Dragon 7071 HMS Sheffield Type 42 Destroyer Batch 1

HMS Sheffield (D80) was a British Cold War missile destroyer. The keel was laid in 1970, the launch took place in June 1971, and entry into service with the Royal Navy took place in February 1975. The total length of the ship was 125 meters, total width 14.3 meters, and the full displacement - approx. 4,800 tons. The maximum speed was around 30 knots. The on-board armament consisted of two Sea Dart anti-aircraft missile launchers and a single 114 mm gun. The unit could be based on one in-flight helicopter such as the Westland Lynx.

HMS Sheffield was a type 42 in the Batch 1 version. Destroyers of this type were designed in the late 1960s and were intended to provide anti-aircraft cover for Royal Navy ships. They were also designed to complement the much larger Type 82 destroyers (the so-called Bristol type). No doubt, at the time of launch, HMS Sheffield had good electronic equipment and good seagoing prowess, but it was far from underarmed and had no direct defense armament, which proved to be a fatal mistake. The unit was damaged in the course of the Falklands war in 1982 as a result of an air attack with an Exocet rocket, which it was unable to destroy with the available on-board weapons. Worse still, single rocket damage caused such severe damage that on May 10, 1982 (six days after the attack), HMS Sheffield sank.