Type 80 Frigate
Ever since the Type 12 class was laid down the Admiralty looked at ways of fitting a SAM system onto the hull to replace the 4.5in gun. Such a requirement bore fruit in the American designed and built Tartar system. However the shortage of Dollars in the Treasury coffers forced the Admiralty to seek a home-grown weapon. In 1953 a requirement was made for a missile to arm a frigate to deal with the threats likely in the 1970s! Orange Nell met that requirement, it had a range of 5.7 miles, Mach 1.2 speed for an interception range of 1.7 miles and a minimum intercept range of 1.1 miles. It was armed with a 100lb blast/fragmentation or a continious-rold warhead. A twin launcher was fed by a vertical 40-round twin concentric ring magazine. It entered service in 1961 and the slightly later Sea Cat private-venture fitted below it as a point-defence system. Orange Nell required two radars, an S-band volume-scanning radar and a Q-band CW illuminator. The weapon was capable of lock-on prior to launch or search after launch. Reaction time was ten seconds if the missile electronics were already 'warmed up'!
The simple solution was to replace the 4.5in Mk VI mount on a Type 12 with the launcher but the eventual Type 80 escort emerged a new design. It would later form the basis of the Leander. Armament was; one twin Orange Nell, two Sea Cat launchers aft, two single 40mm Bofors (at the insistence of the Admiralty as back-up if the missile armament failed or broke-down), two twin Bidder ASW homing torpedo mounts, one Limbo and one Westland Wasp in a hangar aft. Sonar fit was one Type 170 and one Type 177. Radar was one Type 965, one Type 993 and one Type 978 alongside the Type 995 S-band scanner and one MRS-8 Orange Nell director and one MRS-3 aft for the Sea Cats.
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Twelve ships were built and were decommissioned in 1981-84. Supersonic Sea Cat 2 replaced the older Sea Cat missiles (the same launchers were used) from 1971 onwards. Several saw action off the Falklands in 1982 downing three Mirages and one Skyhawk.