However the cheaper legacy "Tiger"s were approved in 1954, the Royal Navy estimating completion in three years for £6 million compared with 5 years and £12m for a new cruiser. The new automatic twin 6-inch and twin 3-inch DP guns designed for larger cruisers like the "Minotaur" were approved for production for the "Tiger"s and for other warships, but no other RN design would ever fit them. The modernised "Tiger"s were an interim measure with the expectation that guided missile equipped ships were "at least ten years away" "increasingly floating bull's-eyes". Old cruisers could be reconstructed as more useful than frigates to impress the provinces and colonies. The events of 1956 of a long-delayed and bungled Suez operation revealed that even a Conservative cabinet would not use six-inch cruiser guns in artillery support, let alone on a city like Alexandria. The visit of Soviet leaders to Britain in May 1956 on the "Sverdlov"-class cruiser "Ordzhonikidze" saw Nikita Khrushchev cut off his cruiser-building programme - the "Sverdlov" was an obsolescent relic, only good for state visits and target hulks - in favour of new missile-destroyers.