County-class destroyer
HMS Kent at Portsmouth in 1989
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| Class overview | |
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| Builders: | |
| Operators: | |
| Preceded by: | Daring class |
| Succeeded by: | Type 82 |
| Subclasses: |
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| In commission: | 16 November 1962 – 22 September 2006 |
| Completed: | 8 |
| Cancelled: | 2 |
| Laid up: |
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| Lost: |
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| General characteristics | |
| Displacement: | 6,200 tons |
| Length: | 520.16 ft (158.54 m) |
| Beam: | 54 ft (16 m) |
| Draught: | 21 ft (6.4 m) |
| Propulsion: |
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| Speed: | 30 knots (56 km/h; 35 mph) |
| Range: | 3,500 nm |
| Complement: | 471 (33 officers, 438 ratings) |
| Armament: |
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| Aircraft carried: | 1 × Wessex HAS Mk 3 helicopter |
| Aviation facilities: | Flight deck and enclosed hangar for embarking one helicopter |
The County class was a class of guided missile destroyer, the first such vessels built by the Royal Navy. Designed specifically around the Seaslug anti-aircraft missile system, the primary role of these ships was area air-defence around the aircraft carrier task force in the nuclear-war environment.
The class was designed as a hybrid cruiser-destroyer, with a much larger displacement (similar to that of the Dido-class cruiser) than its predecessor, the Daring class. During the final design period in 1956 - 1958 a full gun armament was envisaged, based on a modern combined gas turbine and steam turbine ('COSAG') propulsion unit, as enlarged Daring fleet escorts, armed with 2 twin Mk 6 4.5, 2 twin L/70 40mm and a twin 3 inch/70. A detailed March 1957 study opted for a medium tensile 505ft hull and a fit of 18 Seaslug and 4 special (nuclear) Seaslug for extended range AA, anti missile and anti ship ,.; twin Mk 5 Bofors 40mm were maintained with the future and effectiveness of Project Greenlight (Seacat missile), being doubted and Limbo was the only a/s weapon. A revised, design cover in March 1958, approved Seaslug and Seacat missiles and added a telescopic hangar. While the missile worked, the beam guidance systems remained dubious at range and in rough water which meant 8 fixed stabalisers were added. Advocacy of the guided missiles fit, was was led by the First Sea Lord, Admiral Mountbatten and the Cabinet, despite staff reports over missile unreliability and inaccuracy, and the vulnerability of the above-waterline missile magazine . Final, late 1958 revisions, were to adopt a high flush deck from B turret, increasing, internal space, the cancellation of nuclear Seaslug, and provision of portable fins for the Seaslug, allowed, storage of 20 extra missile bodies in tubular form for rapid assembly and inserted against staff advice, a tight, fitting, fixed side hangar, for the a/s Wessex helicopter, on the insistence of the First Sea Lord . While a flawed layout it proved usable for rescue and a/s when tested on final deployment in the South Atlantic in 1982 on HMS Antrim with pilot Lt Cmdr Stanley and Observer, Lt Chris Parry (rt, Rear Adm) . Lord Mountbatten believed that describing the County class as destroyers rather than cruisers, and demonstrating the apparently impressive performance of Seaslug on the missile range against Gloster Meteor UC15 drones, he could justify a modern Royal Navy and a large number of County class 'destroyers'. While short on the support and logistic spares stocks of a traditional cruiser, they were still envisaged by the DNC as being 'probably' used in the cruiser role with space for Flag staff offices, and admiral's barge accommodation in the 1960s: the last decade when the UK oversaw significant colonial territory ("East of Suez"). Its missile capability had been overtaken by aircraft development by 1962–63, when HMS Devonshire and Hampshire entered service, but in the early and mid-1960s the modern lines of these guided-missile destroyers, with their traditional RN cruiser style and their impressive-looking missiles, enabled the overstretched Royal Navy to project sufficient power to close down the threat of a militant, left-leaning Indonesia to Malaysia and Borneo during the Indonesia-Malaysia confrontation.
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