Tiger-class cruiser

The Tiger-class cruisers were the last cruisers built for the Royal Navy. These ships were the first and last helicopter cruisers to serve in the Royal Navy. By 1979 the last of them had been withdrawn from service.

Original Minotaur design
The Tiger-class cruisers were originally designed to be light cruisers, but they were laid down as World War II was ending, and accordingly only three were completed. Three other ships of the Minotaur class had their construction either suspended or cancelled in 1947; these later became the Tiger class and by the end of 1946 were in an advanced stage of construction with nine main turrets for the three ships 75-80% complete. These turrets were a more advanced version of the Mk 23 wartime triple 6 inch. The new Mk 24 6 inch mounts were interim turrets which had remote power control and power worked breech. Theoretically the heavier Mk 24 offered a DP capability with greater 60 degree elevation. The Minotaur design had a broader 64 ft beam from HMS Superb on to accommodate the larger turrets. The 1947 Tiger design would have had 4 STAAG 40mm, CIWS in which the 262 radar control was built into the gun mounts and more modern AIO and electrics.

Another two Tiger-class cruisers had been laid down. Both were broken up in 1947. The more advanced, HMS Hawke, perhaps surprisingly, for although she was still on the slip in the Portsmouth dockyard, her boilers and machinery were complete and her new six inch guns nearly so. The decision not to complete the new Tigers in the late 1940s was due to the higher priority given at the time to the battleship HMS Vanguard (23) and the new s, and new aircraft carriers, HMS Centaur (R06), HMS Eagle (R05) and HMS Ark Royal (R09), allocated the reliable US supplied medium range a/a, Mk 37/275 directors. The 1947-9 period saw a peace dividend and frigate construction was the priority in the Korean War. However the Tigers could have been completed in 1949-53 instead of the extensive reconstruction of HMS Birmingham and Newcastle and 2 early Daring class Destroyers with DC power. The original Mk 24 turrets were still under serious consideration of fitting in A and B position during the Korean War with the new Mk 6 twin 4.5s in Q and Y positions and possibly in P1 and S1 on the flanks. However completing them to the 1946 plans or the mix of Mk 24 triples and Mk 6 4.5 mounts required 150 more crew, than fully automatic DP armament. Significant work and trial would be required to bring the first 6 MK 24 turrets and cruisers into service by 1953. The RN believed that would give the Tigers a capability little beyond their planned 1946 fit, and much of the original DC circuits the MK 24 turrets and early Daring Mk 6 turrets used had been removed from the Tigers in 1948, there was a strong desire the new cruisers have AC power not DC or dual.

By 1949 the the Tiger class final design was drawn with new prototype Mk 26 auto 6 inch guns and twin 3/70's ,but the failure of the USNs twin 6 inch automatic in USS Worcester; the disaster of the US 3inch 70 and the much lower than anticipated reliable fire rates of postwar RN Twin 4.5 and new USN and French 5 inch automatic guns suggested there was little point in putting the fully automatic guns into the Tigers given Soviet jets from 1950 in the Korean War suggested a/a guns would be only useful as CIWS for which 40/57mm with modern fuses were needed. A decision to approve rearming the Tigers with fully automatic Mk 26s made late 1954. Of the suspended Minotaurs, Bellerophon was completed as Tiger, the name ship of the new Tiger class, Blake was completed under her own name, and Defence was completed as Lion. Conversion of Blake and Tiger to helicopter cruisers in the 1960s left no money to convert Lion, and she was scrapped in 1975, after 8 years in reserve.

Revised design
Construction of the three suspended ships resumed in 1954, to a revised design known as the Tiger class, as a platform to mount new automatic 6 inch and 3 inch guns. A controversial decision reflecting concern about a large Soviet Navy programme of cruisers and evidence of  battlecruiser construction and modernisation of a Italian battleship acquired as war reparations and old Tsarist battleships, with 12 inch mounts still refitable. Royal Navy plans to replace the cruiser and destroyer construction programme with 6000 ton cruiser/destroyers with an advanced automatic twin or single 5 inch DP guns to overwhelm Sverdlovs and air targets with 60rpm fire, was problematic and expensive, so the prototype mk 26  twin  6 inch and 3 inch/ 70 mounts  were used on the Tigers. In the previous decade British Prime Minister Winston Churchill had promoted Battle and Daring destroyers as a substitute, but 3000 ton displacement, lacked space .In his final 1951-55 spell as Churchill, with the support of Minister of Defence, Harold MacMillan and son in law Duncan Sandys, reverted to his late 1920s opposition to the Navy and plans of rising Sea Lord Mountbatten. At the crucial 5 Nov 1954 Cabinet after hours of debate the Tigers were approved with the new automatic Mk 26 twin, with the very expensive completion of HMS Hermes and reconstruction and reboilering of the old  HMS Victorious (R38), both with 984 3D radar. The update of the old Tigers and carriers, was the alternative to two new 35,000 ton strike aircraft carriers. The hours of Cabinet debate resulting in the worst cabinet decision on the RN in 20C. Most of the Cabinet would have rather scrapped the Tigers and HMS Victorious and put Eagle or Ark Royal in reserve. Both Churchill and Macmillan wanted only small carriers with a/s aircraft and Vixen interceptors with no strike capability. Therefore the work on the Tigers proceeded, the Towns HMS Belfast (C35) and HMS Liverpool (C11) had space for three new Mk 26 Turrets, but were too old. The Tiger's appeared newer, but largely complete within a tight citidel,were impossible to really modernise and were corroding fast, particularly, HMS Lion.

All RN gun cruisers would be out of service by 1967, due to cuts and manpower shortages. The need for them ended with the Indonesian confrontation and Wilson's decision not to involve the RN in Vietnam. As a gun cruiser, Tiger served 7.5 years. Lion 4.25 years and Blake 2 years. A modest refit would have allowed the World War 2 completed HMS Newfoundland, HMS Ceylon (30) and HMS Belfast (C35) to run till 1966. The maintenance problems with the Tigers's guns meant that in 1965, HMS Lion and HMS Blake were in reserve and the HMNZ Royalist, with many RN crew was reactivated  as a  a/a and surface escort for Carrier Groups in SE Asia. The Crown Colony- and Town class cruisers with their more reliable guns, suitable for plugging away in fire support, might have been adequate to counter the Sverdlov, if lacking the speed and power really needed in Arctic waters.

The Tigers, improved Fiji, standard 6 inch gun cruisers built for surface gun action and bombardment did represent innovation in being fitted with much better AIO and more automated weapon control for surface and later air engagement. The design structually differed from the Swiftsure design in a broader beam for larger main turrets semi auto Mk 24 triple 6 inches or the later fully automatic automatic 6 inch twin Mk 26 inch the Tigers used 3 twin mount 3 in guns, also designed for the Tigers, and which saw service in only the Tigers and the Canadian s. In reality the Tigers are no more than broad beam can be seen clearly in the British Pathe film of the Tiger on commissioning trials in 1959. The real advance of Tiger on its sister, the HMS Superb (25), commissioned in 1945 which had almost as much surface throw weight, and 960, 275, 293 radar, was more accurate radar and C3.

The first ship to be commissioned was HMS Tiger (C24) in 1959, with HMS Lion (C34) in 1960 and HMS Blake (C99) the following year, nearly two-decades after the ships had been laid down. The decision to finish them was controversial throughout their construction. The 1957 Defence Review, decided after the political and logistic failure of the 1956 Suez operation, no more cruisers would be modernised but work on the Tigers and HMS Swiftsure would continue, to provide interim anti aircraft support for the fleet until the new County-class GMD's were ready. By 1957 HMS Superb after 12 years hard use was too worn to modernise, cost of structual modernisation inclined to double in cost after more than ten years at sea. The Tigers were obsolete with large crews and no missiles, and by early 1959 had already cost 35 million pounds. Other ship classes that were close to entering service, such as the Leander-class and 4 s were armed with the Sea Cat missile system, from 1965. As all three ships required large crews, they were decommissioned into maintained reserve, starting in 1963 with Blake, followed by Lion in the autumn of 1965, and in December 1966, Tiger too was placed in reserve, to await modernisation

Conversions
With the running down of the UK's carrier fleet, from the political angle it was viewed as unwise by Prime Minister Harold Wilson and Defence Minister Denis Healey to scrap the officially new and expensive Tiger-class cruisers and it was believed they might add to antisubmarine capabilities and free space on the remaining carriers helicopters, and therefore in 1965, work began on Blake for her to be converted into a helicopter cruiser while Tiger began her conversion in 1968. The structual modernisation work on these very old cruisers was immensely difficult and expensive for those forced to do the refitting and repair. Working in the yards on HMS Tiger in the early 1970s was one of the painful, over cost modernisation work ever done in RN yards, disrupted by fires, breakages and rust and should probably never have been attempted. But they did serve and exist as prototype helicopter command cruisers and provided a argument to justify construction of replacement, Invincible class cruisers.. And while some funding had been assembled, not enough could be pulled together for Lion's conversion, and hers was cancelled, though she remained operational until the end of 1965. Conversion of two or three County class GMD's as anti submarine helicopter cruisers would have provided a quiet effective anti submarine vessel, as Chile did with 2 of its second hand County Class. The conversion of HMS Devonshire proposed for Egypt in 1978 would have had both a deck hangar and below deck hangar in the area of the former Seaslug missile chain and might have produced an anti submarine helicopter cruiser, which was good enough to be counter productive to the case for the Invincible. The Tigers as half heavy gun cruiser and half flawed short life anti submarine carrier suited the RN, politically. One aft twin mount 6 inch gun was removed to allow the addition of a large helicopter hangar and helicopter pad that would be capable of handling four helicopters. The mid-ship mounted two twin mount 3 in guns intended to me maintained for close air defence and GFS were finally also removed, when it was decided to replace the Westland Wessex helicopters with the much larger Westland Sea King, 3 of which could barely be accommodated in a further enlarged hangar, which intruded too far into the 3-inch mounts arc of fire and the guns were replaced with two much lighter quad Seacat missile launchers. The forward 3 inch mount was retained for GFS and as a useful CIWS against Soviet anti ship missiles, but the 3 inch guns were slowed from 120 rpm to 90 rpm to reduce servicing and shell use. The cruisers in reality had less self-defence capability. More modern sensor equipment and command and control facilities were also added, that would enable them to perform as a flagship for task groups, but from the point of adding to RN antisubmarine capability it was immensely unsuccessful as maintenance and operation of the Sea Kings was difficult from ill-suited cramped cruisers. Sea King a/s helicopters would have more sensibly operated from the Commando Carriers as extra squadrons or from specialised conversions of more light fleet carriers to antisubmarine carriers. HMS Centaur (R06) and HMS Bulwark (R08) could have been so converted.

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. During conversion they had lost their much loved sleek cruiser lines and their new appearance was criticised for being an ungainly and inelegant 'push me-pull me' design, and both vessels were soon nicknamed 'Ugly Ducklings'. 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. Ironically Tiger's conversion cost even more (£13.25 million), 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.

Conversion of Swiftsure and Superb to the Tiger-class standard was seriously planned in 1953-54 and remained the officially announced policy as late as the 1957 Defence Review. in the case of the broader bean Superb it was feasible to reconstruct as a full Tiger and given that it was in better physical condition in 1954 than the unmaintained Lion/Defence in might have been a better choice as a third Tiger modernisation, but the political reality even in 1954 was four Tigers were unaffordable. The actual modernisation planned and approved for Superb and Swiftsure in 1955-56 was different and limited, similar to HMS Belfast refit but in some ways reflecting thinking a decade in advance of the Tigers with the Swiftsure and Superb intended to have a larger more modern bridge and AIO 'potentially' able to accommodate modern 965 radar and the AIO, C3 and data links to carriers and the ability to process and proritise 8/15 air surface targets at once. However the hulls were too old, in physical age, damage and mileage and Swiftsures refit was cancelled after much of the conversion work was completed (new superstructures and masts were fitted, but not her new weaponry), in 1959 at the time it was decided to sell Ceylon and Newfoundland which had been updated, close to the same level as the equipment actually installed in Belfast and Swiftsure, while Superb's never started.

Obsolescence and decommissioning
In 1969, Blake returned to service followed by Tiger in 1972. However, the large crews and limited helicopter capacity made Tigers' 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. Completely unsuitable for anti submarine helicopter operations and servicing with their cramped low hangars, the cut-back in operating funds and manpower that the Royal Navy faced in when the New Conservative Government limited fuel and operating allowances in a policy of tight monetary control and belief in the economy of Nimrod aircraft and submarines for a/s quickened their demise. The recommissioning of the carrier HMS Bulwark (R08) and conversion of HMS Hermes (R12) able to carry twice as many Sea Kings as Tigers' in antisubmarine warfare, vital against the Soviet Union submarine threat in the Atlantic, decreased the importance of the Tigers even further.

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 decommissioned in 1979, she had the distinction of being the last cruiser to serve 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 reactivation. The survey determined both ships to be in very good condition and were dry-docked (Blake at Chatham, and Tiger at Portsmouth) and round the clock reactivation work immediately begun. By mid-May it was determined the ships would not be completed in time to take part in the war and the work was stopped. Given they had been in unmaintained reserve for a couple of years, it would have taken at least 6 months to a year to properly prepare them for deployment. Retaining a couple of the first group County class GMDs at Chatham dockyard half manned and permanetly maintained might have allowed a heavier GFS capability to actually fight in the Falklands war. 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.