Shipbucket

To be honest, I haven't got a clue. There's actually not all that much info about our navy's never-were designs out there.

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Would you please not eat my gun...

Very nice work, not especially handsome ships but certainly capable ones.

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Hood's Worklist
English Electric Canberra FD
Interwar RN Capital Ships
Super-Darings
Never-Were British Aircraft

Upon rethinking the T43, I realized that for a carrier escort in particular, it really needed more long range capability. Plus I wasn't too happy with the dome, it was a bit too seventies for a ship which wouldn't hit the water until late eighties, early nineties.

So.

Even as the USN struggled to upgrade it's legacy AN/SPG-59 series of radars, the Royal Navy decided to go with a familiar solution. Dutch Signaal and British Ferranti worked together once more, and produced a state-of-the-art solution: two electronically scanned Phased Arrays into one massive rotating installation, the MkII Broomstick radar.

The Type 43 turned out to be massively expensive, but also massively competent. Combining two 40 round Typhon LR launchers with two Harpoon launchers, an OTO compact gun, and at first two Phalanx (quickly replaced with SeaStreak launchers when they became available), the Type 43 was a very capable warship. Two light or one medium helicopter would fit in the port side hangar.
Because of the limited firing arc of the Seastreak installation, a Goalkeeper was later added, almost as an afterthought. Crews tended to refer to the Goalkeeper installation as the outhouse.




As for the Dutch, the Tromp class would muddle on for nearly a decade longer before the first of their new Typhon ships hit the water. Equipped with the same mighty MkII Broomstick as the Type 43, the Zeven Provincien featured only two trainable phased array target illuminators, four targets to be designated per radar, for a total of eight simultaneous terminal engagements and 24 missiles controlled in the air.
Armaments consisted of a 40 round Typhon LR launcher, a 40 round Typhon MR, an american 127 mm cannon, a single Goalkeeper, and eight harpoon missiles. A single mediu-sized helicopter could be embarked.

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Would you please not eat my gun...

I like the T43s, but I think by the early 2000s, the pseudo-LCFs would have VLS instead of arm launchers with a shorter but fatter booster.

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𝐌𝐀𝐓𝐇𝐍𝐄𝐓- 𝑻𝒐 𝑪𝒐𝒈𝒊𝒕𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝑺𝒐𝒍𝒗𝒆

Even sooner than that, I think. VLS is an obvious win as soon as you have an autopilot on the missile, which Typhon functionally had from the start.

I would expect VLS to come about even earlier in such a universe, provided Typhon actually worked

Basically I really like the look of arm launchers... VLS makes ships boring.

Let's just say that there was a really big accident with early VLS which put everyone off on hot launch VLS, and it took a while after that even for cold launch VLS to become popular

Really, more people should to moden ships with arm launchers. They look so much better.

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Would you please not eat my gun...

I figured I'd do a VLS Seven anyway.

How about this one? Both VLS are raised, but not as much as you'd think: About half a deck. The end caps sit in a "bathtub" which prevents the highly energetic missile exhaust from washing over the deck.
Also, it's a cold launch VLS: in front only forty tubes in a space that would fit a 64 cell Mk41, in the back twenty five in a space that would hold a 48 cell Mk41. Each tube is a self-contained unit holding the gas generator and the plug which pushes the missile out, before it ignites it's engine above-deck. Arranged in 5 cell rows, each row is angled a few degrees to port or starboard, to prevent a missile that doesn't ignite from falling onto the deck.
The whole system takes up more space because the ship needs extra reinforcements, and each tube is basically a complete singular unit on it's own: a low velocity cannon throwing a multi-ton missile up in the air.
Both boosters are thrust vectored, but MR's booster is small, only intended to push the missile in the correct direction before main engine ignition.



And while I was at it, a ninety VLS cell T43 if, as speculated, the development of VLS happens sooner. This too is the same cold launch VLS with five cell rows that are each angled a few degrees to port or starboard.
Why cold launch? Well, my reason for that is that in this AU, early on in the development of VLS there was a pretty nasty accident with a hot launch system, and that prompted the development of systems that would allow engine ignition outside of the ship.

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Would you please not eat my gun...