HMS Coventry (D118)
HMS Coventry
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| History | |
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 United Kingdom
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| Name: | HMS Coventry |
| Builder: | Cammell Laird |
| Laid down: | 29 January 1973 |
| Launched: | 21 June 1974 |
| Commissioned: | 10 November 1978 |
| Identification: | Pennant number: D118 |
| Fate: | Sunk by Argentine aircraft, 25 May 1982 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Type 42 destroyer |
| Displacement: | 4,820 tonnes |
| Length: | 125 m (410 ft) |
| Beam: | 14.3 m (47 ft) |
| Draught: | 5.8 m (19 ft) |
| Propulsion: | COGOG (Combined Gas or Gas) turbines, 2 shafts producing 36 MW |
| Speed: | 30 knots (56 km/h; 35 mph) |
| Complement: | 287 |
| Armament: |
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| Aircraft carried: | Westland Lynx HAS.Mk.1/2 |
HMS Coventry was a Type 42 (Sheffield-class) destroyer of the Royal Navy. Laid down by Cammell Laird and Company, Limited, at Birkenhead on 29 January 1973, she was launched on 21 June 1974 and accepted into service on 20 October 1978 at a cost of £37,900,000.
She was sunk by Argentine Air Force A-4 Skyhawks on 25 May 1982 during the Falklands War.
The principal role of these ships was to provide the fleet with mid-range anti-air warfare capability with secondary roles of anti-surface and anti-submarine. A total of sixteen Type 42s were built between 1972 and 1985, in three batches, with Coventry the last of the first batch to be commissioned. To cut costs, the first two batches had 47 feet removed from the bow and the beam-to-length ratio reduced. These early Type 42s performed poorly during trials and were notoriously poor sea-keepers.
Type 42 destroyers were fitted with the Sea Dart surface-to-air missiles designed in the 1960s to counter threats from manned aircraft. Sea Dart was constrained by limitations on its firing capacity and reaction time, but did prove itself during the Falklands War with seven kills, three of these attributed to Coventry.
Coventry was commissioned on 10 November 1978 under the command of Captain C. P. O. Burne at Portsmouth. Following post-commissioning trials, the ship was used to trial the operation of the new Westland Lynx helicopter from the Type 42 platform, to test the combination's safe operating limits.
The ship's first major deployment came in 1980 when she was sent to the Far East; in September of that year, alongside Antrim and Alacrity, she became the first British warship to visit the People's Republic of China in 30 years. En route back to the UK, Coventry was diverted to the Persian Gulf following the outbreak of the Iran–Iraq War, where the ship remained on patrol for six weeks until relieved by the start of the permanent Armilla patrol consisting of Ardent and Apollo. Throughout 1981 and into 1982, Coventry took part in various exercises in home waters, culminating in her deployment as part of Exercise Springtrain '82 in March 1982.
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