Shipbucket

Nope that is the no. 4 deck which is the lowest except the bottom of the hull. I’ve got the original deck plans right in front of me of the DDL and I haven’t made such a simple mistake.


The Oto Guns are the same as all the others except they have a South African peculiar housing scabbed on the right side of the top of the turret. This feature is found on all the South African guns and I think the Israeli’s. I don’t know exactly what it is but I suspect it’s a camera housing. Since it looks pretty cool I added one to the Mk 66 twin 5”.



The directors are the same as a British one except they have a slightly different radome. This is just a glass fibre cover and I guess in South Africa they built them slightly different to in Great Britain. This is just a cosmetic thing with no real impact on performance of the system.
The SPS-01 on the Tromp class can be quite lower if they wanted. The radar room is located on the third deck! My deck plan is slightly different but the radar is once again on the third deck above the main deck. Which is why if you line up a picture of the Tromp with the Zambezi you will see the ‘Kojak’ radome is at exactly the same height above the waterline on each ship. The Type 909 illuminators are not significantly heavier than the AN/SPG-51s on the Tromp. They just look bigger because they have radomes covering the antennas. While I have located one of them higher (and one the same height) this increase in weight above the metacentre compared to the Tromp (which has the same COGOG machinery and a very similar hull) is compensated by the lowered Mk 13, lowered bridge and no Sea Sparrow system.
The funnel is not huge. I have no idea where you get this from. It is the same size – exactly – as the funnels on the Types 22 and 42 and the DDL (in fact the funnel is kit bashed from the Shipbucket DDL). The Tromp has the same engines but a different funnel arrangement because it has split exhausts to a Y shape so the smoke does not foul the main mast. But far from being lighter or better for top weight it is actually heavier (two stack shrouds and exhaust support beams in place of one) and while moving weight lower moves it out to the beams from the centreline which is worse for stability.

The Type 82 is such a fundamentally different warship it is no basis of comparison to this ship. I appreciate the feedback but none of these criticisms are valid from a shipbuilding perspective.

I stand corrected on the guns. and that hull seems to have an really full hull then.... and they didn't add the screw axisses. I find it weird they include the entire stern on an deck that doesn't include that, but ok, if you are certain.....

the height of the radar on the tromps is given by the fact that the sps-01 has to clear the SPG-51, which has to clear the other SPG which has to aim above the mk 13, which then is positioned at an given height to clear the hangar. it has nothing to do with were the radar room is: as you should know the rooms are defined AFTER the basic design of an ship.

my opinion is: lower the directors about 1 deck, lower the SPS-01 0-0.5 deck and lower the funnel along if you lower the SPS. then it should be fine. also, take a look at this concept: http://shipbucket.com/images.php?dir=Never Built Designs/Germany/D FFG Klasse 121_ Fregatte 70 1.gif
I think you should be going more like that for this ship.

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No it’s just a standard hull. Like most modern ships it has a false stern thanks to the transom which means it doesn’t need to be as fine as the bow. As to the screws they go outboard of the centreline rooms through the wing tanks so don’t interfere with the room layouts.
Not really. The SPG-51s are stacked so they can both look aft and is a hallmark of their original use on USN escorts with air defence sector coverage assignments. The SPS-01 antenna does not need to be above the SPG-51 to work. It does help in that you won’t get any interference from the antenna but you can also just cancel out that frequency and any short range returns which is what most ships do to de-conflict their tophampers. You can’t just stick a radar wherever you want it needs to be physically built into the ship. Putting the antenna base on the fourth deck gives an excellent field of regard. This radar will see further and most importantly still keep a lot of sky in sight when the ship rolls.
Opinion noted and rejected for a range of reasons detailed above and before. The Zambezi was designed in co-operation with the Dutch and Australian navies and their respective Tromp and DDL designs. It is comparative to these two ships not some completely different German ship with an entirely different hull. I am confidant the stability of the Zambezi is along the same lines as the Tromp and DDL (ie excellent) taking into account the weight-height arrangement of these ships with near identical hulls and machinery arrangements. The German Type 121 might be an aesthetically pleasing ship but it has nothing to do with this design.

Development of the South African fleet 1945-1990

Part 1 (1945-55)

Post WWII the South African Naval Forces (SANF) were equipped with a range of ships transferred from the allies in addition to the survivors of the very small pre-war fleet. The SANF itself had been formed on 1 August 1942 by combining the Seaward Defence Force and the South African RNVR. On 1 May 1946 the SANF was constituted as part of the Union Defence Force (UDF) under the amended Defence Act and in 1951 renamed the South African Navy. At the same time as earning Navy status the SAN was joined by the South African Corps of Marines (SACM) which was formed from the various UDF coastal defence and air defence units. Ironically the Navy would actually be under Marine command from 1951-55 under Brigadier, then Major General, Pieter de Waal CB CBE who served as Naval and Marine Chief of Staff (NMCOS) before the roles were split.

SANF/SAN Fleet 1945-55

# One Roberts class monitor transferred from the RN in 1947. Mostly used as a dock side training vessel but fully operational and putting to sea at least once per year.

HMSAS Good Hope (ex HMS Roberts)

# Three Kempenfelt class destroyers transferred from the RN in 1950-52 and modified in South Africa by Sandock-Austral, Durban to Type 15 ASW frigate standard.Were classified as destroyers in SAN service.

HMSA Ships Tugela (ex HMS Wessex), Limpopo (ex HMS Whelp) and Orange (ex HMS Wrangler)

# Three Loch class ASW corvettes transferred from the RN in 1944-45.

HMSA Ships Saldanha (ex HMS Loch Boisdale), Walvis (ex HMS Loch Cree) and Algoa (ex HMS Loch Ard)

# Six Gay class torpedo patrol boats built in South Africa by Dorman Long Van der Bijl Corporation, Durban with assistance from Vospers and delivered 1953-56. Ships are named for South African pioneers and generally referred to as the Pioneer class.

HMSA Ships Jan van Riebeeck, Henry Fynn, Piet Retief, Andries Pretorius, David Livingstone, Alfred Sharpe

# 20 PT type torpedo patrol boats transferred from the USN in 1941-44. All disposed or demilitarised during the late 1940s and early 1950s.

Rs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 and 20

# 12 HDML 1100-1300 Series patrol boats built in South Africa by Fred Nichols, Durban (nine units) and Herbie Spradbrow, Durban (three units).

HDMLs 1197, 1198, 1199, 1200, 1201, 1202, 1203, 1204, 1205, 1330, 1331 and 1332

# One Trawler type mine layer transferred from the RN in 1951.

HMSAS Skilpad (ex HMS Spindrift, ex MT Polaris)

# Two Bar class boom defence vessels transferred from the RN in 1943. Renamed with South African flavoured names in 1951.

HMSA Ships Somerset (ex HMSAS Barcross, ex HMS Barcross) and Fleur (ex HMSAS Barbrake, ex HMS Barbrake)

# One Flower class hydrographical survey ship transferred from the RN in 1947 after refit.

HMSAS Protea (ex HMS Rockrose)

This concept for an alternative universe looks very interesting.
Btw. why USN PTs, instead of something rather British like, say Fairmiles D?

I'm with ace on this one, top weight is gonna be an problem. Radars are placed too hight. Also I am sure the stearn will brake after firing a number of gun shells. Still not sure what your ideas is behind the Launcher...
And keep in mind that the tromp already was on the limit's on her top weight. even so much, that the SPS-01 radar was removed when the SMART-L was tested to avoid problems, even with addtional ballasting in the former mk 13 compartement

TurretHead
Interesting stuff here. you can also fit in my Type16 conversion of Simon van der Stel here.
It is a unique conversion done by South Africa

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"Never fear to try on something new. Remember that the Titanic was built by professionals, and the Ark by an amateur"

The PT boats were supplied from the US under lend-lease during WWII for real to defend South Africa’s coast. Fairmile production was for more important theatres like the North Sea and English Channel. They were hardly used post war and I kept them in the fleet list to provide some context to the Gay class torpedo boats and later acquisitions. I wanted to show a strike craft lineage in the RSAN from WWII through to the Minister class (Israeli Sa'ar IV) in the late 1970s. Since in this AU the South African fleet is much bigger the Ministers were not needed as the bulk of the fleet but rather to sustain the small boat, coastal strike force complimenting the ocean going destroyers.

The SPS-01 is at the same height as on the Tromp. Why can the Tromp handle this weight above the metacentre and the Zambezi can’t? They both have the same machinery and very similar hull forms. In fact the Zambezi using the DDL machinery layout has the main engines about 10m aft of the Tromp. Which would help balance the heavy weight in the bow of the radar. The Zambezi would be better than the Tromp!
That is totally crazy. Sterns of ships undergo a lot more pressure from moving through water, propeller turbulence and the force on the rudders than recoil passed to the hull from a 5”/54 gun. Which is much less than the force of a 10 tonne helicopter slamming down on the flight deck landing in heavy seas.
Pretty simple. Sea Dart fits into footprint provided for the Tartar with modified cradles in each missile cell of the the Mk 13 launcher. Therefore the Mk 13 can hold 40 Sea Darts.
Well since the Zambezi only has a single SPS-01 and not a second 3D air search radar how is this important?

In my AU have different W class destroyers being transferred and all of them being converted to the Type 15 class in the first half of the 1950s. I was playing around with using US above water weapons and radars like the Canadians did with their River class DE but I’ve dropped that as it doesn’t fit the timeline. I have the South Africans turning to US naval equipment in their 1955 expansion plan (carrier, more destroyers and submarines). But before that British systems for the Type 15s and Loch class upgrade.

So I’ve reverted to the all British Type 15. I will play around with the drawing some more and probably modify your excellent Type 15 drawing to the rounded bridge design. I did have some ideas for the Type 15s to be modified in the 1960s to new roles as the South African built ASW destroyers come into service. I was thinking something like the Simon van der Stel for a helo carrier and also an APD version.