HMS Broadsword (F88)

HMS Broadsword in Portsmouth Harbour, 1982
History
United Kingdom
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
Homeport:	HMNB Devonport
Identification:	Pennant number: F88
Fate:	Sold to Brazil 30 June 1995
Brazil
Name:	Greenhalgh
Operator:	Brazilian Navy
Identification:	Pennant number: F-46
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 × 2x torpedo tubes for Mk-46 torpedoes 2 ×6 GWS25 Seawolf SAM launchers 4 × 1 Exocet SSM launchers 2 × 40 mm Bofors AA guns 2 × Oerlikon 20 mm cannon
Aircraft carried:	2 × Lynx MK 8 helicopters

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

Broadsword was ordered from Yarrow Shipbuilders on 8 February 1974 and was laid down at Yarrow's Scotstoun shipyard on 7 February 1975. She was launched on 12 May 1976 and commissioned on 3 May 1979.

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.

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.Broadsword was hit by one bomb, which bounced up through the helicopter deck and put out of action a Lynx helicopter, before exiting and exploding harmlessly. She subsequently rescued 170 of the sunken Coventry's crew. She shot down one IAI Dagger of FAA Grupo 6 and shared an A-4C Skyhawk kill with HMS Antelope's Sea Cat, land-based Rapiers and Blowpipe SAMs.

In 1993 Broadsword took part in the naval operation in support of Operation Grapple (Yugoslavia), in the Adriatic Sea. Upon completion on 8 July 1993, a fire broke out in the aft auxiliary machinery room. This resulted in the deaths of two on-watch engineers; LMEM(M) Mark Hunter, age 30, and MEM(M) Roy Ware, age 22.