HMS Broadsword (F88)
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HMS Broadsword (F88) |
|
| Career (UK) | |
|---|---|
| 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) | |
| 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 |
| 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
- ^ Rousmaniere, John. "Fastnet, The Deadliest Storm in the History of Modern Sailing". Norton (1993). ISBN 978-0-393-30865-5
- ^ Hart Dyke, David. Four Weeks in May: The Loss of "HMS Coventry". Atlantic Books (2007). ISBN 978-1843545903
- ^ Argentine air forces in the Falklands War
[edit] External links
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