959 [72] 18 March 1959 [71] 20 April 1978 [71] £12,820,000 [72]
C34 Lion (ex-Defence) [71] (a) Scotts Shipbuilding & Engineering Co Ltd, Greenock (to launching stage)
(a) Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson Wallsend-on-Tyne (for completion).[73]		 24 June 1942 [71] 2 September 1944 [71] July 1960 [73] 20 July 1960 [71] December 1972 [71] £14,375,000 [73]
C99 Blake (ex-Tiger, ex-Blake) [71] (a) & (b) Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company Govan, Glasgow.[73] 17 August 1942 [71] 20 December 1945 [71] March 1961 [73] 8 March 1961 [71] December 1979 [71] £14,940,000 [73]

Notes
  1. known as Swiftsure-class after Minotaur transferred to the Royal Canadian Navy and was renamed Ontario
  2. A full electric powered turret had been fitted in HMS Diadem in 1944 and, with power ramming, the shells fired at consistent intervals, and it had sufficient training and elevation speed to have some DP capacity against jet aircraft and early guided missiles like the German Fritz X.
  3. Spartan fired 900 rounds in support of the preliminaries to the Anzio landings.(Raven & Roberts, p 335) Covering the Normandy landings, HMS Diadem and Black Prince played a important GFS and command role(Raven & Roberts,) Black Prince fired 1,300 rounds in the period 6–15 June 1944.(Lt Cdr Gerry Wright Black Prince. Printshop (2007). Granada. Wellington, p15)
  4. With two pairs of Type 274 and Type 275 directors. The first UK-sourced accurately machined and reliable 275M directors were fitted in 1956, in Royalist and in Type 12 frigates, 14 years after the introduction of the US Mk 37 DCT.[33] confirms in late 1951 UK industry could still not build precision bearings or work to the fine tolerances needed for accurate naval AA fire and fire-control box components, had to ordered, again from the US. However, by 1953, US Mk 63 directors in the MRS 8 directors for close-in defence had been fitted at US expense in most major RN units and cruisers. Newfoundland was reconstructed to a pattern very similar to that planned for HMS Hawke and the Tigers with 2/274 surface DCTs with the unreliable, UK glasshouse 275 offset. On exercise AA firing Royalist easily outshot HMS Newcastle.[34]
  5. In the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal action against Japanese cruisers suggested that manually operated 6-inch triples at low elevation could sustain high rates of fire of 8–10 rpm in the heat of the battle in action, and HMS Bermuda in 1960 achieved 12rpm for a couple of minutes, at low elevation at close range (up to 5 miles) at a cost of higher barrel-wear. The USN maintained the similar Cleveland class triple 6-inch turret on its post-war missile conversions, including USS Galveston, not completed until 1958. Galveston maintained half its original 6- and 5-inch armament with twin RIM-8 Talos surface-to-air missile launchers and was far more capable than HMS Tiger, if very, overweight.
  6. She had been renamed Tiger halfway through the process, then changed back to Blake.
  7. modernisation of HMS Superb was cancelled later in 1957 and it was decommissioned in November 1957. Superbs update was delayed by the Suez requirement, the cruiser receiving a 15-month refit from January 1955 to April 1956 to be available. Reconstruction of Swiftsure as a fourth 'Tiger' was structurally complete by June 1959 but its new armament had been sold to the RCN and Chile, and recycled twin 4-inch and 40mm were not worth fitting. Swiftsure was scrapped in 1962 after numerous RN proposals to convert it to a missile cruiser or helicopter carrier. Converting into a small flat-deck aircraft carrier was even considered.

Citations
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  3. Gill 1968, p. 470–2.
  4. Freidman (2002) pp (notes)371–375; T Frame, J Goldrick & P Jones. "Reflections on the RN", Papers of 1989 ADF Conference on RAN History. Kangaroo. Kenthurst, NSW (1991)
  5. Murfin 2010, p. 58–9.
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  9. Gill 1968, p. 470-2.
  10. Murfin 2010, p. footnote 14, p59.
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  30. Brown & Moore 2012, p. 47
  31. Friedman 2010, p. 371–7.
  32. Freidman 2010, p. 371–7.
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  34. Pugsley, Christopher (2003). From Emergency to Confrontation: The New Zealand Armed Forces in Malaya and Borneo 1949–1966. NZ/Au: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195584538.
  35. & Murfin 2010, p. 57.
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  37. Freidman 2010, p. 293.
  38. Murfin 2010.
  39. Freidman 2010, p. 309.
  40. A. Clarke. Sverdlov Cruisers and the RN Response, British Naval History
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  42. Friedman 2016, p. 174.
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  50. "Statement on Defence 1957. Outline of Future Policy". White Paper. HMSO. 15 March 1957, pp. 7–8, s15.
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  53. G.M. Stephen. British warship design since 1905. Ian Allen. London (2003), p. 84
  54. Stephens, p85
  55. Lord West. 'The Early Cold War' in Britain by the Sea. RN in the 20C. BBC Radio 4 13 June 2014. Retrieved 18 June 2019
  56. Civil Sea Lord Lord Ewing (18 March 1963), "Vote 1. Pay, etc., of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines", HC Debates, 674, 145
  57. D. Healey. Time of my Life. Norton,(1980) NY,p. 275
  58. Brown & Moore. Redesigning the RN (2003) p. 48
  59. P. Darby. British Defence poicy East of Suez 1947–1968. OUP & R.I.I.A. Oxford (1993) p. 268
  60. Brown & Moore 2012, p. 50.
  61. DEFC 10/457 16 February 1964 and Board of Admiralty 10/63 ADM 167 /162 and 1/64 ADM 167/163
  62. Brown & Moore 2012.
  63. Proceedings- HMNZS Royalist 1958–1966. NZ National Archives. Wgtn. NZ
  64. Freidman 2012, p. 321.
  65. D.Wettern. "Tiger Class" in Janes Defence Annual. Janes.(1973) London
  66. E. Hampshire. East of Suez to East Atlantic.
  67. A. Clarke. "Sverdlov Cruisers and the RN Response", in British Naval History 12-5-2014
  68. Moore, C (2013), Margaret Thatcher. The authorised biography. V1, Not for Turning., London: Allen Lane, pp. 711–713
  69. P Smith & J Domiby. Cruisers in Action 1939–1945. William Kimber. 1981. London, p. 240
  70. "Unit cost, i.e. excluding cost of certain items (e.g. aircraft, First Outfits)."
    Text from Defences Estimates
  71. Gardiner, Robert Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1947–1995, pub Conway Maritime Press, 1995, ISBN 0-85177-605-1 page 504.
  72. Navy Estimates, 1959–60, pages 230–1, List and particulars of new ships which have been accepted or are expected to be accepted into HM service during the Financial Year ended 31st March 1959
  73. Navy Estimates, 1961–62, pages 220–1, List and particulars of new ships which have been accepted or are expected to be accepted into HM service during the Financial Year ended 31st March 1961

References
  • Freidman, N. (2012), British Cruisers: Two World Wars and After, Barnsley: Seaforth, ISBN 9781848320789
  • Brown, D.K; Moore, G. (2012). Rebuilding the Royal Navy. Warship Design since 1945. UK: Seaforth.
  • Friedman, N. (2016), Fighters over the Fleet. Naval Air Defence from the Biplane to Cold War, Barnsley: Seaforth
  • Gill, G. H. (1968), The Royal Australian Navy, 1942-1945, Australia in the War of 1939–1945, Series 2 (Navy), II, Canberra: Australian War Memorial
  • Moore, G. (2006), "Postwar cruiser design for the Royal Navy 1946–56", Warship
  • Murfin, D. (2010). "AA to AA. The Fiji's Turn Full Circle". Warship. London: Conway.
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