HMS Battleaxe (F89)

HMS Battleaxe was a Type 22 frigate of the British Royal Navy. She was sold to the Brazilian Navy on 30 April 1997 and renamed Rademaker.

Construction and design
Battleaxe was ordered by the British Admiralty on 4 September 1974, as the second Batch I Type 22 Frigate. The ship was laid down at Yarrow Shipbuilders' Scotstoun shipyard on 4 February 1976, and was launched by Audrey Callaghan, the wife of James Callaghan, the Prime Minister at the time, on 18 May 1977. Battleaxe was completed on 28 March 1980.

Battleaxe was  long overall and  at the waterline, with a beam of  and a draught of . Displacement was  standard and  deep load.  She was powered by two Rolls-Royce Olympus TM3B gas turbines rated at a total of  and two Rolls-Royce Tyne R1MC turbines rated at a total of , driving two shafts in a Combined gas or gas (COGOG) arrangement. They gave a speed of  when powered by the Olympuses and  when powered by the Tynes. The ship had a range of  at .

Anti-aircraft armament consisted of two sextuple Sea Wolf surface-to-air missile launchers, one forward of the bridge, and one on the roof of the helicopter hangar. Four Exocet MM-38 anti-ship missiles were fitted on the forecastle. Gun armament was limited to a pair of 40 mm Bofors guns, mainly for peacetime patrol duties. A hangar and fight deck was fitted aft, allowing the ship to operate two Westland Lynx helicopters, which could carry anti submarine torpedoes, while close-in anti submarine armament was two triple STWS-1  torpedo tubes.

Operational history

Royal Navy
Battleaxe was at Gibraltar on 24 March 1982, as part of Exercise "Springtrain 82", but when the Falklands War broke out in April that year, she, unlike sister-ships  and , did not deploy to the South Atlantic as she was suffering from problems with her propeller shafts. Battlexe did deploy to the South Atlantic shortly after the end of the war, however, escorting the aircraft carrier , leaving Devonport on 2 August, reaching the vicinity of the Falklands on 24 August and returning to Britain on 19 November. She was deployed to the South Atlantic again from July 1983 to December 1983.

Brazil

Rademaker was involved in an unfortunate incident on 29 November 2004, during the annual FRATERNO naval exercise with ships of the Argentinian Navy. While conducting gunnery practice against target drones, a malfunction of the Argentinian frigate ARA Sarandi's automatic weapons system caused her to fire on the Rademaker; four Brazilian crewmen were injured together with an Argentine naval observer. The ship suffered moderate damage.

Also in 2004, Rademaker deployed to Port-au-Prince, as part of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti.

In April 2017, Rademaker was involved in the search for the missing bulk carrier Stellar Daisy after she disappeared in the Atlantic.

Rademaker joined the international efforts to locate the missing Argentine Submarine  in November 2017.

In fiction
HMS Battleaxe was featured in Tom Clancy's novel Red Storm Rising.

References

Publications

 

Category:Ships built on the River Clyde
Category:1977 ships
Category:Type 22 frigates of the Royal Navy
Category:Type 22 frigates of the Brazilian Navy
Category:Gulf War ships of the United Kingdom