Leander class Type 12I Frigate - Royal Navy Seacat Seawolf Exocet

United Kingdom - Royal Navy
Leander (Type 12I) class Frigate

type 12i leander class frigate royal navy

Ships:

Batch 1:
F 109 HMS Leander (1963)
F 114 HMS Ajax (1963)
F 104 HMS Dido (1963)
F 127 HMS Penelope (1963)
F 10 HMS Aurora (1964)
F 15 HMS Euryalus (1964)
F 18 HMS Galatea (1964)
F 38 HMS Arethusa (1965)
F 39 HMS Naiad (1965)
F 28 HMS Cleopatra (1966)

Batch 2:
F 42 HMS Phoebe (1966)
F 45 HMS Minerva (1966)
F 40 HMS Sirius (1966)
F 52 HMS Juno (1966)
F 56 HMS Argonaut (1967)
F 47 HMS Danae (1967)

Batch 3:
F 58 HMS Hermione (1969)
F 57 HMS Andromeda (1968)
F 60 HMS Jupiter (1969)
F 69 HMS Bacchante (1969)
F 75 HMS Charybdis (1969)
F 71 HMS Scylla (1970)
F 12 HMS Achilles (1970)
F 16 HMS Diomede (1971)
F 70 HMS Apollo (1972)
F 72 HMS Ariadne (1973)

Specifications:

Length: 113,4 meters (372 ft)
Beam: Batch 1&2 = 12,5 meters (41 ft) / Batch 3 = 13,1 meters (43 ft)
Draft: 4,5 meters (15 ft)
Displacement: 2960 tons / later 3300 tons (full load)
Speed: 27 knots (50 km/h)
Range: 4000 NM (7400 km) at 15 knots (28 km/h)
Complement: 260

Propulsion:
2 x Babcock & Wilcox oil-fired boilers
2 x geared steam turbines (30000 hp)
2 shafts / 2 propellers

Armament:

initial - Mark 6 gun / SEACAT:
1 x Mark 6 - 4.5 inch (114 mm) twin gun
1 x GWS-22 Seacat SAM missile launching system
2 x 20mm single guns
2 x Mark 10 - LIMBO anti-submarine mortars

IKARA / SEACAT:
1 x Ikara anti-submarine missile launcher
2 x GWS-22 Seacat SAM missile launching systems
2 x 40mm single guns
2 x STWS-1 324mm (12.75 in) triple torpedo tubes for Mk-46 and Stingray ASW torpedoes
1 x Mark 10 - LIMBO anti-submarine mortar

EXOCET / SEACAT:
4 x MM.38 Exocet anti-ship missile launcher
3 x GWS-22 Seacat SAM missile launching systems
2 x 40mm single guns
2 x STWS-1 324mm (12.75 in) triple torpedo tubes for Mk-46 and Stingray ASW torpedoes

EXOCET / SEAWOLF:
4 x MM.38 Exocet anti-ship missile launcher
1 x GWS-25 sextuple Seawolf SAM missile launching systems
2 x 20mm single AA guns
2 x STWS-1 324mm (12.75 in) triple torpedo tubes for Mk-46 and Stingray ASW torpedoes

Aviation: flight deck and hangar for 1 helicopter (initial & Batch 1 = Westland Wasp / Batch 2 & 3 = Westland Lynx HAS Mk.2)

The Leander-class, or Type 12I frigates (Type 12 improved), comprising twenty-six vessels, was among the most numerous and long-lived classes of frigate in the Royal Navy's modern history. The class was built in three batches between 1959 and 1973. It had an unusually high public profile, due to the popular BBC television drama series Warship. The Leander silhouette became synonymous with the Royal Navy through the 1960s until the 1980s. Only two Leander Class Frigates survive today, serving in the Ecuadorian Navy as of February 2015.

Design:

On 7 March 1960, the Civil Lord of the Admiralty C. Ian Orr-Ewing stated that the "Type 12 Whitby-class anti-submarine frigates are proving particularly successful ... and we have decided to exploit their good qualities in an improved and more versatile ship. This improved Type 12 will be known as the Leander class. The hull and steam turbine machinery will be substantially the same as for the Whitbys. The main new features planned are a long-range air warning radar, the Seacat anti-aircraft guided missile, improved anti-submarine detection equipment and a light-weight helicopter armed with homing torpedoes. We shall also introduce air conditioning and better living conditions." The 1963 edition of Jane's Fighting Ships described it as a "mainly anti-submarine but flexible and all purpose type".

"The Leander class have the same hull and substantially the same steam turbine machinery as the Whitby class, but are a revised and advanced design and will fulfil a composite anti-submarine, anti-aircraft and air direction role. The 40mm guns will eventually be replaced by Seacat ship-to-air launchers. The ships are equipped with VDS (Variable Depth Sonar), formerly known as dipping asdic."

The Y160 boiler variant used on the Batch 3 Leanders (such as Jupiter) also incorporated steam atomisation equipment on the fuel supply so the diesel fuel entering the boilers via the three main burners was atomised into a fine spray for better flame efficiency. Some ships with Y100 Boilers were also converted to steam atomisation, HMS Cleopatra being one of them. The superheat temperature of the Y160 was controlled manually by the boiler room petty officer of the watch between 750–850 °F (399–454 °C) and the steam supplied to the main turbines was at a pressure of 550 psi (3,800 kPa). The Leander-class frigates did have Babcock & Wilcox boilers but of a more conventional two-drum design, one water drum and one steam drum, much like a Yarrow boiler without the second water drum. The water drum was offset to one side and below the furnace and steam drum. The two boilers fitted were 'handed' with the water drum inboard on both. Many Leanders had six burner furnaces (known as Five and a Half Boilers) and the output was varied by altering the number of burners in use.

Midlife major refits:

The entire class was given a standard weapons fit when built, with a 4.5in gun mount, Seacat missile system and Limbo ASW mortar. However, advances in weapons systems led to a number of different conversions being undertaken on various members of the class. This saw the class grouped into four broad batches:

- IKARA installation of the Ikara ASW missile system in place of the 4.5in gun mount.

- EXOCET/SEACAT installation of Exocet anti-ship missile system in place of 4.5in gun mount, plus additional Seacat surface-to-air missile systems.

- EXOCET/SEAWOLF installation of Exocet anti-ship missile system in place of 4.5in gun mount; replacement of Seacat with single Seawolf surface-to-air missile system.

Gun - retained 4.5in gun mount and Seacat missile system.

IKARA conversion:

Eight of the first ten Leanders were given the so-called "Batch 1" or "Ikara" conversion, which saw the Ikara anti-submarine warfare missile installed in place of the 4.5in gun, plus an additional Seacat system.

EXOCET / SEACAT conversion:

Two of the Leanders with Y-100 machinery, and five out of the six with Y-136 machinery, were given the so-called "Batch 2" or "Exocet" conversion. This conversion gave them Exocet anti-shipping missiles in place of the 4.5in gun mount, 2 additional Seacat systems, and the ability to operate the Lynx helicopter.

Navigational training ship conversion:

Juno, commissioned 18 July 1967 was converted to serve as a navigational training ship. Work at Rosyth began in January 1982 and completed in February 1985.

EXOCET / SEAWOLF conversion:

The Seawolf conversion gave the broad-beamed Leanders Exocet anti-shipping missiles in place of the 4.5in mounting, a Seawolf missile system in place of Seacat, Sonar 2016, and the ability to operate the Lynx helicopter. Only five of the broad-beamed Leanders were converted to carry Seawolf due to costs (£70 million for each refit) and, as a lesser consideration, to retain some ships capable of naval gunfire support.

Towed array conversions:

In 1981 the Admiralty said that they intended to devote "substantial resources to improving the effectiveness of the sensors and anti-submarine weapons ... This includes the new passive towed array system that we hope to introduce into service next year."

The former destroyer Matapan and the frigate Lowestoft were used for testing prototypes in 1978-81. It was planned to install them on Rothesay conversions, but this was not possible due to industrial strikes. Scheduling then made it easier to fit them on board four of the Batch II Leanders. "Compensation for the additional 70 tons of top weight included lowering the Exocet launchers. This interesting quartet was to have been followed by five Batch III Leanders, but the latter fell foul of the Nott cancellations. A fifth Leander, the Ikara-carrying HMS Arethusa, was fitted with a towed array in 1985, the year the towed-array trials ship Lowestoft was withdrawn from service."

Admiral Sir Julian Oswald said to the Defence Committee in 1989, "in order to capitalise on the really very exciting and important development of towed arrays, we had to get them to sea as soon as we could. The only sensible, cost-effective option open to us was to take some relatively older ships - the Leanders - and convert them quickly to the towed array. We have done that with great success, and the peacetime patrols have achieved some remarkable results, but there has been a price to pay because of the age of those ships."

In general, "as a ship gets older it tends to get noisier - the hull and also the propulsion system". At the same Defence Committee meeting, Oswald spoke "to counter the presumption that older ships get noisier. That is not necessarily true and it is not true, in my experience, in the case of the Leanders because understanding of ship generated noise is improving all the time and our techniques for countering it are improving - our noise monitoring and so on - so, despite the fact that these ships are getting older, they are in many cases managing to improve their performance with regard to ship noise." Captain Geoffrey Biggs said "the Leanders are remarkably quiet in operation and our experience has been that they have made excellent towed-array platforms despite the rather short notice of actually getting the towed-array programme together to start with. They actually perform very well."

Five ships were converted to use Waverley Type 2031(I) towed array (passive search very low frequency) - Phoebe, Cleopatra, Argonaut, Sirius, Arethusa.

The Leander design or derivatives of it were built for other navies:
Royal New Zealand Navy as the Leander class
Chilean Navy: Condell class
Royal Australian Navy: River class
Indian Navy: Nilgiri class
Royal Netherlands Navy: Van Speijk class

source: wikipedia

Ships:

F 109 HMS Leander
Builder: Harland & Wolff Ltd., Belfast
Laid down: April 10, 1959
Launched: June 28, 1961
Commissioned: March 27, 1963
Ikara conversion: June 1970 - January 1973
Decommissioned: April 1987
Fate: sunk as a target 1989

F 104 HMS Dido
Builder: Yarrow & Co. Ltd., Glasgow
Laid down: December 2, 1959
Launched: December 22, 1961
Commissioned: September 18, 1963
Ikara conversion: July 1975 - October 1978
Decommissioned: ?
Fate: sold to New Zealand 1983 / renamed HMNZS Southland

F 127 HMS Penelope
Builder: Vickers-Armstrongs Shipbuilders Ltd., Newcastle
Laid down: March 14, 1961
Launched: August 17, 1962
Commissioned: October 31, 1963
Exocet conversion: November 1981 - January 1982
Decommissioned: 1991
Fate: sold to Ecuador 1991 / renamed BAE Presidente Eloy Alfaro (FM 01)

F 114 HMS Ajax
Builder: Cammell Laird & Co. Shipbuilders Ltd., Birkenhead
Laid down: October 19, 1959
Launched: August 16, 1962
Commissioned: December 10, 1963
Ikara conversion: October 1970 - February 1974
Decommissioned: May 31, 1985
Fate: sold for scrap / scrapped at Millom, Cumbria 1988

F 10 HMS Aurora
Builder: John Brown & Co. Ltd., Clydebank
Laid down: June 1, 1961
Launched: November 28, 1962
Commissioned: April 9, 1964
Ikara conversion: December 1974 - February 1976
Decommissioned: April 28, 1987
Fate: sold for scrap / scrapped at Millom, Cumbria 1990

F 18 HMS Galatea
Builder: Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson Ltd., Wallsend-on-Tyne
Laid down: December 29, 1961
Launched: May 23, 1963
Commissioned: April 25, 1964
Ikara conversion: October 1971 - September 1974
Decommissioned: January 31, 1987
Fate: sunk as a target - July 21, 1988

F 15 HMS Euryalus
Builder: Scotts Shipbuilding & Engineering Co. Ltd., Greenock, Scotland
Laid down: November 2, 1961
Launched: June 6, 1963
Commissioned: September 16, 1964
Ikara conversion: May 1973 - March 1976
Decommissioned: March 31, 1989
Fate: sold for scrap 1990

F 39 HMS Naiad
Builder: Yarrow & Co. Ltd., Glasgow
Laid down: October 30, 1962
Launched: November 4, 1963
Commissioned: March 15, 1965
Ikara conversion: January 1973 - June 1975
Decommissioned: April 1987
Fate: sunk as a target 1990

F 38 HMS Arethusa
Builder: JS White & Co. Ltd., Cowes, Isle of Wight
Laid down: September 7, 1962
Launched: November 5, 1963
Commissioned: November 24, 1965
Ikara conversion: September 1973 - April 1977
Towed array conversion: May 1985 - February 1986
Decommissioned: April 4, 1989
Fate: sunk as a target 1991

F 28 HMS Cleopatra
Builder: HM Dockyard, Devonport
Laid down: June 19, 1963
Launched: March 25, 1964
Commissioned: January 4, 1966
Exocet conversion: July 1973 - December 1975
Towed array conversion: January 1982 - April 1983
Decommissioned: January 31, 1992
Fate: sold for scrap 1993

F 42 HMS Phoebe
Builder: Alexander Stephen & Sons Ltd., Linthouse, Glasgow
Laid down: June 3, 1963
Launched: July 8, 1964
Commissioned: April 15, 1966
Exocet conversion: August 1974 - April 1977
Towed array conversion: February 1981 - July 1982
Decommissioned: February 14, 1991
Fate: sold for scrap 1992

F 45 HMS Minerva
Builder: Vickers Ltd., Shipbuilding Group, Newcastle
Laid down: July 26, 1963
Launched: December 19, 1964
Commissioned: May 14, 1966
Exocet conversion: December 1975 - April 1979
Decommissioned: March 1992
Fate: sold for scrap July 1993

F 40 HMS Sirius
Builder: HM Dockyard, Portsmouth, Hampshire
Laid down: August 9, 1963
Launched: September 22, 1964
Commissioned: June 15, 1966
Exocet conversion: March 1975 - February 1978
Towed array conversion: April 1985 - December 1985
Decommissioned: February 27, 1993
Fate: sunk as a target 1998

F 52 HMS Juno
Builder: JI Thornycroft Ltd., Southampton
Laid down: July 16, 1964
Launched: November 24, 1965
Commissioned: July 18, 1967
Navigational training ship conversion: January 1982 - February 1985
Decommissioned: November 4, 1992
Fate: sold for scrap 1994

F 56 HMS Argonaut
Builder: Hawthorn Leslie, Hebburn, Tyne and Wear
Laid down: November 27, 1964
Launched: February 8, 1966
Commissioned: August 17, 1967
Exocet conversion: February 1976 - March 1980
Towed array conversion: August 1982 - November 1983
Decommissioned: March 31, 1993
Fate: scrapped in 1995

F 47 HMS Danae
Builder: HM Dockyard, Devonport
Laid down: December 16, 1964
Launched: October 31, 1965
Commissioned: October 10, 1967
Exocet conversion: August 1977 - April 1981
Decommissioned: 1991
Fate: sold to Ecuador / renamed BAE Moran Valverde (FM 02)

F 75 HMS Charybdis
Builder: Harland & Wolff Ltd., Belfast
Laid down: January 27, 1967
Launched: February 28, 1968
Commissioned: June 2, 1969
Exocet/Seawolf conversion: June 1979 - July 1982
Decommissioned: September 30, 1991
Fate: sunk as a target - June 11, 1993

F 58 HMS Hermione
Builder: Yarrow & Co. Ltd., Glasgow
Laid down: December 6, 1965
Launched: April 26, 1967
Commissioned: July 11, 1969
Exocet/Seawolf conversion: January 1980 - December 1983
Decommissioned: June 30, 1992
Fate: sold for scrap 1997 / scrapped in India

F 60 HMS Jupiter
Builder: Yarrow & Co. Ltd., Glasgow
Laid down: October 3, 1966
Launched: September 4, 1967
Commissioned: August 9, 1969
Exocet/Seawolf conversion: January 1980 - October 1983
Decommissioned: April 22, 1992
Fate: sold for scrap 1997 / scrapped in India

F 69 HMS Bacchante
Builder: Vickers Ltd., Shipbuilding Group, Newcastle
Laid down: October 27, 1966
Launched: February 29, 1968
Commissioned: October 17, 1969
Decommissioned: 1982
Fate: sold to New Zealand / renamed HMNZS Wellington (F 69)

F 57 HMS Andromeda
Builder: HM Dockyard, Portsmouth, Hampshire
Laid down: May 25, 1966
Launched: May 24, 1967
Commissioned: December 2, 1968
Exocet/Seawolf conversion: January 1978 - February 1981
Decommissioned: June 1993
Fate: sold to India 1995 / renamed INS Krishna (F 46)

F 71 HMS Scylla
Builder: HM Dockyard, Devonport
Laid down: May 17, 1967
Launched: August 8, 1968
Commissioned: February 12, 1970
Exocet/Seawolf conversion: November 1980 - December 1984
Decommissioned: December 1993
Fate: sunk off Cornwall as an artificial reef on March 27, 2004

F 12 HMS Achilles
Builder: Yarrow & Co. Ltd., Glasgow
Laid down: December 1, 1967
Launched: November 21, 1968
Commissioned: July 9, 1970
Decommissioned: January 1990
Fate: sold to Chile / renamed CS Ministro Zenteno (PFG 08)

F 16 HMS Diomede
Builder: Yarrow & Co. Ltd., Glasgow
Laid down: January 30, 1968
Launched: April 15, 1969
Commissioned: April 2, 1971
Decommissioned: May 31, 1988
Fate: sold to Pakistan 1988 / renamed PNS Shamsher (F 263)

F 70 HMS Apollo
Builder: Yarrow & Co. Ltd., Glasgow
Laid down: May 1, 1969
Launched: October 15, 1970
Commissioned: May 28, 1972
Decommissioned: August 31, 1988
Fate: sold to Pakistan 1988 / renamed PNS Zulfiquar (F 262)

F 72 HMS Ariadne
Builder: Yarrow & Co. Ltd., Glasgow
Laid down: November 1, 1969
Launched: September 10, 1971
Commissioned: February 10, 1973
Decommissioned: May 1992
Fate: solt to Chile / renamed CS General Baquedano (PF 09)

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