Shipbucket

In the early sixties, RAN was looking for a cheap light destroyer (DDL) to replace their ageing Daring class destroyers.

This is one of the preliminary designs made by Y-ARD. A number of other weapons fits were also considered, but this is the only one I've found any hard data.
The entire project suffered from bad management and what to my knowledge is the worst case of Capability Creep ever.
The simple and cheap DDL, originally intended to be little more than a patrolboat turned into this:

In the end, the entire project was canned and they bought Perry's instead.

As you can see, this is a work in progress. Aside from the usual details, I need to ad a helicopter and to figure out what radar is supposed to go on the aft mast. It resembles the SPS-49, but there are a few differences.
What helicopters, if any, did RAN use in the late 60ies, and have they been drawn in RAN livery?

Wiki Article

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Source Materiel is always welcome.

o.o

Capability creep is in the dictionary with this as it's picture. But the drawings themselves are great.

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Actually...I'm kinda confused as to why they'd want something armed only with two 5-inchers by the time the OHPs were available. It doesn't even have helicopter capability. I can understand a one-for-one replacement with the excellent Darings but...it's either not a lot of capability, or too much capability for a simple gunboat (why a second Mk 45?). Though like erik_t said, I guess it's for coverage. Ehhh...my personal pet peeve, I guess.

I can understand what they were thinking with the expanded design though...though, it does look an awful lot like a Halifax.

That looks like the same radar that was in the MEKO drawing I uploaded in the sources section and drew for my Rhodesian version of the MEKO 140H. The original Shipbucket drawing of the MEKO 140 had a bigger but similar looking radar (SPS49?) but the real one was smaller and had that box behind the antenna. Wikipedia says it is the Signaal DA05 and there is a book at uni called "Shipboard Antennas" that has all the technical specs of various naval radars and I can look that up next week. From my MEKO 140H:

The radar is most probably a Plessey design, as Australia had the ship designed in the UK.
In the ols Shipbucket forum there was a thread (cann't remember where) which discussed the same topic. There is also a fine picture in Conwa's book of fighting ships 1947-1982.

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The guns are American and the other egg type radar on the foremast is Dutch (WM25). It looks identical to the Argentine Espora class radar and the interweb says that is the Dutch DA05. Google Images says:


"Eithne with Signaal DA05 Search radar back in its rightful place."

I'm pretty sure (98%) after looking around on the internet that this radar is the DA05.

Because OHPs weren't available at the time. Even if they'd gone for OHPs instead, they would have had to wait 17+ years. As it happened, that would have been a good idea since they ended up having to wait 20 years, but that's hindsight for you.
Plus, the original mission parameters were very different from the ocean escort role the OHP was intended to fill.
They do, note helipad railing.
The idea was to have a number of austere designs on a common hull. This one is the gunboat/ASW (Note the 12 ASW tubes) version, and I've been unable to find any data on the rest.

I can understand what they were thinking with the expanded design though...though, it does look an awful lot like a Halifax.[/quote]

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“Close” only counts with horseshoes, hand grenades, and tactical nuclear weapons.
That which does not kill me has made a grave tactical error

Worklist

Source Materiel is always welcome.

I actually once drew the DDL desing for my own AU purposes, but it never left my vaults.

Its bit different in detail, but it migth help you in some way....

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New AU project "Aravala"

The Australian DDL was started in 1964/1965 (the OHP was not even in design stage then), with the intention of building one in 1966 at the very earliest. The'Capability creep' delayed the program again and again, making the RAN gettin the OHP in the end something like 20 years later.

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Thank you Kim for the crest

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

I will have to say, it looks vastly superior.