HMS CAMPBELTOWN

Name: HMS Campbeltown F86
Operator: Royal Navy
Ordered: January 1985
Builder: Cammell Laird
Laid down: 4 December 1985
Launched: 7 October 1987
Commissioned: 27 May 1989
Decommissioned: 7 April 2011
Homeport: HMNB Devonport, Plymouth
Identification: Pennant number: F86
Deck code: CT
International callsign: GABK
Motto: Victoria Fortes Sequitur - Victory Through Strength
Fate: Scrapped October 2013
General characteristics
Class and type: Type 22 frigate
Displacement: 5,300 tons
Length: 148.1m (485ft 11in)
Beam: 14.8m (48ft 7in)
Draught: 6.4m (21ft 0in)
Propulsion:
2 × Rolls - Royce Spey gas turbines (high speed)
2 × Rolls - Royce Tyne gas turbines (cruising)
Speed: 18 knots (33km/h; 21 mph) (cruise)
30 knots (56 km/h; 35 mph) (max)
Complement: 250 (max 301)
Armament:
2 × Sea Wolf anti air system (Total of 72 Sea Wolf missiles)
2 × quad Harpoon missile launchers (total of 8 Harpoons)
2 × triple Magazine launched anti-submarine torpedo tubes (total of 36 torpedoes)
1 × 4.5 inch (114 mm) Mk. 8 gun
2 × 20mm GAM-BO1 guns
1 × Goalkeeper CIWS
NATO Seagnat decoy launchers
Aircraft carried:
2 x Lynx Mk. 8 helicopters (but only 1 Lynx in peace time).
Armed with 4 × Sea Skua anti-ships missiles
2 × Sting Ray anti-submarine torpedoes
2 × Mk 11 depth charges
2 × Machine guns

Hugely impressive ships, so we scrapped them! As mentioned previously, you couldn't make it up what our so called leaders do!!

What a waste, the Royal Navy could really use these ships right now.

From build should read 2 x 30mm Gun,s until 1995 ish , then 2 x 20 mm Gam-bo1.
Was the first CPO (OPS) (M) , these ship's had one hell of good armament. Fired the Harpoon and have the Photo some where in the house.

Question did Campbeltown firer any more Harpoon in her short RN time.

A stunning ship, highly capable, well armed, great radars and sensors coupled to a powerful and accurate array of weapons - unfortunately retired way before her time by a myopic government.

The only shortfall of this class was the limited Combat Management System (CACS) upgrade capability (it was a good system to manage her existing sensors and weapons but was not able to accommodate further upgrades to allow integration of newer more powerful networked systems.)

Interesting point Tomvart, aside from the fact that they would most likely have still been fulfilling a pretty useful role today, do you think those shortfalls were one of the excuses that was used to get rid of them so quickly? For instance with the T23's now receiving the Type 997 Artisan radar etc, I wonder if this would have been a problem in the 22s.

As already said in another post, why did they not keep these four in the fleet and mothball the four oldest 23's? That way we would still have had something in reserve for an active type of ship and retain the power that the B3 22's had. It isn't as though we sold the damn things for a fortune is it!!

Possibly as Tomvart said, more potential for upgrading the 23's? Not sure they would have been a good purchase for anybody else, a well worked orphan class which could potentially be very pricey to keep running after a few years. Far better to have just kept them, put them to good use for the rest of this decade when they would have been getting on a bit.

As this issue covers some sensitive security issues (covering current equipment) I have omitted a fair bit of detail and removed the names of some technology - apologies if it seems a little vague in places!
The main issue with the 22's was the fact that they were not built with the core infrastructure to support Combat System Highways (CSH) (such as the T23's or T45s), these allow the interfacing of the ships weapons systems using a military standard protocols (MIL STD 1553, PrEN3910, X.25 for example) this allows minimal latency when transferring large amounts of data between the sensors, the comms kit, the weapons systems and the operator and do it securely, whilst minimising internal and external interference.
In current ships - these data highways are largely part of the ships infrastructure, for instance many current warships (similar to aircraft) have a triple redundant data highway system, consisting of 3 CSH's, these are 'built in' when the ship was laid down, one in the keel, and 2 others port and stbd side on different decks - in order that the systems can still communicate after the ship has taken structural battle damage - a valuable lesson learned from the loss of HMS Sheffield.
In the mid 90's it was decided that the T42's and CVS would get upgraded digital communications systems, to make them fully interoperable with our NATO and US allies and also to allow them to communicate and coordinate (digitally) with the upgraded SHAR FA2 and MRA4 MPA's. To achieve this, the ships (only the 3 CVS, batch 2 and 3 T42s) were retrofitted with two CSH port and stbd to allow the new kit to talk to other systems (when the ships were refitted), at the same time plans were hatched to run a similar later program with the T22s (as they had a similar system architecture to the 42's - but using a different host system), this would have made the Batch 3 22's exceedingly capable and able to field the new comms technology (and other stuff) with ease.
The fly in the ointment - as it always is with the RN was the costs, the original integration estimates (consisting of several grouped but separately funded projects) for the 42's was way off the mark and coupled with the inevitable delays, the costs spiraled (as they also did with SHAR FA2 and to a certain extent, Nimrod MRA4). It wasn't just the big risks of physical integration of the hardware (breaching almost every watertight bulkhead from Fwd to Aft), there were also significant issues with software integration.....So with all of these delays, overruns and all of the lessons learned - MOD realised that financially it would be almost impossible to upgrade the Combat Systems of the T22 without significant additional funding - all at the time of the financial crisis, the final nail in the coffin was 'That Abomination' the (cost driven - non strategic) SDSR 2010.
A shame really as the 22's were such a capable and versatile asset.
T23's have triple redundant CSH allowing them to upgrade systems as required.