|
|
|
Type 22 Class (1979) FG Frigate |
|
| A total of 14 type
22's were built for the Royal Navy in three separate groups.
The original design was for a specialised ASW warship to replace the successful Leander Class frigates. The result was a much larger ship than the Leander's which had the distinction of being the first RN ship without a gun as part of the main armament. The first four commissioned between 1979 and 1982, with both Brilliant and Broadsword seeing action in the Falklands War. Where their Seawolf missile system proved to be extremely effective. All have been retired and sold to Brazil. The second batch of four, entered service between 1984 and 1988, with the last two being named after Type 42 destroyers which were lost in action during the Falklands War. Compared to Batch one, these had a hull lengthened by 55ft, introduced the Type 2031 Towed Array Sonar, and had Spey SM1 engines instead of Olympus TM.3B ones. The third and final batch of four, were a considerable advance and incorporated lessons learned from the Falklands War. They kept the lengthened hull of batch two which mounted a 4.5in (115mm) Mk8 automatic Gun. Exocet missiles were replaced by longer range Harpoon SSM's. Goalkeeper CIWS was mounted high up on the forward superstructure. Seawolf was improved by introducing type 911 tracking radar. GSA Sea Archer Optronic director using both infra-red and TV tracking was fitted for use with both Seawolf and the 4.5in gun. Finally the hangar flight deck aft were enlarged to allow the operation of one Merlin HM1 ASW helicopter (new) or two Lynx helicopters (the previous standard). These changes have made the batch 3 Type 22's powerful and effective general-purpose warships.
|
- Class Ship Outside Links - References |
|
This page last edited -
06 September, 2012.
Copyright © Ian M King, except where otherwise indicated. |
|
