Sheffield class
 The Southampton
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The Sheffield class or the Type 42 was a destroyer class of the Royal Navy and the Armada de la República Argentina . The type ship was the Sheffield, sunk in the Falklands War in 1982 .
history
The units were designed as anti- aircraft ships in the 1960s and put into service from 1975 to 1985. They were preferred to the originally planned Type 82 destroyer as a cheaper replacement .
On May 18, 1970 Argentina , then still an ally of Great Britain, ordered two ships of the class. Of these, the Hercules was built at Vickers. The second unit, Santisima Trinidad , was built in Argentina, while Great Britain supplied electronics and weapons.
The Sheffield and Coventry were lost in the 1982 Falklands War . The war also showed the weakness of this class of destroyers, as they failed to effectively defend the fleet against low-flying fighter-bombers .
For this reason, the ships were intensively improved in the following years. The following two series of the Type 42 (Batch II and III) were designed from the outset with improved weapon systems and sensors. During the Gulf War in 1991, the Gloucester succeeded in destroying an approaching Iraqi Silkworm missile with a Sea-Dart surface-to-air missile. It was the first and so far only successful launch of an enemy missile by a warship.
As the last ship of the first series, the Cardiff was retired on July 14, 2005 . As the last of the originally 14 Sheffield- class ships in the Royal Navy, the Edinburgh was decommissioned on June 6, 2013 . The Daring- class destroyers have been in service as the successors to the Type 42 destroyer since 2009 .
Of the two Argentine units, the Hercules was still in service in 2009 .
technology
Hull and drive
The ships in the first construction batch were 125 meters long, 14.3 meters wide and displaced 4,100 tn.l. with a draft of 5.8 meters. After the experiences in the Falklands War, the ships of the third construction lot were lengthened by 16 meters and widened by half a meter to accommodate additional electronics. The combined gas or gas through two waves had two Rolls-Royce Tyne RM1A - gas turbines with a total of 9,700 shaft horsepower for cruising. For top speed, the system switched to two Rolls-Royce Olympus TM3B turbines, which delivered a total of 50,000 shaft horsepower.
Armament and Electronics
The main weapon of the ships was the Sea-Dart anti-aircraft missile , which was launched from a double-arm launcher in front of the bridge. 22 missiles were stored in the magazine. Contrary to speculations to the contrary, this applied to all production series, despite the longer hull of the Batch III, as this only had structural reasons. In front of the missile launcher is a 11.4 cm gun . At the end of the operational period, all ships had two Phalanx close- range defense systems, as well as two 30 mm twin guns and two 20 mm guns. Two triple torpedo tubes and the Lynx helicopter, the hangar of which was at the stern, were used for the submarine hunt .
The sensors included a Type 1022 maritime patrol radar, a Type 992Q / R air patrol radar, and a bow sonar . All ships had two Type 909 fire control radars to control the Sea-Dart missiles .
Ships
| Surname | Identifier | shipyard | Launch | Commissioning | home port | status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Batch I | ||||||
| Sheffield | D80 | Vickers Shipbuilding and Engineering, Ltd. (VSEL), Barrow-in-Furness | June 10, 1971 | February 16, 1975 | Portsmouth | Sunk on May 10, 1982 in the Falklands War |
| Birmingham | D86 |
Cammell, Laird & Company Birkenhead |
July 30, 1973 | 3rd December 1976 | Portsmouth | Retired in 1999, scrapped in 2001 |
| Newcastle | D87 |
Swan Hunter Shipbuilders Ltd. Newcastle upon Tyne |
April 24, 1975 | March 23, 1978 | Portsmouth | Retired in 2005, scrapped in 2009 |
| Glasgow | D88 | Swan Hunter | April 14, 1976 | May 25, 1977 | Portsmouth | Retired in 2005, scrapped in 2009 |
| Cardiff | D108 | VSEL | February 22, 1974 | September 24, 1979 | Portsmouth | Retired in 2005, scrapped in 2009 |
| Coventry | D118 | Cammell Laird | June 21, 1974 | October 20, 1978 | Portsmouth | Sunk on May 25, 1982 in the Falklands War |
| Batch II | ||||||
| Exeter | D89 | Swan Hunter | April 25, 1978 | September 18, 1980 | Portsmouth | Retired on May 27, 2009 |
| Southampton | D90 | Vosper Thornycroft , Southampton | January 29, 1979 | October 31, 1981 | Portsmouth | Retired on February 12, 2009 |
| Nottingham | D91 | Vosper Thornycroft | February 18, 1980 | April 8, 1983 | Portsmouth | Retired on February 11, 2010 |
| Liverpool | D92 | Cammell Laird | September 25, 1980 | July 9, 1982 | Portsmouth | Retired on March 30, 2012, scrapped 2014 in Aliaga |
| Batch III | ||||||
| Manchester | D95 | VSEL | November 24, 1980 | December 16, 1982 | Portsmouth | Retired on February 24, 2011, scrapped at the end of 2014 |
| Gloucester | D96 | Vosper Thornycroft | 2nd November 1982 | September 11, 1985 | Portsmouth | Retired on June 30, 2011, 2015 scrapping in Aliaga |
| Edinburgh | D97 | Cammell Laird | April 14, 1983 | 17th December 1985 | Portsmouth | Retired on June 6, 2013, 2015 scrapping in Aliaga |
| York | D98 | Swan Hunter | June 21, 1982 | August 9, 1985 | Portsmouth | Retired on September 27, 2012, 2015 scrapping in Aliaga |
| Armada Republica Argentina | ||||||
| Hercules | D1 | VSEL | June 16, 1971 | July 12, 1976 | Puerto Belgrano | Active in 2019 |
| Santisima Trinidad | D2 |
Astillero Río Santiago ( Río Santiago Shipyard) Ensenada (Argentina) |
October 11, 1971 | July 1, 1981 | Puerto Belgrano | Established as a reserve since 2004, sunk in 2013 after damage, lifted in 2015, a use as a museum ship is being considered |
Web links
Royal Navy website about the Sheffield class
Individual evidence
- ^ Royal Navy: HMS Edinburgh bows out. Retrieved June 8, 2013 .
- ^ Type 42 , Global Security.
- ^ HMS Liverpool begins the final journey to scrapyard . October 21, 2014. Retrieved October 9, 2017.