HMS Broadsword (F88)

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HMS Broadsword (F88)
Career (UK) RN Ensign
Name: HMS Broadsword
Operator: Royal Navy
Builder: Yarrow Shipbuilders
Laid down: 7 February 1975
Launched: 12 May 1976
Commissioned: 4 May 1979
Decommissioned: 31 March 1995
Fate: Sold to Brazil 30 June 1995
Career (Brazil) Brazilian Naval Ensign
Name: Greenhalgh (F-46)
Operator: Brazilian Navy
General characteristics
Class and type: Type 22 frigate
Displacement: 4,400 tons
Length: 131.2 m (430 ft)
Beam: 14.8 m (48 ft)
Draught: 6.1 m (20 ft)
Propulsion:

2 shafts, COGOG
2 × Rolls-Royce Olympus TM3B boost gas turbines (54,600 shp)

2 × Rolls-Royce Tyne RM1C cruise gas turbines (9,700 shp)
Speed: 18 knots (33 km/h) cruise
30 knots (56 km/h) top speed
Complement: 222
Armament: 2 × 6 GWS25 Seawolf SAM launchers
4 × 1 Exocet SSM launchers
2 × 40 mm Bofors AA guns
Aircraft carried: 2 × Lynx MK 8 helicopters

HMS Broadsword (F88) was the lead ship and first Batch 1 unit of the Type 22 frigates of the Royal Navy.

[edit] Service

While on sea trials, Broadsword was called into service as the command ship during the large rescue operation required after storms struck the 1979 Fastnet race [1].

Broadsword took part in the 1982 Falklands War where, on 25 May 1982, she was providing air defence support to HMS Coventry. A technical fault in her Sea Wolf missile system allowed two Argentine Skyhawks to sink the Coventry. [2] Broadsword was hit by one bomb, which bounced up through the helicopter deck and destroyed a Lynx helicopter, before exiting and exploding harmlessly. She subsequently rescued 170 of the sunken Coventry's crew.

She shot down one IAI Dagger during the war [3].

She was decommissioned on 31 March 1995 and was sold to the Brazilian Navy on 30 June 1995 and renamed Greenhalgh.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Rousmaniere, John. "Fastnet, The Deadliest Storm in the History of Modern Sailing". Norton (1993). ISBN 978-0-393-30865-5
  2. ^ Hart Dyke, David. Four Weeks in May: The Loss of "HMS Coventry". Atlantic Books (2007). ISBN 978-1843545903
  3. ^ Argentine air forces in the Falklands War

[edit] External links

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