and 5.25 gun equipped classes of battleships, cruisers and destroyer were transferred to reserve, sold or scrapped. Five year life extension refits for Colony-class cruisers Bermuda and Gambia, were completed at half the cost, of a Bellona reconstruction, as was approved reconstruction of destroyers as AD/AW picket role was planned in 1955, using the 1943 Battle class completed in 1948. Life extension of the Town class cruisers, HMS Sheffield and HMS Belfast, in reserve for eight years, from 1959 and 1963 respectively, was arguably, not a good return, on expensive refits. HMS Swiftsure largely reconstructed in 1/1956-6/1959, but never recomissioned, a complete waste. The final cruiser refits were as flagships, NATO command and shore bombardment. The older more spacious Town-class with more compartments were wanted for these roles and the Colony cruisers and Swiftsures the same age or newer than the Dido's and Bellona's were not quite as uncomfortable in the Far East. The postwar RN programme envisaged that Soviet bombers would be improved Tupolev Tu-4s or Lincolns flying at at height, however, as part of the 1954 May Day parade, the new Soviet Tupolev Tu-16 "Badger" and Myasishchev M-4 "Bison" jet bombers were first shown to the public and the West. Flying high at ; it would take 20 seconds for 5.25-inch shells to reach that height. An updated 5.25 cruiser was a possible solution and deterrent to the new Soviet threat, which could not be countered a frigate with a single 4.5-inch turret. Transfer to Royal New Zealand Navy The New Zealand Prime Minister Sid Holland decided to accept the offer of Royalist in Feb 1955. By then the cruisers reconstruction was only half completed , 3 million pounds having been expended by the UK Treasury New Zealand ultimately paid £4.5 million for the reconstruction. In early 1955 Holland reached the decision after a seven-week visit to the US and UK where he met the American vice president Richard Nixon, secretary of state John Foster Dulles, and Churchill who somewhat dimished in his final days as PM. stressed, that a modernised cruiser rebuilt for limited war, East of Suez was more value than modern frigates, for escort duties against submarines in broken back war, In Churchills view a nuclear war was likely to a brief exchange of the new thermonuclear weapons, unlikely to last long enough for WW3 anti submarine convoys to be useful. Holland was more influenced