德拉克講海軍歷史 戰艦指南 219 - 英國皇家海軍虎級巡洋艦 虎號

Tiger class would be the Royal Navy's last gun cruisers. Since the development of the Town class, the Royal Navy's light cruisers had essentially been variations on this theme, the Edinburgh subclass being the largest and the Crown Colony and Swiftshire classes being derived from a somewhat more diminutive form. But as the limits of these smaller ships were rapidly being felt with the new radar, anti-aircraft and other systems that cruisers now needed, various design options were being considered for ships originally allocated to the tail end of the Swiftshire class run. Some large designs were considered, such as the Neptune class, which was effectively a Town class main gun layout, except now all auto-loading and built on a commensurately larger hull to cope with the commensurately heavier systems, but this ended up not going anywhere on the grounds of expense. Instead, it was planned to sell off the last few ships of the Swiftshire run to Australia, potentially using some alternative main batteries. This fell through though, and the Royal Navy was left with a handful of launched but not fitted out hulls. They were somewhat lighter than the last few classes of light cruiser, and as most other shipbuilding ground to a halt as the British economy screamed for mercy at the end of WWII, but meanwhile in the Royal Navy, a confused mess of work was still being done on various possibilities for auto-loading 5.25 or 6-inch guns, the latter of which was carrying on the Neptune programme's work, but this was all ditched in favour of the Minotaur design, which obviated one of the biggest problems of the Neptunes, the massively heavy auto-loading triple 6-inch turret, by substituting in lighter twin 6-inch turrets. This also went nowhere as even more designs, fleet layouts and budget proposals were thrown around. Eventually everything looped back around to the relatively cheap option of putting some guns on the already completed hulls that they had just sitting around and had been there for the past half decade, and so things began to focus in on them, with various designs being proposed until eventually by the mid-1950s, almost a decade after the hulls had hit the water, although in the higher echelons even more design ideas for new cruisers were being batted about, a cheap interim design was intended, until at least new missile-armed ships could enter service, and so the Tigers began to take shape, armed with a pair of twin auto-loading 6-inch turrets, one fore and one aft, plus three auto-loading 3-inch twin turrets, one super-firing above the forward 6-inch turret, and one on either side of the aft superstructure. No lighter anti-aircraft guns or torpedoes were to be carried, although plenty of radar systems were, with armour protection consisting of a 3.5-inch thick belt, with 80,000 shaft horsepower driving four screws, for a top speed of just under 32 knots, at a displacement of just under 12,000 tonnes. Finally entering service as the 1950s turned into the 1960s, the class came out at three ships strong, Tiger, Lion and Blake, the 6-inch guns were capable of a very rapid rate of fire, and were also capable of dual-purpose use, with the auto-loading 3-inch being a fairly effective, long-range dedicated anti-aircraft suite, with a secondary anti-surface role, but as impressive as this was, the 6-inch guns did have a bit of a tendency to jam, if they were left firing for prolonged periods, and they were also entering service just as the missile age, was at last finding its feet, albeit that the ship's guns were, at this point at least, able to engage pretty much anything that flew, even the early supersonic jets, thus after only a few years of service, the mid-1960s would see them taking in hand, a conversion to a new role, this removed the aft 6-inch turret, and the aft 3-inch turrets, leaving one of each type forward, with the aft of the ship completely rebuilt, to incorporate a landing pad and a large hangar, which could at least in theory, accommodate four large helicopters, to supplement the lost anti-aircraft capability, a pair of sea-cat surface-to-air missile launchers, were installed, with the ships now in theory, capable of amphibious group command and control, commando operations, or anti-submarine warfare, depending on what use you put the helicopters to, various issues with the conversions, mostly cost, but also a few technical ones, meant that only Tiger and Blake, would actually be completed, Lion was laid up in reserve, and used as a spare part source, for the other two, the conversions greatly added weight, that pushed the ships over the 12,000 ton limit, and once all the useful gear, had been scavenged from Lion, she was scrapped in 1975, Tiger and Blake were back in action, in the early 1970s, seeing out most of the decade, as the Royal Navy rapidly changed, from a force with a range of carrier options, to a largely North Atlantic focused escort force, with the light carrier Hermes, being reconfigured into, an anti-submarine warfare role, and the new invincible class, coming down the line, both with a substantially, more helicopter capacity, the need for the Tigers, was seen as lessened, and by 1979, both ships had been placed in reserve, they were still there, when the Falklands war broke out, and they were found to be, in surprisingly good condition, this led to emergency work, being started to reactivate them, with a view to sending them south, with the task force being assembled, to retake the islands, however after a while, it became clear that, whilst they could be made ready, in a matter of months, the Royal Navy didn't have, a matter of months to give them, and the potential for one, last cruiser gun duel was lost, as they remained behind, Blake would then be sold for scrap, at the end of 1982, whilst Tiger remained around, until 1986, when she too, was sent to the breakers. 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