The Influence of History

The Marine Nationale has a somewhat mixed history with guided missile ships. It obtained its first such ship back to 1962, the same year as the Royal Navy. Further, France has domestically designed and produced two generations of naval surface to air missiles. However, every class of French guided missile ships was cut short for budgetary reasons, resulting in a perpetually undersized fleet, and none of these ships has every fired a missile in anger, leaving their actual combat effectiveness open to question. Surcouf-class The first French guided missile ships were conversions of the  Surcouf -class escorteurs d'escadre. Originally armed with a heavy battery of six 5" and six 57mm guns, the twelve ships of the Surcouf -class were the first French destroyers built after WWII and entered service 1955-1957. While France already had an indigenous naval missile program, the United States offered to supply a number of Tartar missile systems free of charge. Four ships were selected ...

After the initial introduction of guided missile systems on converted gun cruisers, it became clear that a new type of warship was needed as the existing designs were either too small or unnecessarily large. These new ships were assigned the hull designation DLG and dubbed “frigates” after the famous sailing ships such as USS Constitution. That the USN applied this name to powerful guided missile ships while the European navies used it to refer to cheap submarine hunters reflects a historic difference - in the nineteenth century, the frigates were the most powerful vessels in the small American navy, while in Europe the frigates were seen as minor combatants that lived in the shadow of the ships of the line. However, the American use of this term did not survive long, and, in 1975, the USN dropped the DLG designation as part of a wider simplification of its hull numbers. The frigates were redesignated as either cruisers (CG) or destroyers (DDG). Simultaneously, the ocean escorts (DE)...

The RIM-66 SM-2MR in its boost phase One of the less appreciated aspects of naval warfare is how the same weapon can have rather different capabilities depending on the combat system controlling it. The neglect of this point is somewhat remarkable given that the importance of combat systems was made obvious well over a hundred years ago with the introduction of centralized fire control. But this post is about the RIM-66/RIM-67/RIM-156 SM-2 - the mainstay of Western naval air defense. This missile has been integrated with a variety of combat systems including Aegis, Terrier, and Tartar, as well as several foreign systems, but it actually functions in rather different ways depending on which system is controlling it. As is widely known, SM-2 represented a massive advance over its predecessor (SM-1) because of its use of a programmable autopilot. This allowed SM-2 to fly a more efficient ballistic trajectory, almost doubling its range, as well as time share illuminators, allowing a...

Gyatt (DDG-1) The United States Navy’s first guided missile destroyer was the converted  Gearing -class destroyer  Gyatt (originally given the designation DDG-712 during her conversion, she was renumbered DDG-1 five months after recommissioning). Gyatt rejoined the fleet in 1956 with a Mk8 twin arm Terrier launcher and a fourteen round magazine replacing her torpedoes and aft 5" mount. However, she was always something of a test platform to determine the practicality of putting missiles on destroyers and in 1962, just six years after recommissioning, the Terrier launcher was removed and Gyatt reverted to her original destroyer designation Gyatt (DDG-712) in 1956: 14x Terrier Charles F. Adams-class While Gyatt conversion had tried to put too big a missile on too small a ship, the Navy still desired guided missile destroyers and the development of the smaller Tartar missile made it possible. The first purpose built guided missile destroyers were the Charles F. Adams -...

Since the end of World War II, Japan has been one of America's closest allies and the recipient of some of the most advanced weapons the United States could offer. Naval forces have been no exception, and the Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force has a rich history of guided missile ships. As the title says, this post will only cover the air warfare ships of the JMSDF, while the armaments of its other warships will be detailed at a later date. Amatsukaze Japan's first guided missile ship was the destroyer Amatsukaze in 1965. She was armed with a single rail Mk 13 launcher for Tartar, and carried a total of 40 missiles. This was the same armament as the American Farragut -class that had commissioned 1959, and Amatsukaze  was the first foreign vessel built with Tartar. While she was considered highly successful, her high cost meant that she was the only ship of her class. Amatsukaze in 1965: 40x Tartar As Japan's sole guided missile ship for over a decade, Amatsukaze ...

The United States Navy's first four classes of guided missile cruisers were conversions of WWII-era gun cruisers of the Baltimore , Cleveland , and Oregon City -classes and were armed with the first-generation Terrier, Talos, and Tartar missiles . While short lived and and ultimately a dead end in warship design, these vessels were revolutionary when commissioned. Boston-class The two ships of the  Boston -class were converted from Baltimore -class heavy cruisers to become the world's first operational guided missile warships. They retained much of their original gun armament, losing only their rearmost 8" and 5" turrets. These two turrets were replaced with a pair of twin rail Mk 4 launchers with magazines for a staggering one-hundred and forty-four Terrier missiles. Boston in 1955: 144x Terrier Galveston-class and Providence-class The next round of cruiser conversions switched to the smaller but more numerous Cleveland -class light cruisers. Six ships were con...

After having examined the incredible effectiveness of even an early guided missile ship in surface warfare  a few days ago, I became interested in creating a chart of the growth of the US Navy's guided missile force to compare with the decline of the US Navy's battleship and gun cruiser fleet that I made last month. The USN Guided Missile Fleet Before comparing the two, let's look at the missile chart as it has some interesting information. For some additional detail I broke the ships down by launcher - the Terrier and Tartar categories also include Standard ER and Standard MR, respectively, while the Standard category only covers VLS ships (which, it should be remembered, didn't have an ER missile until 1999). Unfortunately, I don't have good information on the exact dates the Perry's lost their Mk 13 launchers so the final 3 years of Tarter are merely a best guess based on available information. Chart of all commissioned US Navy guided missile ships (195...