HMS Cardiff (D108)

HMS Cardiff in Portsmouth, c. 2005
History
United Kingdom
Name:	HMS Cardiff
Namesake:	Welsh capital city of Cardiff
Builder:	Vickers Shipbuilding and Engineering
Laid down:	6 November 1972
Launched:	22 February 1974
Commissioned:	24 September 1979
Decommissioned:	14 July 2005
Homeport:	HMNB Portsmouth
Identification:	Pennant number: D108 Deck code: CF
Motto:	Acris in cardine rerum (Latin: "Keen in emergency")
Nickname(s):	"The Welsh Warship"
Honours and awards:	2 × battle honours: Falkland Islands 1982 Kuwait 1991 Freedom of the City of Cardiff
Fate:	Scrapped
Badge:
General characteristics
Class and type:	Type 42 destroyer
Displacement:	4,000 t (3,900 long tons; 4,400 short tons)
Length:	125 m (410 ft)
Beam:	14.3 m (47 ft)
Draught:	5.8 m (19 ft)
Propulsion:	2 × COGOG turbines producing 36 MW (48,000 shp), driving 2 shafts
Speed:	56 km/h (30 kn)
Range:	7,400 km (4,000 nmi) at 33 km/h (18 kn)
Complement:	287–301
Electronic warfare & decoys:	UAA1
Armament:	1 × Twin Sea Dart missile launcher 1 × 4.5 inch (113 mm) Mk.8 gun 2 × 20 mm Oerlikon guns 2 × Phalanx close-in weapon system 2 × Triple anti-submarine torpedo tubes NATO Seagnat and DLF3 decoy launchers
Aircraft carried:	Lynx HAS.3

External image

Artist's depiction of the encounter with the Argentine Boeing 707

HMS Cardiff was a British Type 42 destroyer and the third ship of the Royal Navy to be named in honour of the Welsh capital city of Cardiff. Construction was started by Vickers Shipbuilding and Engineering in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, and completed at Swan Hunter's Hawthorn Leslie yard in Hebburn. Cardiff was launched on 22 February 1974.

During her career, Cardiff served in the Falklands War, where she shot down the last Argentine aircraft of the conflict and accepted the surrender of a 700-strong garrison in the settlement of Port Howard. During the 1991 Gulf War, her Lynx helicopter sank two Iraqi minesweepers. She later participated in the build-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq as part of the Royal Navy's constant Armilla patrol; Cardiff thwarted attempts to smuggle oil out of the country, but was not involved in the actual invasion.

Cardiff was decommissioned in July 2005, having earned two battle honours for service in the Falklands and Gulf wars. She was sent to Turkey for scrapping despite calls by former servicemen for her to be preserved as a museum ship and local tourist attraction in Cardiff.