Talk:HMS Swiftsure (08)

Comment on editors persistent revision to claim that Swiftsure was intended to be rearmed, as late as 1955, with Tiger class 3inch/70 twin mounts.

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While serious consideration was made to rearming and upgrading HMS Superb to Tiger class specifications at the time the Tiger cruiser mod and completion approval in late 1954, the option of refiting Superb with automatic 6 inch and 3 inch mounts had been rejected by early 1955 ( source D.K Brown . Rebuilding the RN (2012) and Freidman. British cruisers and a much more modest refit of the Superb and Swiftsure was approved. Any significant update of the Swiftsure and Superb required conversion from DC to AC Power and the cost and time of repairing the damage from the collision with HMS Diamond as well as the cost of AC conversion made furthur work impossible after early 1959. Swiftsure could never have been converted to the new 70 twin threes because its 63 feet beam did not allow adequate space for the gun below decks or its magazine. It appears 20/21 3 inch 70 calibre mounts were actually built possibly as early as the mid 1950s and the prototype was on test on HMS Cumberland by late 1953 but my the mid 1950s the intention was clearly to fit them to RN frigates if the system could be successfully debugged. The US 3 inch 70 calibre mount was under development from 1945 to 1958 and only fitted operationally in 1958-62 on no more than 6 ships. It was a total failure. British problems with jamming were not cured until the fire rate was reduced from 120 rpm to 80 rpm. It can be assumed the UK RN mounts were maintained until the late 1950s for possible fitting to frigates but were eventually regarded as occupying too much space to fit to type 12s and sold to Canada as a result of a change of policy to use missiles instead.RFM-NZ