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This recent glossy NZ publication (2018) republishes various published and unpublished works on the Royalist including the wiki article in its state about 18 months ago in various sections. Wrights editorial view is the Royalist was an ill advised and poor investment given its poor hull condition and cramped crew conditions which had hardly been improved from WW2. Wright claims that there no other ships using the RN DP 5.25 gun, although the RN still had 5 battleships in reserve when Royalist recommissioned in 1956 and it was the following years 1957 Sandys defense review which led to the RN deciding to scrap the last four Dido cruisers it had in reserve HMS Euralyus, Cleopatra, Dido and Bellona and the final RN shore emplacement 5.25 battery remained operational until 1980 with four new single 5.25 mounts for AA and anti ship action being installed as late as 1955 Gibraltar. On 25 March 1955, NZ National MP, Sid Holland to purchase HMS Royalist or HMS Diadem (which was instead sold to Pakistan and transferred after an 18 months in Mid 1957) after an equally controversial refit at a very great cost that Pakistan was eventually forced to pay, after below cost charge for the UK refit and update and a US quarter million Mutual assistance grant Diadem received a thorough overhaul, a new bridge and light 40mm Mk 5 (3x2) and Mk 7 (8 X1) armament and served in a number of wars with India 1962, 1965 and 1971 the third encounter providing an interesting alternative view to the Falklands and Gulf of how 1950s UK frigates, cruisers and RAF and RN carrier borne aircraft would fare in conflict. It is generally recorded that Diadem was reduced to a training ship in 1961, but more accurate accounts suggest that the complexity of the Dido AD cruisers was such that they were something of the first 'hot' ships and could not really be turned off and like the Royalist could only be briefly refitted and during, refits and disputes in Pakistan about whether the massive investment in the controversial cruiser was justified, it had to be half manned, and when returned to service in 1962-63 it was again an operational warship. Retired Australian Admiral James Goldrick wrote extensively about the Diadem in his book on the Indian, Pakistan, Ceylon and Bengal Navies and the Diadem is something of a parallel story to Royalist the final 1944 Dido partly being rejected in 1946 and 1955 by the RNZN because one of its 5.25 turrets was electrically rather than hydralic powered and the Brtish navies could never make up there mind, the final 3 Tiger cruisers being H/H, E/H and E/E for HMS Blake. Diadem bombardment performance backing the DD Day invasion with HMS Belfast was an impressive debut.

Wright repeats the claim that Rear Admiral Peter Phipps is reputed to have made that the HMNZS Royalist lacked the range to reach Tahiti. The original

NZ News Herald reports on 21/12/ 56 in the Auckland weekly news reprint is that what he said was that it could not reach Panama unrefueled from Auckland. Secondly in Mr Gerry Wrights previous work on HMNZS Blackpool, Blackpool is recorded as draining its fuel tanks to just make the 2500nm transit from Pearl Harbour to San Diego at 15knots cruising speed where the log of the Royalist 1965 voyage out to Pearl Harbour shows its speed throughout the 3200 mile longer transit from Suva to Pearl Harbour at 18/19K.

Phipps claims that Royalists 5.25 guns were inadequate to counter raiders. Given WW2 type German raiders lacked fire control of any sophistication it would surely be truer that if the Commonwealth cruiser was armoured it would make little difference if had a main armament of 6 inch, 5.25 or 4.5 destroyer main armament. The effectiveness of German raiders during WW2 was partly because the officers were usually elite Kreigsmarine officers, who had chosen the Raiders because the Kreigsmarine considered a raider post and command the best way to actually get surface action and because in Germany it was considered Hitler wanted the Kriegsmarine battlecruisers and cruisers only for show, and did not intend to risk them in combat and had expected the British and French to surrender or rather abandon their opposition with no or little fight. The South Pacific Raider operations like Rommel Afrika Corp were essentially diversionary and intended to tie down allied forces and cruisers. It is arguable and speculated that the Kreigmarine target were actually far more 'cruisers' regardless of what specific orders that Hitler and Raeder had given, as they were often disobeyed. Other than HMAS Sydney other RN cruisers like Dorchester were nearly entrapped. Hennesey and Jinks. The Silent Deep has interesting speculation on the attitude of Kreigsmarine officers and their aims and motivations. In terms of warship raiders, it appears the post war Soviet Chapevs and Sverdlovs were partly intended to play a similar role to the WW2 Kreigsmarine, battlecruisers and armoured cruisers like Graf Spee, given the Sverdlov were near 20,000 displacement and had 6 inch armour on their 6 inch triple turrets and belt, no cruiser may have been the answer. The RN view post war however was the expected standard of the Soviet fleet would be low and a pair of 4.5 gunned Daring Destroyers or even a pair of Type 41 diesels with two twin 4.5 inch would have been adequate. Part of the justification for the Royalist was actually that it might be more of a counter to the Sverdlov transferred to Indonesia , INS Irain than British destroyers or the County GMD unarmoured and with only 4.5 guns. The Indonesians did not seem interested in maintaining the Sverdlov in combat capable condition, but it known that in 1964 the Russian Navy did take the cruiser back to Russia for a refit and returned it again to Indonesia in a combat capable condition and that Indonesia also had a few ex Soviet destroyers with 5.1 cars. These ships were sufficiently daunting as an indication to the Netherlands who had been prepared to send one of its two cruisers into the area to defend West Irian that the Netherlands agreed to withdraw it force and effectively concede Papua. The RN had no other cruiser available other than Royalist to run with its carrier forces as HMS Blake and HMS Belfast were both placed in reserve in 1965 and HMS Lion suffered a boiler explosion in late 1963 and was forced to return to the UK and was never combat ready. Withour the Tigers the RN probably really needed the Royalist at least for show. The Royalists modernisation was only expected to cover a lifespan of 6 years and the expected lifespan of a war built Dido or Colony cruiser was no more than 20 years the usual age of their withdrawal and it was to be expected the accuracy of the AA gun alignment in Royalists Mk 6 275 directors would deteriorate from mid 1963 as they did. The real question would have to be why the Holyoake government did not take out another interim lease of a Daring destroyer known to have been recently refitted, available and fitted with new fire control MRS3 in the case of HMS Defender. Unless of course HMNZS Royalist provided more impressive display deterence given the known inadequacy of the carrier aircraft provided by the RN during the confrontation the Sea Vixen and Scimitar and limitations of the Mk 1 Buccanear. Properly considered there may have been very good reasons for having the Royalist turn up. Wright prints a lot of dubious NZ/ UK Foreign office comment, much of it obviously disingeneous and misinformed. Historically it is clear the British MOD and RN dismissed Egypt, Indonesia and Argentina as bunches of wops who would not dare to challenge the RN force and if they did. Like wise Russia had been assumed to be unable to fight the German Army effectively. In the actuality. In two days in the battle of Moscow 5/7 December 1941 there proved no doubt who was the greatest army in the world when the T34 forces of Rossovolinsky and Zurkov, Guards units and NK shock troops and their rockets destroyed the best German and SS armies killing a million elite German troops and Hitler sensing he had lost declared war on the United States . The point is that the Egyptian Badger and Mig planes could easily have suddenly have been in the hands of Russian pilots just as in November 1950 in North Korea ,MacArthur found himself facing the Chinese Army with the Russian pilots in the Migs giving ground support to the North Korean and Chinese Army.The apparent unstoppable power of the Russian and Chinese Army considered with the limitationsions of the British WW2 army made the Churchill, MacMillan and Eden government sceptical of the realism of future conventional war or fighting the Soviets and the Royalist was about the most advanced serious surface gunship the Tory Cabinet would look at. It can not be assumed that he apparent threat to the RN/ RNZN taskforce of the Israeli AF force represented a greater threat than Egypt's fighter and bombers which could in a crisis have Russian pilots. The idea that Israel would ever have launched against the full Royal Navy or French Navy in 1956 is a diplomatic fiction.

The triple Mk 6 inch and twin 4 inch cruiser weapons used by other RN cruisers in the 1950s saw only a few more years service in the RN. The 5.25 turrets were more modern and accurate and required 60 crew per turret cf with 90 for a Mk 23 triple 6. The twin $ inch was obsolete and inaccurate

The Royalist and Dido conversions were considered prototype cruiser destroyers by the RN in 1949 and the late 1940s view in Britain was that anti sub frigates and minesweepers should be all the Navy required. Given the immediate requirements of the Korean war and the UK Treasury restricting any cruiser to 370O ton dimensions of he USS Mitcher the HMS Royalist conversion was a rare major surface warship that could go forward after the success of the similar update of USS Juneau in a unique and rather too succesful USN conversion in 1951 with modern AA radar for 12 5inch guns and 14 twin 3/50 the Juneau outshooting the USS Worchester and early Terrier ships. The decade of problems with Sea Slug and Terrier/Tartar in the USA meant the AA success on test against Jet drones of the Royalist/ Juneau made them a very unwanted development which the RN & USN wanted out of the way. The Royalist was successful against multiple meteor jet drones while Seaslug managed comparable performance tests against slower Firefly drones. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.48.175.44 (talk) 00:09, 2 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Suggest you break it down into short specific issues with room to discuss each. GraemeLeggett (talk) 20:06, 10 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This article has essentially been written by me since 2011. My decision to write and edit of the RN/RNZN cold war ship articles followed the development of the Key government and their review of the new OPV class, cut in naval officer pay rates and fuel allocation. Essentially the Key government had decided to violate the basic requirement post ANZUS of maintaining any credible relationship with the US and chance of resumption of Anzus lay in maintaining a credible officer core which was essentially destroyed by the pay, conditions and equipment decisions of the Key government and his unqualified Defense Minister Wayne Mapp who is now protesting against that vital national asset and tech advance of Becks rocket lab. Also Mapp's Key staff Deputy Minister Heather Roy and speech writer Stuart Boag were people from Timaru, my original town where I attended TBHS 1970-74 and worked for the post office 1975-6, Waterside Commission 77-8, Waimate CC and OUP 1982 ( on the planning of the proposed hydro scheme)and as largely full time editorial writer 1984-5 during the Anzus crisis for about a year being offered full time employment as a leader writer, but preferring to go to Australia and eventually return to uni after contract writing for NBR. I thing it would say it would be fair to say Roy and Boags employment came from essentially slandering me and from their association with Bill English and return on dirty deeds done cheap against supposed anti nuclear activists on behalf of the rapid prejudice of the SC squireacracy of the Elworthy/Studholme Marlborough/ Christs old boys. Editing wiki is a matter of maintaining historical truth which means in NZ not accepting the line of Peter Phipps and Frank Corner. It needs to be pointed out that I have writern on RNZN issues for the NZIIA under Ian MCGibbon and was interviewed for several MOD A0 positions in 1980/84 and of course have met such RNZN planning officers Ian Bradley, Robert Martin, Ryan and was interviewed by MOD officer Chris Rosanowski, son of a Timaru College teacher and close friend of my mother. The reason I entered journalism after getting a 2/2 MA was really to oppose the major problems in NZ the state of the railways and its employment of derilicts and the similar problem and indiscipline and anarchy by RNZN ratings and the lack of any real defence or rail policy under Muldoon. My main purpose was opposing the RNZN/RN submarine proposal signed up to by Muldoon. Contrary to popular opinion I have never met Helen Clark. My father Alan Miles was certainly not mad and neither was Frederick Fisher Miles slandered beyond belief in SJ Harper's traversty on Gallipoli. Both actually did attend Balliol in 1913-13,19-20 and 49-50 and served as officers in WW1 and WW2 in the Gloucester Regiment and in Alan MIles case presumably as a RNZN/RN War service Reserve Officer on HMS Kledive, HUnt destroyers and in the US/ NY Tacoma on prep planning of OP DRaggon. He was offered a permanent RNZN position immediately postwar have been promoted to Lt on the end of ear service. He was a lecturer at Vic Uni wellington in 1948-49 and reinstated in the NZ Army at the lower Army Lt rank in 1955 as a TBHS cadet and reserve officer the unit being closed in 1967 when he offered to promotion to Lt / Col to continue to head it on age related issues being retired from the Territorial reserve in 1970