HMS Norfolk (D21)
_HNLMS_De-Ruyter_DN-SC-82-08446.jpg)
HMS Norfolk
|
|
| History | |
|---|---|
 United Kingdom
|
|
| Name: | HMS Norfolk |
| Ordered: | 5 January 1965 |
| Builder: | Swan Hunter |
| Laid down: | 15 March 1966 |
| Launched: | 16 November 1967 |
| Commissioned: | 7 March 1970 |
| Decommissioned: | 1981 |
| Identification: | pennant number: D21 |
| Fate: | Sold to Chile on 6 April 1982 |
 Chile
|
|
| Name: | Capitán Prat |
| Acquired: | April 1982 |
| Decommissioned: | 11 August 2006 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | County-class destroyer |
| Displacement: |
|
| Length: | 522 ft (159 m) |
| Beam: | 53 ft (16 m) |
| Draught: | 20 ft (6.1 m) |
| Propulsion: | Combined steam and gas turbines, 2 shafts |
| Speed: | 32 knots (59 km/h) |
| Range: | 4,000 nautical miles (7,000 km) at 28 knots (52 km/h) |
| Capacity: | 470 |
| Armament: |
|
| Aircraft carried: | 1 × Westland Wessex helicopter |
The fifth HMS Norfolk was laid down on 15 March 1966 by Swan Hunter and launched by Lavinia, Duchess of Norfolk on 16 November 1967. She was commissioned on 7 March 1970. Like her predecessor, she was a County-class warship.
Norfolk is described as a destroyer, rather than a cruiser, because the Royal Navy and First Sea Lord Earl Mountbatten had seen guided missile destroyers as easier to gain approval from the Treasury than cruisers, when the class originated in the late 1950s. By the late 1960s the armament being fitted to Norfolk was dated and limited with no more than the guns of a mid-1950s destroyer and a supposedly improved Sea Slug missile, a questionable innovation, untested at the time work on Norfolk started. By the mid-1960s Defence Minister Dennis Healy and the Labour Government were withdrawing Britain from a global defence role and rejecting the idea of broken back conventional or limited nuclear war in the Atlantic. The Healy Labour defence doctrine was one of tighter nuclear deterrence with the main armament, tactical nuclear and anti-submarine emphasis. Norfolk didn't really fit the strategy and was built to keep shipyards open, and as a low level cruiser for low level defence, diplomacy, third world bush fire wars and recruitment. Eventually such ships could be sold to the third world to aid British interests in South America, the Middle East and Asia where Britain was withdrawing its own forces.
Norfolk was first commissioned on 7 March 1970 and was present at Portsmouth Navy Days. In 1972 Norfolk began a refit to replace 'B' turret with four Exocet launchers. She was thus the first Royal Navy warship to be armed with the Exocet missile system. She also became the first warship to carry three independent missile systems: Exocet, Sea Cat and Sea Slug. Norfolk recommissioned in 1974. She had a displacement of 5,450 tons and was quite a large ship, considering she was classified as a destroyer. She undertook numerous deployments to the Indian Ocean, Mediterranean Sea and South Pacific Ocean. By the mid-1970s it was clear that the Mk 2 Sea Slug did not represent a significant improvement over the earlier version, because it was even less reliable and attempts to develop successful sustainer motors had failed. There was only money to fit new computer command and control to the three other second group County class, so Norfolk was reduced to increasingly marginal and third line roles.
...
Wikipedia