Warspite-Class Battleship
| Class overview | |
|---|---|
| Name: | Warspite-Class Battleship |
| Operators: | Royal Apilonian Navy |
| Preceded by: | King William III-Class |
| Built: | 1964 - 1970 |
| In service: | 1968 - Present |
| In commission: | 1968 - Present |
| Planned: | 4 |
| Completed: | 4 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | Battleship (BBG) |
| Displacement: | 56,500 Tonnes |
| Length: | 252.98m (830 feet) |
| Beam: | 35.05m (115 feet) |
| Draft: | 10.67 m (35) |
| Propulsion: |
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| Speed: | +32 kn |
| Range: | 9,600 Nautical Miles |
| Complement: | Ship's Company: 1,052 |
| Sensors and processing systems: |
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| Electronic warfare & decoys: |
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| Armament: |
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| Armor: |
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The Warspite-Class battleship is a class of four fast battleships built and operated by the Royal Apilonian Navy and are, by some margin, the oldest ships in the service. The Warspite had a lengthy design process, spanning nearly thirty years, and had a tortured build program as a result. Originally designed as early as 1938, as a larger, improved version of the King William III-Class with 16-inch guns, construction was suspended before it could begin after operational experience during the Colonial Crisis demonstrated the operational advantages of the aircraft carrier, which quickly supplanted battleships in the Admiralty’s fleet plans. The design of the Warspite-Class changed several times considering operational experience, before the class was officially cancelled in 1943, with the decision being made to retain existing battleships in service longer as an alternate. However, the Warspite-Class would get a new lease of life two decades later, when the Admiralty decided that it would replace the last remaining battleships, the four ships of the KWIII-Class, both in an effort to reverse the effects of the Crisis of Confidence within the Navy, and to keep the capital ship slips of the San Diego, Long Beach and Hunter’s Point Naval Shipyard busy, thereby helping with employment.
The Warspite-Class design was chosen as the basis of this new class, as the hull form and internal structure work was complete and still largely sound, and had been regularly updated as a side project by naval architects at the Bureau of Ships. However, the build program ran into countless difficulties surrounding gear, equipment and parts on a scale which hadn’t been produced in twenty-years, and the class encountered a significant amount of political resistance centred around the high cost of the ships and their manning requirements, as well as claims of obsolescence. However, the sheer number of jobs that the build program was maintaining, not to mention the prestige these ships represented for the Navy, resulted in their survival. Given the half a century of service these ships have given to the Kingdom, the Navy views them as exceptionally good value for money in the long-run, particularly after a major refit in the 1980s significantly reduced the manning requirements and enhanced the ship’s capabilities.
Design
As originally designed, the Warspite-Class was designed to be a larger, heavier armed successor to the King William III-Class, which it would have been, by the time they were constructed in the 1960s the Warspite-Class represented the epitome of the battleship concept possible with the technology of the day. Originally armed with nine 16-inch/45-caliber Mk.IV naval guns in three triple turrets, as well as sixteen dual quick-firing 4.5-inch/55-caliber Mk.VIII naval guns as a primary and secondary armament, whilst defensive weapons include two 4-cell Sea Dart Mk.II SAM launchers and five Sea Cat SAM launchers, as well as four 30mm CIWS added in the 1970s.
The Warspite underwent a major, extensive refit in the 1980s, designed to modernise the ship and keep the Admiralty’s major investment in service into the 21st Century, and took full advantage of technological developments. Although the primary and secondary armament was retained, if upgraded, the Sea Dart and Sea Cat missile launchers were replaced by a 96-cell vertical launch system capable of firing a wide range of missiles. In order to support these new weapons, the Warspite was equipped with a extensive suite of radar and electronic warfare equipment.