What if: Tiger-class cruiser into missile cruisers

Would she not be at the bottom of the sea at this point.

Found this about the proposed Neptune-class cruiser including what i propose to do with the Tiger class:

To meet the Royal Navy's continuing requirements for new cruisers, a new design was proposed called Design Z, or the 1947 Minotaur class, to be armed with five twin 6-inch dual purpose turrets and up to eight twin 3-inch anti-aircraft guns. The twin 6-inch turret, the Mark 26, was of a new design and had a rate of fire of 20 rounds per minute per gun, while the twin 3-inch guns had a very high rate of fire and replaced both the 4.5 inch and 40 mm and 20 mm close-in batteries.[26] In 1947, it was decided that no cruisers would be built for the next five years owing to financial constraints,[27] although the requirement for cruisers remained. The design to meet these requirements was not finalised, with extensive development work expected to be required for the all-new ship's armament. Design work on the Minotaur class petered out in the early 1950s.

After design work in the late 1940s aimed at producing a "1960 cruiser" came to nothing efforts switched to a smaller design, the "Cruiser/Destroyer", to be armed with three rapid-fire 5-inch (127 mm) guns, which was abandoned in 1953. Effort then switched to guided-missile cruisers, which by July 1955 had settled on a 15,400 long tons (15,600 t) ship armed with a two twin Mark 26 6-inch turrets, two 3-inch turrets and a single Seaslug anti-aircraft missile launcher, the design was the same length as the 1951 Minotaur cruiser but with 3 ft more beam, but was limited to one Seaslug channel by a 16,000-ton size constraint and the RN decided that 984 3D radar and two 901 control channels were required for 48 conventional Seaslugs and 16 nuclear AA Seaslugs, along with a gun armament of two Mk 26 twin 6-inch guns forward and 4 twin 3-inch/70 guns. This the last RN cruiser design, 96A GWA, an 18,200 design which Mountbatten rejected on 4 January 1957, was a design somewhat influenced by USS Galveston, the Talos cruiser, with a full gun armament forward, finally commissioned in 1958 and USS Northampton, a command cruiser in its 1957, fit out of four 5-inch/54 calibre and 4 twin 3-inch/70 calibre guns which reflected the volume demanded by the magazines of the new auto guns and aW/AD radars. The three GW missile cruisers, enhanced Minotaurs in a sense, were included in the 1956 construction programme for the Royal Navy, with delivery from 1962, but they were cancelled by Chief of Naval Staff (CNS) Admiral Mountbatten and Admiral Peter Gretton after the Suez Crisis and the following UK financial crisis and revelation the Soviet Navy had abandoned its Sverdlov-class cruiser construction line under new Premier Nikita Khrushchev . Mountbatten, who became the new CNS in 1957 ordered a review of the cruiser programme immediately on 4 January 1957, believing the large cruisers were of no practical use and far too big as Seaslug GMS ship. On 16 January 1957 the cruiser design office was closed and the three 18,000-ton cruisers that had been ordered were cancelled in April 1957, along with the conversion of HMS Superb as a fourth Tiger. The new 6- and some 3-inch mounts were eventually used when three Tiger-class cruisers were completed to a new design in the late 1950s, while the County-class destroyers met the Royal Navy's requirements for a surface-to-air missile armed ship. Most of the new 3-inch/70 calibre mounts were however sold off to Canada.

Royal Navy GW9 Convoy Escort Design by Tzoli on DeviantArt



This is how i would see the Tigers.

She usually operated as a training ship, IIRC, but she could carry four big helos, (Super Frelon?)

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That would be interesting. Belgrano is arguably better armed and larger, but Tiger and Blake are more modern.

As for a Sea Slug kill might be hard to come by.

And it's not hate, just a fact of life. The early missiles were large and cumbersome, as often happens with new technology. Just ask Colossus, the first computer....

Regards,

I think we might have a case of the cart before the horse here.

The salient questions are:
1.) What is gained by a conversion?
2.) What is lost by it?
3.) How much will it cost and how long will its useful life be? (the latter having a bearing on 'paying itself off' over time.

1.) When cruiser conversions/GW cruisers were discussed in the early 1950s, the RN did not have any GW ships. By the time Tiger and her sisters enter service, the Counties are on the way, bringing Sea Slug and Sea Cat to sea on a smaller platform that has more of a frontline role.
2.) By converting, you lose the main assets the Tigers had going for them: their 6" and 3" guns.

3.) This is the key matter at play. Put simply, a conversion is not enough bang for buck on a platform that has a limited service life remaining. It really comes down to cost, though. There were studies on a converted Majestic and on KGVs and Vanguard as well that went nowhere. The 1952 carrier went nowhere. Many, many other projects went nowhere. The cash was limited and channeled towards ships of best use for the major missions envisaged for the Andrew in this period.

The Tigers and fleet carriers in many ways were viewed as the 'cold war' fleet as compared to the 'hot war' ships.


Another factor is that they really weren't that large in terms of their dimensions. Sea Slug took up a lot of space, particularly lengthwise. The Neptunes or even the GW-25 1950s proposals were much, much larger and carried fewer missiles than their USN counterparts.

In the end, the helicopter conversion plus keeping their forward guns was the least worst solution.