Krakatoa County Class DD/DDG

County Class DD/DDG

Preliminary designs to Production model 1948 to 1960

With the Daring class in production, the next generation of 'Destroyer' designs were to be promulgated. While classed as destroyers, the Daring class had been listed solely as "Daring's" as they were approaching cruiser size. The next County class, in its designs, were bigger than the preceding Dido class cruisers, but much more capable and still listed as destroyers.

The first 1948 design showed that the ships would be a typical Gun ship with steam based machinery. Mk.3 4.5" turrets were fitted, with Mk.5 40mm twin mountings. During the preceding three years the British had been reverse engineering and making improvements to the Japanese 24" Long Lance torpedoes and looked to mount the result on its 1948 design. (In this AU) The first 24" mountings went aboard the later Daring's and proved excellent in service.

While the County class design team were updating and upgrading their drawings, so much designing and trialling of new equipment was going on in the background. The captured German rocketry/missile work was proving more than useful as Britain went through many different models and phases of designs to get missiles to sea. The 1955 design still had guns as the main armament, but they were now the same Mk.5 models as mounted on the Daring's, with 40mm as light AA armament. Limbo had replaced Squid at the stern and the first rocket assisted anti-submarine torpedo was put into the design.

The next five years, a lot of the trials had come to fruition and many more new parts and armaments were placed aboard the 1960 design. A complete refreshment of the design showed only two 4.5" mountings forward. The aft mountings have been replaced with a landing pad and hangar for helicopters. But the major changes are the first missile armaments in the Sea Slug and Sea Cat, long range and short range Anti-aircraft use. The machinery also has a major change with a combined Steam and Gas installation requiring new funnels. Gone are the lattice masts and older radar installations being replaced with new search and targeting radar allied to the new missile armament.

• Displacement: 1948 - 6,500 tons, 1955 - 6,800 tons, 1960 - 7,000 tons
• Dimensions: 520 x 60 x 21 feet
• Machinery:
• 1948 & 1955, 2 shaft, Geared Steam Turbines, 65,000shp.
• 1960 - Cosag - 2× Babcock & Wilcox boilers, geared steam turbines, 40,000shp, 4× Metrovick G6 gas turbines, 30,000shp
• Speed: all designs - 30 knots
• Endurance: 3,500 miles at 18 knots
• Armour: nil
• Armament:
• 1948 - 8 x 4.5", 10 x 40mm, 2 x Squid ASW mortars.
• 1955 - 8 x 4.5", 10 x 40mm, 2 x Limbo ASW mortars
• 1960 - 4 x 4.5", 4 x 40mm, 1 × Aft-mounted Seaslug GWS.1 or GWS.2 SAM (24 missiles), 2× mountings (port & starboard) for Seacat GWS-22 SAM

Torpedoes:

• 1948 - 6 x 24" (2x3)
• 1955/60 - 6 x 24" (2x3) ASW homing
• Aircraft: 1960+ 1 or 2 helicopters
• Crew: 1948 - 450, 1955 - 460, 1960 - 475