The Cold War: A History by Miller David

Author:Miller, David [Miller, David]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2015-03-16T16:00:00+00:00

Ocean Escorts

Like other NATO navies, the US navy was seriously concerned at the threat posed by Soviet submarines to convoys crossing the north Atlantic – a problem which was exacerbated by the fact that Soviet submarines grew in both numbers and capability as the Cold War progressed, becoming quieter and carrying greater numbers of more effective weapons. The most significant feature of these submarines’ design, however, was their underwater speed, which in the Alfa class, which entered service in the early 1970s, was in excess of 40 knots. During the Second World War the corvettes, frigates and destroyer-escorts used in the ASW role had a maximum speed of between 10 and 12 knots in a rough sea. Their quarry, the German U-boats, however, had a maximum submerged speed of about 6 knots, but spent most of the time at much lower speeds in order to conserve the charge in their batteries. As a result, the surface ships had an adequate margin of speed over the submarines.

The Soviet Whiskey-class diesel-electric submarines which entered service in the 1950s had a maximum submerged speed of 13 knots, but the nuclear-powered attack submarines raised this to 30 knots or more. As a result, the war-built destroyer-escorts, of which a huge number were in reserve, were simply of no use, since such small ships simply could not be designed to operate at the necessary speeds. The inevitable result was a move to much larger ASW ships, and great numbers of Second World War destroyers were either converted or, in cases where construction had been halted at the war’s end, were completed so as to meet the demand for ASW ships. Some forty ships fell into this category, and most of these were subsequently given a major upgrade in the 1970s.

The first post-war design for an ASW escort was the Dealey class, of which thirteen were built between 1954 and 1957. They displaced some 1,730 tonnes and were expensive to build, even though their construction had been simplified in order to make them easy to produce in large numbers in the event of a war. Both the Dealey class and a cheaper design (the Claud Jones class) were disliked by the navy, which was forced to produce a proper ocean-escort design. This led to a series of four classes, which were originally designated destroyer-escorts, although in 1975 this was changed to frigates. All of these were much larger than previous ASW escorts, displacing between 2,730 and 3,640 tonnes, and some were built in considerable numbers: Bronstein – two; Garcia – seventeen; Knox – forty-six; Perry – fifty-one.

All were criticized. The Bronstein class was considered to be too slow; the Garcia and Knox classes had only one propeller, limiting their manoeuvrability; the steam plant in the Knox class was too complicated and difficult to maintain, and all were considered to have insufficient weapons. Nevertheless, they gave valuable service and were effective ASW platforms. One feature of the last of these classes, the Perry, was its use of

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