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HMAS DERWENT [II], before a 'Stinks To High heaven' half-life at Williamstown Naval Dockyard. Photo HMAS CERBERUS Museum.
2486. Here is the RAN Seapower Center's description of the half-life modernisation work done on HMAS DERWENT, and which took the Williamstown Naval Dockyard in Melbourne from July 3 1981 to May 6, 1985 to achieve.
,
The most obvious change to HMAS DERWENT, the Seapower centre says, was Williamstown's removal of the LWO 2 search radar from the foremast to a position further aft and situated lower down.
The MR3 Fire Control System Director was replaced by an M22 Fire Control System radar 'golf ball' dome.
Re-designed masts and funnels were also fitted.
Two triple tube surface torpedo mounts were installed while the Limbo Mortars were removed and the Ikara missile system upgraded.
Below decks, the Seapower Centre says, the installation of the Australian designed and built Mulloka sonar was of note.
Fuel efficiency was improved with steam atomizers being fitted in the boilers.
The 500kw Turbo Alternators were replaced with 750kw Turbo Alternators along with a new electrical switchboard.
And that's it. As we believe we may have mentioned, this is about as long, or longer than it took overseas shipyards to build the BISMARCK, HMS HOOD, or the Japanese super-battleship HIJMS YAMATO.
Where was the Auditor-General, or his Defence departrment equivalent, the Defence Minister and his staff - the people who were and are supposed to stop the body politic, from being fed upon, and eaten alive like this? Where were the defence correspondents of the newspapers ? Why did they fail to notice and report this, even after HMAS VENDETTA [II] crashed into the drydock gates at Williamstown on her first trial in 1958 - very nearly destroying HMAS QUICKMATCH down below The paper's had a field day with the simple fact of the accident, but failked to nbotice that she'd taken 9 years, four months and 22 days to build, and that her engineroom telegraph device had been wired back to front.?
VENDETTA [II]'s construction time was almost four times as long as it took the United States to build the 45,000 battleship USS NEW JERSEY and her sisters during WWII. All that time, almost 9 1/2 years, and no-one noticed a thing. HMAS DERWENT's modernisation, the shopping list above - about a year's work, stretching it - took longer than it took to build NEW JERSEY, the BISMARCK, the YAMATO, the RICHELIEU, and the HOOD.
Well, we guess that with the Costigan Royal Commission, the National Crime Authority and the dockyard privatisation, 'the system ' did react to what was happening at Williamstown eventually - but it took decades to get there.
Photo: From the Archives of the HMAS CERBERUS Museum, and produced here by courtesy of the Curator, Warrant Officer Martin Grogan RANR. With thanks to Toni Munday, of CrestCerberus for kind assistance with photos.
HMAS DERWENT [II], before a 'Stinks To High heaven' half-life at Williamstown Naval Dockyard. Photo HMAS CERBERUS Museum.
2486. Here is the RAN Seapower Center's description of the half-life modernisation work done on HMAS DERWENT, and which took the Williamstown Naval Dockyard in Melbourne from July 3 1981 to May 6, 1985 to achieve.
,
The most obvious change to HMAS DERWENT, the Seapower centre says, was Williamstown's removal of the LWO 2 search radar from the foremast to a position further aft and situated lower down.
The MR3 Fire Control System Director was replaced by an M22 Fire Control System radar 'golf ball' dome.
Re-designed masts and funnels were also fitted.
Two triple tube surface torpedo mounts were installed while the Limbo Mortars were removed and the Ikara missile system upgraded.
Below decks, the Seapower Centre says, the installation of the Australian designed and built Mulloka sonar was of note.
Fuel efficiency was improved with steam atomizers being fitted in the boilers.
The 500kw Turbo Alternators were replaced with 750kw Turbo Alternators along with a new electrical switchboard.
And that's it. As we believe we may have mentioned, this is about as long, or longer than it took overseas shipyards to build the BISMARCK, HMS HOOD, or the Japanese super-battleship HIJMS YAMATO.
Where was the Auditor-General, or his Defence departrment equivalent, the Defence Minister and his staff - the people who were and are supposed to stop the body politic, from being fed upon, and eaten alive like this? Where were the defence correspondents of the newspapers ? Why did they fail to notice and report this, even after HMAS VENDETTA [II] crashed into the drydock gates at Williamstown on her first trial in 1958 - very nearly destroying HMAS QUICKMATCH down below The paper's had a field day with the simple fact of the accident, but failked to nbotice that she'd taken 9 years, four months and 22 days to build, and that her engineroom telegraph device had been wired back to front.?
VENDETTA [II]'s construction time was almost four times as long as it took the United States to build the 45,000 battleship USS NEW JERSEY and her sisters during WWII. All that time, almost 9 1/2 years, and no-one noticed a thing. HMAS DERWENT's modernisation, the shopping list above - about a year's work, stretching it - took longer than it took to build NEW JERSEY, the BISMARCK, the YAMATO, the RICHELIEU, and the HOOD.
Well, we guess that with the Costigan Royal Commission, the National Crime Authority and the dockyard privatisation, 'the system ' did react to what was happening at Williamstown eventually - but it took decades to get there.
Photo: From the Archives of the HMAS CERBERUS Museum, and produced here by courtesy of the Curator, Warrant Officer Martin Grogan RANR. With thanks to Toni Munday, of CrestCerberus for kind assistance with photos.