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HMS Broadsword (F88)
HMS Broadword F88 Tampa Bay 1994
HMS Broadsword in 1994
Career (UK) RN Ensign
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
Career (Brazil) Brazilian Naval Ensign
Name: Greenhalgh
Operator: Brazilian Navy
Identification: Pennant number: F-46
General characteristics
Class & 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.

Royal Navy Service[]

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.[1]

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.[2] 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 & shared an A-4C Skyhawk kill with HMS Antelope's Sea Cat, land-based Rapiers and Blowpipe SAMs.[3]

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 Hunt, age 30, and MEM(M) Roy Ware, age 22.[4]

She was decommissioned on 31 March 1995 and was sold to the Brazilian Navy on 30 June 1995 and renamed Greenhalgh.

Commanding Officers[]

From To Captain
1988 1990 Commander Mark William Graham Kerr

References[]

  1. Rousmaniere, John. "Fastnet, The Deadliest Storm in the History of Modern Sailing". Norton (1993). ISBN 978-0-393-30865-5
  2. Hart Dyke, David. Four Weeks in May: The Loss of "HMS Coventry". Atlantic Books (2007). ISBN 978-1-84354-590-3
  3. "List of Argentine Aircraft Destroyed". http://www.naval-history.net/F64argaircraftlost.htm. Retrieved 19 December 2009. 
  4. "Two killed in frigate fire". The Independent. London. 9 July 1993. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/two-killed-in-frigate-fire-1483701.html. Retrieved 12 August 2010. 

External links[]


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