Tiger Class Cruiser - Design and Commissioning

Design and Commissioning

Construction of the three suspended ships resumed in 1954 to a revised design known as the Tiger class, as the many World War II-era cruisers were coming to the end of their service life. All such cruisers would be out of service by the 1960s due to the many defence cuts that the Royal Navy suffered.

The design of the Tigers differed from the original Minotaurs in that they were armed with two state-of-the-art automatic twin mount 6-inch (152 mm) guns designed just for the Tigers rather than the more obsolete three triple mount 6-inch (152 mm) guns used for the Minotaurs which had been designed in 1929. They were the last 6-inch (152 mm) guns used by the RN. Instead of the five twin mount 4-inch (102 mm) guns designed in 1934, the Tigers used 3 twin mount 3-inch (76 mm) guns, also designed for the Tigers, and which saw service in only the Tigers and the Canadian Restigouche-class destroyer.

The first ship to be commissioned was Tiger in 1959, with Lion in 1960 and Blake the following year, nearly two-decades after the ships had been laid down. They were, however, obsolete, in that they were not armed with missile systems. Other ship classes that were close to entering service, such as the Leander-class and Tribal-class frigates were being equipped with the SeaCat missile system, though only three of the Tribals would be armed with that missile system. As all three ships required large crews, they were decommissioned into maintained reserve, starting in 1963 with Blake, followed by Lion in the autumn of 1965, and in 1968, Tiger too was placed in reserve.