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The Type 42 or ''Sheffield'' class, are light guided missile destroyers used by the Royal Navy and the Argentine Navy. The first ship of the class was ordered in 1968 and launched in 1971. Two of the class (''Sheffield'' and ''Coventry'') were sunk in action during the Falklands Conflict of 1982. The UK Royal Navy used this class of destroyer for 38 years between 1975 and 2013. No ships of this class remain active in the Royal Navy and just one remains in the Argentine Navy. The Royal Navy has replaced them with Type 45 destroyers. ==History== The class was designed in the late 1960s to provide fleet area air-defence. In total fourteen vessels were constructed in three batches. In addition to the Royal Navy ships, two more ships were built to the same specifications as the Batch 1 vessels for the Argentine Navy. ''Hércules'' was built in the UK and ''Santísima Trinidad'' in the AFNE Rio Santiago shipyard in Buenos Aires. and were lost in the Falklands Conflict to enemy action. (This was the first conflict when surface warships of the same design have been on opposite sides since World War II, when four s built for France in 1939 were taken over by the ''Kriegsmarine'' in 1940.) The final ship of the class (''Edinburgh'') decommissioned on 6 June 2013. One Argentine Navy ship () remains in service, the other vessel () sank whilst alongside in Puerto Belgrano Naval Base in early 2013. When the Type 82 air-defence destroyers were cancelled along with the proposed CVA-01 carrier by the Labour Government of 1966, the Type 42 was proposed as a lighter and cheaper design with similar capabilities to the Type 82. The class is fitted with the GWS30 Sea Dart surface-to-air missile first deployed on the sole Type 82 destroyer, . The Type 42s were also given a flight deck and hangar to operate an anti-submarine warfare helicopter, greatly increasing their utility compared to the Type 82, which was fitted with a flight deck but no organic aviation facilities. The design was budgeted with a ceiling of £19 million per hull, but soon ran over-budget. The original proposed design (£21 million) was similar to the lengthened 'Batch 3' Type 42s. To cut costs, the first two batches had 47 feet removed from the bow sections forward of the bridge, and the beam-to-length ratio was proportionally reduced. These early, batch 1 Type 42s performed poorly during the contractor's sea trials particularly in heavy seas, and the hull was extensively examined for other problems. Batch 2 vessels (''Exeter'' onwards) embodied better sensors fits, and slight layout modifications. The ninth hull, ''Manchester'', was lengthened in build, as part of an extensive design review. This proved a better hull form at sea and later hulls were built to this specification, although minor equipment and hull layout changes made the remaining ships all unique in their own way. Strengthening girders were later designed into the weather deck structure in the batch 1 and 2 ships, and the batch 3 ships received an external 'strake' to counter longitudinal cracking. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Type 42 destroyer」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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