Dido class cruisers

[Gary]

Hi guys

How do you rate the Dido class cruisers as warships?

Were they a good venture or a waste of materials?

[Tiornu]

The resources would have been better spent on a repeat Arethusa, and I say that even though I'm no Arethusa fan. The Didos were not very good, though they had quite a nice look to them.
The 5.25in gun was certainly inferior to the 6-incher as an anti-ship weapon and was very poor as an AA weapon, so it's hard to see how the ship could be a success on any level. The armor was meager, and the stability characteristics led to a highly vulnerable unit.

[1Big Rich]

I agree with Tiornu's assessment, though I would have rather seen repeat Apollo's for a fleet cruiser and the (briefly planned) rebuild of the D class with 4.5" as AA cruisers. The 5.25 shell was just too heavy as a man-handled shell for the sustained rates of fire of necessary for an effective AA, and smaller than the 6" for anti-surface work.

If a new CLAA HAD to be built, use what became Scylla and Charybdis as the model.

[Bgile]

I agree with Tiornu's assessment, though I would have rather seen repeat Apollo's for a fleet cruiser and the (briefly planned) rebuild of the D class with 4.5" as AA cruisers. The 5.25 shell was just too heavy as a man-handled shell for the sustained rates of fire of necessary for an effective AA, and smaller than the 6" for anti-surface work.

If a new CLAA HAD to be built, use what became Scylla and Charybdis as the model.

Agree. The 5.25" twin mount was too cramped and too slow in train and elevation to follow modern aircraft.

[Gary]

Thanks guys

[nwhdarkwolf]

http://www.battleships-cruisers.co.uk/dido_class.htm

If you haven't read it, or your interested.

The Dido class was good for what it did. They were AA cruisers, nothing more. And not all that impressive at that.

The 5.25in guns were ok, but not terribly impressive at their task either.

The money they spent on those would have been better spent elsewhere, IMO.

[Tiornu]

There were sixteen Dido-type cruisers. All told, they shot down fifteen aircraft.

[nwhdarkwolf]

There were sixteen Dido-type cruisers. All told, they shot down fifteen aircraft.

Hmmm....Wonder how many flew over them, on their way to more important targets.

I do believe that this proves the point that they were not all that worthy of production. I'm sure they were useful as an experiment, while figureing other things out, but still...

[Gary]

5 of them were lost.

The theory of "anti-aircraft" cruisers was a good idea but the actual ships produced were something of a dissapointment then.

[Tiornu]

It wouldn't surprise me if you found a single Atlanta credited with shooting down 15 planes.

[RNfanDan]

If a new CLAA HAD to be built, use what became Scylla and Charybdis as the model.

These two cruisers were merely last-minute alterations of the original design not because they were better ideas, but for a lack of their intended armament of 5.25" in twin turrets available to complete them. Had sufficient numbers of those been available, probably none of the original class of ten would have commissioned with starshell guns, 4-inch twins, missing weapons, nor any other substitutes.

The British 5.25" twin mounting was, at the time of their design, possibly given higher regard than it eventually proved worthy of. However, the class were still light cruisers and in that role, were no less successful than other British light cruiser classes. Ironically, only one unit of the entire class of sixteen (including the modified Bellonas), HMS Spartan, was lost to aerial attack---by a radio-guided German bomb, and while the ship was immobilized at anchor.

Even more ironically, four other cruisers generally regarded as "superior" to the Didos in the AA department, were lost to aerial attack (bombs, not torpedoes). These were the Town-class Gloucester and Southampton, and the Colony-class Fiji and Trinidad. The fact that these ships carried better AA armament than most Didos, yet were lost to air attack, leaves open the question of whether or not a better AA armament for the latter would have made any difference.

Of the remaining four Didos lost, one was not actually sunk, but written-off after striking a mine; the remaining three were lost to submarine and surface attacks, all by torpedoes. You can read whatever you like into these figures, but to say the Didos were unsuccessful, poor ships--even as AA cruisers--is to ignore their wartime contributions and service records. Therefore, I believe the value of the Didos to the RN during far exceeded any deficiencies they may have had in their AA capabilities, and should not be considered successes or failures based on that criteria, alone.

The value of ship-borne AA during the war was only proven effective when it was subdivided and directed properly. This was not appreciated in the 1930's however, and even with the superior AA capability of the 4" twin in place of the 5.25", the best the 4" could do was increase the barrage rate--but not by enough to really matter I believe, and certainly not enough to have prevented the RN from losing ships to air attack.

Note too, that a number of the class went on to serve well-beyond WW2 in the RN and other navies--not bad for a "poor" design, no?

[Bgile]

Good points, but of course postwar needs were quite different.

[dunmunro]

There were sixteen Dido-type cruisers. All told, they shot down fifteen aircraft.

The RN had a total of 87 cruisers in commission, or commissioned and lost from 1939-45. The 16 Dido class CLs were credited with 15 AC shot down, however the entire 87 RN cruisers were only credited with 92 AC kills (5 more kills were not assigned to specific ships) so there was little difference in the AA kill rates. I also suspect that these figures (from Ensign2 Dido Class CLs) are highly conservative, as the RN avoided massive overclaiming, which was rampant in some other navies. The RN also did not have large numbers of light AA weapons on their cruisers until later in the war, by which time their principal opponents had been defeated, and it was 40mm and smaller AA which were the biggest AC killers.

Compared to an Arethusa class CL, the 10 gun Didos had over 1.5x the weight of LA broadside, 6400lb (10 x 8RPM) versus 4000lb (6 x 6RPM), in medium calibre weapons, and 3 times the weight of large calibre 5.25"AA fire, 6400 (10x8RPM) versus 4" (per side x 15RPM) 2000lb, so they had a lot of firepower, even if we restrict the RoF to 8RPM.

[RF]

As effectively large destroyers it would have been interesting to see how they would have fared in a one on one engagement with a Narvik class destroyer with its stability problems and five 5.9 inch guns.

[Tiornu]

One would hope the Dido could squash the ship half its size. A Dido should be able to wipe the floor with any destroyer.