Tag Archives: HMS Broadsword F88

Sheathing the Broadsword

Posted on by One comment

A Falklands War veteran Type 22 frigate, HMS Broadsword (F88), was recently deep-sixed just after her 45th birthday.

The Yarrow-built Broadsword, the second such RN warship to carry the name, was commissioned in 1979 and saw a quarter-century in British service including splashing two Argentine aircraft during the Falklands with her then-revolutionary Sea Wolf missile system, making her and her sisters indispensable during the conflict.

Type 22 Frigate HMS Broadsword alongside HMS Hermes during the Falklands War, 1982. IWM (MH 27508)

Paid off after the end of the Cold War, Broadsword was sold to Brazil alongside her sisters HMS Brazen (F91), HMS Brilliant (F90), and HMS Battleaxe (F89) for £116,000,000, becoming Greenhalgh (F46), Bosísio (F48), Dodsworth (F47), and Rademaker (F49), respectively.

Although all had more than 25 years on their hulls, they were still the most advanced surface escorts and augmented the Brazilian navy’s seven smaller Vosper-designed Niteroi-class frigates.

Greenhalgh/Broadsword in Brazilian service– still with her Exocet/Sea Wolf punch.

However, with Brazil ordering eight new German (MEKO A-100) Tamandare-class frigates, both the Niterois and the Type 22s are being put to pasture.

Brilliant/Dodsworth was sold for scrap in 2012, Brazen/Bosísio expended as a target in 2017, and Broadsword/Greenhalgh, which decommissioned in 2021, was sent to the bottom during Lançamento de Armas IV back in September.

This included 500-pound Mk. 82s dropped by AK-4KU (AF-1B/C) Skyhawks from VF-1, the first warshot Brazilian-made SIATT MANSUP anti-ship missile– fired from Broadsword/Greenhalgh’s sister Battleaxe/Rademaker no less– and AGM-119B Penguins from the SH-60 Seahawks of Esquadrão HS-1. Ironically, the Type 22s often only narrowly missed dumb bombs from A-4s back in 1982.

Images via the Marinha do Brasil:

There is also a video from the Marinha do Brasil of the HS-1 Penguin shots.

The Greenhalgh/Broadsword agora descansa no Reino de Poseidon.

Farewell, Broadsword/Greenhalgh

Posted on by 2 comments

Following 16 years of service with the Royal Navy and another 26 with the Marinha do Brasil, the veteran Type 22 frigate HMS Broadsword (F 88)/ fragata Greenhalgh (F 46) was retired on 10 August 2021.

Frigate HMS Broadsword, Irish Sea, 1990. Taken by Royal Yacht photographer contributed by Harvey Page, via the HMS Broadsword Association

Broadsword was laid down at Yarrow 7 February 1975, intended to face off with the growing Red Banner Fleet in the North Atlantic, and joined the RN in 1979– just in time to face off against the nominal Western-allied Argentine Navy in the South Atlantic.

During the Falklands conflict, Broadsword stood by the stricken HMS Coventry, recusing 170 of that destroyer’s crew. Broadsword was hit by one bomb herself, which bounced through the frigate’s helicopter deck before exploding just off her stern. In retribution, Broadsword was credited with downing an Argentine Dagger and a partial kill on an A-4C Skyhawk.

After continued Cold War service, and a stint enforcing UN sanctions off Yugoslavia in the 1990s, she was decommissioned on 31 March 1995 and sold to the Brazilian Navy three months later. She had been the second and final Broadsword in the Royal Navy, following in the footsteps of HMS Broadsword (D31), a Weapon-class destroyer launched in 1946 and broken up in 1968. Jeffrey Archer’s novel First Among Equals mentions the frigate and the ship has a very active veterans association. 

She is also remembered extensively in maritime art for her Falklands service.

David Lidd-HMS ‘Broadsword’ Rescuing Survivors from HMS ‘Coventry’, 25 May 1982.

HMS ‘Broadsword’ with HMS ‘Hermes’ by John Alan Hamilton via MoD (c) Mrs. B.G.S. Hamilton (widow); Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

Renamed “Greenhalgh” in honor of Brazilan naval hero João Guilherme Greenhalgh, fragata Greenhalgh (F 46) continued to deliver another quarter-century of service in the South Atlantic, familiar stomping grounds for the warship. The name had previously been used for a British-built torpedo boat in the 1900s as well as a Marcílio Dias-class destroyer that operated against the Germans in WWII. 

Brazilian frigate Greenhalgh F-46, former HMS Broadsword of Falklands fame