ARA Santísima Trinidad (1974)
Santísima Trinidad
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| History | |
|---|---|
 Argentina
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| Name: | Santísima Trinidad |
| Namesake: | After a brigantine commanded by Admiral Guillermo Brown in 1815 |
| Ordered: | 18 May 1970 |
| Builder: | AFNE Rio Santiago |
| Laid down: | 11 October 1971 |
| Launched: | 9 November 1974 |
| Commissioned: | 1 July 1981 |
| Out of service: | 1989 |
| Homeport: | Puerto Belgrano naval base |
| Fate: | Salvaged after sinking, awaiting conversion into a museum ship |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Type 42 destroyer |
| Displacement: | 4,100 tons |
| Length: | 125 m (410 ft) |
| Beam: | 14.6 m (48 ft) |
| Draught: | 5.2 m (17 ft) |
| Propulsion: |
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| Speed: | 28 knots (52 km/h) |
| Complement: | 270 |
| Armament: |
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| Aircraft carried: | 1 x Westland Lynx |
ARA Santísima Trinidad is a Type 42 destroyer of the Argentine Navy, the only one of her class built outside Britain. She participated in the 1982 Falklands War. From January 2013 to December 2015, the warship was lying on her side, sunk at her moorings in the Argentine naval base of Puerto Belgrano for lack of maintenance. She was refloated and the navy plans to turn her into a museum ship.
The destroyer was built at the Argentine AFNE Río Santiago shipyard and commissioned in 1980.
Construction began in 1973, but commissioning was long delayed by an improvised limpet mine attack carried out by divers of the guerrilla organization Montoneros on 22 August 1975. The date was chosen as a retaliation for the Trelew massacre three years before, when a number of leftist militants, most of them from the People's Revolutionary Army (ERP), were executed inside Almirante Zar air base, operated by the navy. The raid was allegedly planned in imitation of Operation Frankton, a British commando attack against German shipping in Bordeaux during World War II. The attack involved the use of a folding boat, frogmen and a limpet mine with 375 lb (170 kg) of explosives, which was laid on the river bed below the destroyer after a failed attempt to attach the device to the hull. The ship's bottom and electronics suffered severe damage, and completion was suspended for a year as a result of the attack.
The Argentine Navy enhanced the offensive capabilities of their Type 42s by fitting MM-38 Exocet missiles. The boat decks of the original design were replaced by special decks to install the missiles around the funnel, but the launchers were apparently never mounted on Santísima Trinidad. In November 1981 she made her maiden voyage to Britain, where the destroyer carried out her first sea trials, and her crew was trained in the operation and launching of Sea Dart missiles.
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