Alternate Royal Navy #2

[Hood]

Thanks for all your comments.
I have now raised the bridge but more importantly also reduced the size of those massive turrets to something more manageable and the effect has improved the bridge view.

[eswube]

Excellent as always.

[knut 75]

Hood
Enjoying your rebooted Royal Navy.
Your designs as ever are thoughtful
and interesting.
My only thought is that they look a bit crowded
for RN ships, especially the funnels/stacks.

[knut 75]

Sorry that was a bit vague. The type 80 and type 43 designs were what I had in mind. The two stacks look too close together in both.
I was also wondering whether the Type 82 is not in fact a Type 42 with a bigger hangar. I always see the 82 as a Leander derivative.
The frigate family also seems complicated.
If one keeps building a Type 19 hull class, is a Type 21 really necessary.
Sorry, not crits as this is your AU more random reactions.

[knut 75]

Like your escort cruiser. The ship that was ready to be ordered in 1962 would have evolved into this class.
Like the UK helicopters as well.

[Hood]

I had begun this design before I drew the Flower class and have finally gotten around to finishing it.
Given the importance of the North Sea oil and gas fields in my scenario all four of the planned Castle class are built but in my AU they are a more capable design, faster and longer with a hangar and a 76mm Oto to serve as useful patrol vessels in wartime.
In wartime these would probably receive a multiple Starstreak MANPADs SAM mount forward and perhaps a second Corvus.

Castle Class Offshore Patrol Vessel


HMS Leeds Castle, Castle Class, 1983

HMS Leeds Castle P265 October 1981
HMS Dumbarton Castle P266 March 1982
HMS Allington Castle P267 March 1984
HMS Dover Castle August 1985


Dimensions
Length: 305ft (oa), 281ft (wl)
Beam: 38ft
Draught: 13ft

Displacement
1,985 tons (full load)

Powerplant
Two 3,500hp Paxman Ventura diesels
25kts on both
Endurance 10,000nm at 10kts

Armament
1x 76mm OTO Super Rapid
1x 30mm LS-30
1x Corvus flare-chaff launcher
Hangar for 1x Westland Westland Lynx or landing pad can accomodate a Westland WG.34 helicopter

Radars & Sonars
One Type 992Q air/surface TIR, one Type 1006 navigation.


*** Edit, thanks to Blackbuck for the new Lynx!

[Blackbuck]

Neat, especially the wraparound bridge and lookout position. Earlier in the week I drew a properly scaled Lynx HAS.2 for Miklania who's updating the Type 21, which might be of interest to you.

[odysseus1980]

I like this ship, could you do her "wartime" version as well?

[erik_t]

Beautiful and extremely well-drawn. I find myself wondering, given how T23 was sometimes envisioned as nothing but a towed-array dragging platform, if it would make sense to fit a towed array (for but not with, of course) on a long-endurance diesel hull like this.

Where is the diesel exhaust?

[Hood]

Thanks for the kind comments and Blackbuck for the new Lynx.

Beautiful and extremely well-drawn. I find myself wondering, given how T23 was sometimes envisioned as nothing but a towed-array dragging platform, if it would make sense to fit a towed array (for but not with, of course) on a long-endurance diesel hull like this.

Where is the diesel exhaust?

Well in this AU I have my Flower class as the back-up towed-array platform. viewtopic.php?f=14&t=6879&start=80#p180611
I'm sure this design could accommodate it too with some adjustments, but it would add weight and cost and while this is a higher-end OPV than pursued in the real-world, I wanted to keep it relatively modestly priced.
Of course, as I said in my Flower post, this AU is 'plug and play' rather than a set scenario so its possible to switch out the Flowers for Castles or Castles for Type 24s in any combination.
I see the Castles as being perhaps more exportable as well.

The diesel exhaust is right behind the crows nest, same arrangement as the real Castles.