HMS Eskimo
Type 81-class
General Characteristics
Displacement:	2,300 tons standard/2,700 tons full load
Length:	360 ft (110 m)
Beam:	42.3 ft (12.9 m)
Draught:	17.5 ft (5.33 m)
Propulsion:	Single-shaft COSAG 1 Steam turbine (12,500 shp) 1 Metrovick G-6 gas turbine (7,500 shp)
Speed:	28 kts (COSAG) / 20 kts (steam)
Range:	5,300 nm at 12 knots
Complement:	253
Armament:	2 single 4.5 inch (114 mm) Mark 5 guns 2 single 40 mm Mark 7 Bofors guns, later; 2 four-rail GWS-20 Sea Cat missile systems 2 single 20 mm Oerlikon guns 1 Mark 10 Limbo ASW mortar Download high resolution version (1200x977, 138 KB)HMS Eskimo (F119) This image is copyrighted by the maintainer of the Web site http://www. ... HMS Eskimo (F119) was a Tribal-class frigate of the Royal Navy, built by J.S. Whites Shipbuilders of Cowes. ... The White Ensign of the Royal Navy. ... Bofors 40mm/L60. ... Sea Cat is a surface to air missile system intended for use aboard small warships. ...
Aircraft:	1 Westland Wasp helicopter
Electronics:	Radar type 965 air-search Radar type 993 low-angle search Radar type 978 navigation Radar type 903 gunnery fire-control Radar type 262 GWS-20 fire-control Sonar type 177 search Sonar type 170 attack Sonar type 162 bottom profiling Ashanti and Gurkha; Sonar type 199 variable-depth Westland Wasp The Westland Wasp was a general purpose helicopter, basically a derivative of the British Army Scout helicopter, with the requirement of being small enough to land on Royal Navy frigates. ...

The Type 81, or Tribal class, was a class of seven general-purpose frigates for the Royal Navy designed during the 1950s that served throughout the 1960s and 1970s with limited service during the 1980s. A ship class is a group of ships of a similar design. ... Frigate is a name which has been used for several distinct types of warships at different times. ... The Royal Navy of the United Kingdom is the senior service of the British armed services, being the oldest of its three branches. ...

History

The Tribals were designed during the 1950s due to the increasing cost of having single-role vessels such as the Type 14s. They were first such 'multi role' vessels for the Royal Navy. They were designed specifically with colonial 'gunboat' duties in mind, particularly in the Middle East. They were therefore designed to be self-contained warships with weapon and sensor systems to cover many possible engagements, air conditioning to allow extended tropical deployment and such 'modern' habitability features as all bunk accommodation. // Events and trends The 1950s in Western society was marked with a sharp rise in the economy for the first time in almost 30 years and return to the 1920s-type consumer society built on credit and boom-times, as well as the the baby boom from returning GIs who... The Type 14 Blackwood class were a twelve ship class of anti-submarine warfare (ASW) frigates of the Royal Navy, designed and built during the increasing threat from the Soviet Unions large fleet of submarines that roamed the Atlantic Ocean. ... The Royal Navy of the United Kingdom is the senior service of the British armed services, being the oldest of its three branches. ... A map showing countries commonly considered to be part of the Middle East The Middle East is a region comprising the lands around the southern and eastern parts of the Mediterranean Sea, a territory that extends from the eastern Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf. ...

Design

They were the first class of the Royal Navy to be designed from the start to operate a helicopter and the first small escorts to carry a long-range air search radar, the Type 965 with a single 'rake' AKE-1 antennae. They were armed with two 4.5 inch Mark 5 main guns salvaged from scrapped Second World War destroyers. Although these mountings were refurbished with Remote Power Control (RPC) operation, they still required manual loading on an exposed mounting. From the outset they were designed to carry the new GWS-20 Sea Cat anti-aircraft missile system but all except Zulu initially shipped single Mark 7 Bofors guns in lieu. In the event, budget restraints led to only Ashanti, Gurkha and Zulu being so fitted. World War II was a truly global conflict with many facets: immense human suffering, fierce indoctrination, and the use of new, extremely devastating weapons such as the atom bomb. ... Sea Cat is a surface to air missile system intended for use aboard small warships. ...

The Tribals were the first modern RN ships designed to use a combination of power sources, a feature which had been trialled with limited success in the 1930s in the minelayer HMS Adventure. An additive mix of steam and gas turbine called COmbined Steam and Gas (COSAG) was used. This gave the rapid start-up and acceleration of a gas turbine engine coupled with the cruising efficiency and reliability of the steam turbine. They would cruise on the steam plant and use both systems driving the same shaft for a high-speed 'boost'. They suffered however from being single-shaft vessels which severely limited manouverability, acceleration and deceleration. At least four ships of the Royal Navy have been named HMS Adventure: The first Adventure, was a coller ship that accompanied HMS Resolution on a voyage to the South Pacific. ...

Shortcomings

The costs for the Tribals escalated above the costs first envisaged, and the original order of ships, over twenty, was cancelled after the first seven ships had been completed. The ships were rather small, at 360 ft (110 m), which prevented much modernisation abd were always going to be limited by the single-shaft propulsion. The class were still good warships despite their cost, proving the usefulness of the general purpose frigate concept, as perfected in the excellent Type 12I Leander class and modern Type 23 class. The Type 12M (Leander)-class, comprising twenty-six frigates, was arguably the most successful and popular class of frigates in the Royal Navys history. ... HMS Richmond The Type 23 frigate is a warship class of the Royal Navy also known as the Duke class. ...

Service

The class served throughout the 1960s and into the 1970s fulfilling their designed general purpose 'colonial gunboat' role. When change in British foreign policy made this role redundant they found themselves being pressed into service in home waters in the 'Cod wars' of the 1970s. They were not particularly suited to these duties however, as they had a hull form optimised for the calm, shallow water of the Persian Gulf and with only a single shaft were unable to manouver with the Icelandic gunboats at close quarters. A cod fishing boat The Cod Wars (also called the Iceland Cod Wars) were a series of confrontations between the United Kingdom and Iceland over Icelands claims of authority over tracts of ocean off their coastline as being their exclusive fishery zone. ... Map of the Persian Gulf. ...

All were decommissioned from the Royal Navy during the mid-to-late 1970s with the manpower crisis also attributing to the rapid removal of the class from service. They were however given a brief reprieve by the Falklands war, with a number of mothballed Tribals being reactiviated to cover ships deployed to the South Atlantic or undergoing long-term repairs after the conflict. Three ships were later sold to Indonesia. The Falklands War (Spanish: Guerra de las Malvinas), was a war between Argentina and the United Kingdom over the Falkland Islands (also known in Spanish as the Islas Malvinas) and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, between March and June of 1982. ...