Well finally I get to do what I logged on to do.
We looked at the Royal Navies Cruisers in 1950. Well lets look at Royal Navies Battleships, Carriers and a little about destroyers, airgroups, formations and frigates(DEs in USN parlance).
Vanguard like the Missouri in the USN was the lone BB in-commission in 1950 and like the Missouri primarilly used as a training ship.
Eleven carriers were in service:
(3) Illustrious/Implacable class:
Illustrious( Trials and training carrier)
Indefatigable (replaced Victorious as training ship which went into modernization until 1957)
Indomitable(replaced Implacable in the Home/MED Fleet which went into reserve until 1952)
Interesting article on armored carrier decks and the Illustrious class.:
Were Armored Flight Decks on British Carriers Worthwhile?
(6) Collossus class
Vengeance(In the Home/MED Fleet until refitting late 1951 to replace Warrior as troop/ferry ship for Korean War support operating between the UK and Singapore)(then to Austraila in the fall of 1952)
Triumph(FE fleet/Korea)
Theseus(Korea)
Ocean(Korea)
Glory(Korea)
Warrior( trials carrier thatt was recommissioned 1950 to support the Korean War effort as troop/ferry ship operating between the UK and Singapore)
The above carriers were the work-horses of the Royal Navy carrier fleet. Below is their air groups for the war found on a discussion board.:
Fleet Air Arm Carriers and Squadrons in the Korean War
Source:
British Naval Aviation: The Fleet Air Arm, 1917-1990.
Ray Sturtivant (Naval Institute Press, 1990, ISBN:0870210262)
p.217
Appendix IV: Fleet Air Arm Carriers and Squadrons in the Korean War
Carrier Period Air Group Squadron Aircraft
Triumph 7/50-9/50 13th CAG 800 12 Seafire F .47
827 12 Firefly FR.1
Theseus 10/50-4/51 17th CAG 807 21 Sea Fury FB.11
810 12 Firefly 5
Glory 4/51-9/51 14th CAG 804 21 Sea Fury FB.11
812 12 Firefly
Glory 1/52-5/52 14th CAG 804 21 Sea Fury FB.11
812 12 Firefly 5
Ocean 5/52-10/52 17th CAG 802 21 Sea Fury FB.11
825 12 Firefly 5
Glory 11/52-5/53 801 21 Sea Fury FB.11
821 12 Firefly FR.5
Ocean 5/53-7/53 807 21 Sea Fury FB.11
810 12 Firefly FR.5
(1) Unicorn( recommissioned in 1949 as spares/ferry/repair carrier for Triumph in the Far East but could still operate as an aircraft carrier in a limited manner)(carried at least 20 spare aircraft)
Without this carriers support and spare aircraft the HMS Triumph would have been out of action much sooner than she was off Korea.:
HMS Triumph
As for destroyers and frigates(DEs) if the 1952 list is any indication there were about 40 or fewer in service.:
(14-18) Battle Class(four went into reserve during 1950)
(4)Weapon Class
(18)CH/CO/CR classes
HMS Savage(trials)
Obdurate and possibly Obedient
Seven served in Korea all I believe were from the "C" classes including these six:
Charity
Cossack
Consort
Comus
Cockade
Concord
Carriers appear to nominally have been escorted by two cruisers and two destroyers. Although fewer or more could be and sometimes frigates also.
History of U.S. Naval Operations, Korea: Chapter 3, Part 3
Table 4.--COMMONWEALTH NAVAL FORCES, 30 JUNE 1950
TASK GROUP 96.8. BRITISH COMMONWEALTH FORCES.
REAR ADMIRAL SIR W. G. ANDREWES, RN.
HMS Triumph (R 16) 1 Light Cruiser
HMS Belfast (C 35) (Flagship), HMS Jamaica (C 44) 2 Light Cruisers
HMS Cossack (D 57), HMS Consort (D 76), HMAS Bataan 3 Destroyers
HMS Black Swan (F 116), HMS Alacrity (F 57), HMS Hart (F 58), HMAS Shoalhaven (F 535) 4 Frigates
A nice source on escorts and air groups:
vengitin2
Frigates probably number around 50 in 1950.
The Black Swan class were the most numerous by far along with many Loch(ASW optomised 2 Squid and a single 4" gun) and Bay classes (armed with a more balanced ASW/AAW suite: 1 Hedgehog and two twin 4" guns) A few Hunt class may have been in service along with some Castle class as training ships.
The RN frigates in the above Korean war chart were Black Swan Class units another eleven RN frigates served in the Korean War theatre.
The Royal Navy considerd frigates (DEs) far more important than the USN did.
While the USN recommissioned 50 of these types of ships during Korea many were NRT ships mobilized, were Radar Picket ships for Early-Warnig duty off the coast of the United States or were confined to training duties. Only ten were in-commission at the beginning of the Korean War and only one of these saw duty off Korea and that was in 1952.
A couple of reasons for this were:
The usefulness of the Black Swans which had a heavy mounting of three twin 4" AA mounts compared to USN ships sporting three single 3" guns or two single 5" guns but were lacking in ASW.
And the Heavy emphasis on ASW of the Loch class.
The USN DEs couldnt operate well with the fast carriers but the Royal Navy frigates could operate easier with the slower light carriers that were the backbone of the RN Korean War carrier fleet.
Another reason was they employed these ships at foreign duty stations, like they also did with cruisers, to a much greater degree than the USN. Places like Hong Kong, Singapore, Persian Gulf, West Indies and East Indies..
And of course the availability for the USN of a large number of quality. heavilly armed, long ranged destroyers to draw from.
Many of the "Emergency" war built Royal Navy destroyers were built with steel not properly treated because of ctime constraints. So corrosion was a problem.
Along with being fitted in many cases with out dual purpose (or limited in any event) main battery weapons among other deficiencies in AA weapons and modern fire control and aircraft detection equipment.
Training for the Royal Navy still maintained the highest of standards a not lightly dismissed attribute for the serious naval enthusiast.
In many respects the Royal navy also compares quite favorably with the USN in numbers of units differing employment and formation paradigms accounting (along with the above noted reasons) for the relative disparity in the combined numbers of escorts. Approx. 100 for the RN and almost 150 for the USN.
But both navies appear to have considered conciously or unconciously a ratio of roughly 10 escorts for every carrier in the fleet.
The 1952 chart shows for the RN :
Nine carriers and 88 escorts not counting cruisers.
I suspect the 1950 fleet was similarilly balanced and given that two of the 1950 carriers were used in a supporting role probably very close to the same number of destroyers and frigates.
Korea:
" The thirty-two warships of the Royal Navy included five carriers, six cruisers, seven destroyers,
and fourteen frigates."
British Commonwealth Carrier Operations in the Korean War
Cruisers in Korea:
Belfast
Jamaica
Newcastle
Birmingham
Kenya
Ceylon
Royal Navy CVE site.:
RN Escort Carriers Home Page
HMS Campania:
RN Escort Carriers Home Page