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Type 23 Frigate

HMS Sutherland (F81) MoD.jpg
HMS Sutherland (F81), December 2012
Class overview
Name: Type 23 frigate
Builders: Yarrow Shipbuilders and Swan Hunter
Operators:
Preceded by: Type 22 frigate
Succeeded by:
Cost: £130M per ship
In commission: 24 November 1987
Planned: 16
Completed: 16
Active: 13 Royal Navy, 3 Chilean Navy
General characteristics
Type: Anti-submarine warfare
Displacement: 4,900 t (4,800 long tons; 5,400 short tons)
Length: 133 m (436 ft 4 in)
Beam: 16.1 m (52 ft 10 in)
Draught: 7.3 m (23 ft 9 in)
Propulsion:
Speed: In excess of 28 kn (52 km/h; 32 mph) (HMS Sutherland achieved 34.4 knots during high-speed trials in November 2008)
Range: 7,500 nautical miles (14,000 km) at 15 kn (28 km/h)
Complement: 185 (accommodation for up to 205)
Electronic warfare
& decoys:
Armament:
Aircraft carried:
Aviation facilities:

The Type 23 frigate or Duke-class is a class of frigate built for the United Kingdom's Royal Navy. The ships are named after British Dukes, thus leading to the class being commonly known as the Duke-class. The first Type 23 was commissioned in 1989, and the sixteenth, HMS St Albans was commissioned in June 2002. They form the core of the Royal Navy's destroyer and frigate fleet and serve alongside the Type 45 destroyers. Originally designed for anti-submarine warfare in the North Atlantic, the Royal Navy’s Type 23 frigates have proven their versatility in warfighting, peace-keeping and maritime security operations around the globe. Thirteen Type 23 frigates remain in service with the Royal Navy, with three vessels having been sold to Chile and handed over to the Chilean Navy.

The Royal Navy’s current Type 23 frigates will be replaced by the Type 26 Global Combat Ship starting from 2021, and later the proposed Type 31 frigate. As of 2012 it is planned that HMS Argyll will be the first Type 23 to retire from the Royal Navy in 2023 while HMS St Albans will be the last, in 2036.

When first conceived in the late 1970s, the Type 23 was intended to be a light anti-submarine frigate to counter Soviet nuclear submarines operating in the North Atlantic. The Type 23 would be replacing the Leander class frigates (which had entered service in the 1960s) and the Type 21 frigate (a general purpose design that recently entered service) as "the backbone of the Royal Navy's surface ship anti-submarine force". Although not intended to replace the Type 22 frigate, reductions in the size of the Navy due to the 1998 Strategic Defence Review led to HMS St Albans replacing HMS Coventry, a Type 22 frigate.


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