page_title: Tiger-class cruiser
section_title: Conversions
hierarchical_section_title: Tiger-class cruiser / Conversions
caption_attribution_description: English: The Royal Navy cruiser HMS Blake (C99) and the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Nimitz (CVN-68) operate in the English Channel during Operation "NIMEX" on 4 October 1975.
context_page_description: The Tiger-class cruisers were the last class all-gun cruisers completed for the British Royal Navy. They came from an order of eight Minotaur-class cruisers ordered in 1941–2, work on the second group of three ships being effectively suspended in mid-1944. The cruisers were finally completed in a changed design, after a very long delay, entering service in the 1960s as the Tiger-class.
  Amid cancellations of warship due to necessary post-war austerity the three hulls available for finishing, but reconstruction was delayed by both the Korean War and the Suez Crisis. By the time final approval was given to complete them as interim anti-aircraft cruisers in November 1954, the hulls and machinery were out of date. The guided-missile equipped County-class destroyers were ordered less than two years later, in 1956, and entered service only four years after HMS Tiger. The completion of the Tigers was political as was their later retention as anti-submarine helicopters carriers: they maintained a few more large ships and command positions, allowing the institutional structure of the old carrier-and-cruiser Royal Navy to be preserved.
context_section_description: By 1964 the Conservative Government and half the naval staff saw the Tigers as no longer affordable or credible in the surface combat or fleet air defence role, and would have preferred to decommission them but technically they were only three years old, built at immense expense, which made scrapping them politically impossible. They approved conversion into helicopter carriers; carrying Westland Wessex helicopters primarily to land troops in Marine operations. A large hangar replaced the 'Y' turret, the forward turrets were retained for gunfire support and anti-surface vessel warfare. Intended provide extra powerful vessels to support and conduct amphibious operations east of Suez where it was difficult logistically for the Royal Navy to sustain even one operational carrier and one commando carrier in 1963–64. The original plan retained the full three twin 3-inch mounts or CIWS with full update of the sonar and radar including 965M AW but replacing the 992 target indicator radar with the slower 993. The Army preference in 1964 with the Indonesian confrontation building, was actually, to retain the Tigers with their full two turret 6-inch gun armament for NFGS, To avoid the political problem of scrapping new cruisers as well as the aircraft carriers, the Labour Government elected in October 1964 decided to retain large ships for command and flagship roles and accepted the RN and MOD argument that three Tiger cruisers would in some way replace the anti-submarine warfare role provided in the past provided by aircraft carriers; in theory providing twelve dipping sonar- and torpedo- equipped helicopters (4 x 3) in a 30kt hull with considerable self-defence capability. At the time the Royal Navy was mostly concentrated on east of Suez operations and the anti-submarine deterrent role was chiefly to counter slow Indonesian and Chinese diesel submarines. In theory even one Tiger might be available to threaten nuclear depth charge use and free space on aircraft carriers like Hermes and Victorious for strike and air combat aircraft. However, major exercises conducted in 1965 with modernised WWII-era cruisers like the USS Topeka and HMNZS Royalist suggested they were not suitable platforms for tracking modern submarines.
  The Wilson Labour Government continued the conversion of Tiger and Blake, after deciding on further ship cuts and a faster phase-out of carriers in 1968. However, during the conversion of Blake the plan was changed to allow the cruisers to operate four of the more capable Westland Sea King helicopters, although only three Sea Kings could actually ever be accommodated and serviced in the longer hangar which extended further into the main structure of the ship, and greater cost and forcing the replacement of the side 3-inch gun mounts (which fire arcs were now too restricted) with much less effective Seacat GWS22. The low priority given to deterrence of Soviet submarines in the Northern Atlantic by the MOD is reflected in the decision to convert a suitable anti-submarine helicopter platform, the carrier Hermes into an amphibious carrier. The suggestion of the captain of the aircraft carrier Bulwark in 1966 that Bulwark and the other light fleet carriers be developed for the 'cruiser' role, carrying Hawker Siddeley Harrier VSTOL aircraft and anti-submarine helicopters, as well as troop- and commando-carrying helicopters was rejected despite the argument their capacity was under-utilised. The later advent of the Invincible-class aircraft carriers would seem to add weight to this proposal. Hermes and Bulwark were larger, and offered better silencing and hangar capacity. The Labour Government's priority was to arm aircraft in West Germany with tactical and thermonuclear weapons and, secondly, amphibious support of the British Army in Norway. Provision of nuclear depth charges for anti-submarine, aircraft carriers and destroyers and frigates was limited and late, although approval to wire all the Leander, Rothesay and County class ships for triggering NDB was given in 1969, and frigates and destroyers offered quieter list
caption: Blake operating in the English Channel with USS Nimitz in 1975.
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