HMS Antelope (F170)
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The HMS Antelope (F170) was a British frigate of the Amazon class . She was built at the Vosper Thornycroft shipyard in Woolston and entered service with the Royal Navy in 1975 .
She was sent to the South Atlantic in April 1982 with the Invincible carrier association to support the British forces in the Falklands War . From May 21, the frigate supported the landing of British troops in San Carlos Bay . Two days later, Argentine warplanes began attacking the landing forces and the warships at anchor. Two bombs hit the Antelope , but did not explode. After the evacuation of the ship, specialists tried to defuse one of the bombs on the night of May 24th, which resulted in an explosion and one of the two bomb defusers died on the spot. The fire spread to one of the armories, where several tons of ammunition caught fire and triggered several explosions over the course of the night. The frigate sank in the late afternoon of the same day.
As with the Sheffield- class destroyers , there were also clear weaknesses in the air defense. Overall, the Amazon- class frigates turned out to be a huge disappointment for the Royal Navy. During the Falklands War, the sister ship Ardent was sunk in addition to the Antelope . The frigates were very maintenance-intensive due to their complicated propulsion from independently running gas turbines and proved to be very unstable in heavy seas.
The sinking of the Antelope became one of the defining images of the Falklands War in Great Britain. On January 27, 2002, divers on the frigate Montrose replaced the naval flag on the stern of the Antelope to commemorate the victims of the sinking. The British had shot down one of the four Argentine fighter jets.
Individual evidence
Coordinates: 51 ° 33 ′ 3 ″ S , 59 ° 3 ′ 30 ″ W