Comments by "" (@RedXlV) on "HMS Bristol (Type 82) - Lone Survivor" video.

Bristol also seems like she had a lot of room for more armament than what she carried. I have no idea how expensive that would've been, but it seems like a major refit that stripped out the steam engines, moved the Sea Dart launcher slightly so that the empty aft space could be used for full helicopter facilities, and replaced the Ikara launcher with a second Sea Dart launcher, that would've made for a really good destroyer.
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While Bristol is the size of a cruiser, she only had the armament of a destroyer. I always found it inexplicable that the Type 82 was designed with so much empty space and made so little use of its size.
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@jai_is_bnuuying I was more comparing Bristol to her immediate predecessors, the Type 42 destroyers. While they have a significantly smaller Sea Dart magazine, otherwise they're 3/5 Bristol's displacement but almost match her armament (especially once Ikara got retired, since it was replaced by nothing instead of installing any new weapons in that now-empty forward deck space) while also having a hangar for the helicopter. And the Type 42 Batch 3 (enlarged to 2/3 Bristol's displacement) even included room to expand the Sea Dart magazine to almost as large as Bristol's, though for whatever reason (presumably the Royal Navy's eternal budget shortfalls) this option was never utilized. I feel like Bristol would've been an exceptional ship for her era if all that empty deck space aft had been utilized for a hangar (given her greater beam than the Type 42s possibly even hangars for 2 Lynxes) while raising the Sea Dart launcher so that it fires over the top of the hangar. Then replacing the Ikara launcher with a second Sea Dart launcher forward. Also, given that Sea Dart and ASROC are very similar in both length and diameter, it seems as if it wouldn't have been that difficult to modify the Sea Dart launcher to be compatible with both missiles (like what the US Navy later did with Standard MR and ASROC with the Mark 26 launcher). And instead of installing new steam turbines after they were destroyed in that original fire, just replace them with another pair of Olympus gas turbines.
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Had even just the initial pair of the carriers been built, there never would've been a Falklands War. Argentina would've never dared to pick a fight with a Royal Navy that powerful. It would also be interesting to see how the Royal Navy handled replacing the Phantoms when the time came. Would they have made a "Sea Tornado"? Bought some F-14s? Just held out with the Phantoms into the 90s and replaced it with a "Sea Typhoon"?
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VLS cells make modern warships look empty.
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@Ensign_Cthulhu It's a pity, she had so much room for upgrade that was never utilized. And similarly, the Manchesters (Type 42 Batch 3) also had room for 37 Sea Darts but never utilized it, spending their whole careers carrying the same 22 as the Sheffields. So many Cold War to modern era Royal Navy warships have fallen short of what they could've been because of lack of budget.
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