MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

HMS Dauntless in South Africa; will pay courtesy visit to the Falklands

The Daring Class Type 45 destroyer spent time in exercises along West Africa

The Royal Navy’s Daring class Type 45 destroyer HMS Dauntless is in Cape Town, mid-way through her six-month deployment to the Falklands relieving HMS Montrose according to British defence news.

The operational deployment is the warship’s first since she was commissioned into the fleet in 2010. Since then she has been put through an intensive period of sea trials and training to prepare her for operations, according to the Royal Navy.

The destroyer will maintain a continuous presence protecting British interests in the region, carrying out maritime security operations off West Africa and the wider South Atlantic.

The Royal Navy said the ship’s deployment was long “pre-planned and routine” and that it was purely coincidental that the ship set sail around the 30th anniversary of the Falklands War.

The Ministry of Defence said the warship would only pay a courtesy visit to the Falklands.

Apart from protecting British interests in the Atlantic, HMS Dauntless’ program includes port visits in both West and South Africa, with an emphasis on enhancing maritime security.

Some of the African countries where Dauntless has paid visits to include Sierra Leone and Ghana and during Exercise Saharan Express she trained with personnel from Gambia, Senegal and Morocco.

Teams from these countries boarded the warship and learnt how to tackle a variety of maritime problems including piracy, illegal fishing and the illicit trade in drugs, weapons and people smuggling.

HMS Dauntless is 152 metres long and is the second of six Daring Class Type 45 destroyers that are replacing the Type 42 class of ship.

The Type 45s are armed with high-tech Sea Viper anti-air missiles and will be able to carry 60 troops. They also have a large flight deck, which can accommodate helicopters, the size of a Chinook, and can take on board 700 people in case of a civilian evacuation.

The UK originally sought to procure air defence ships as part of the eight-nation NFR-90 project and later the Horizon Common New Generation Frigate programme with France and Italy.

The Type 45s take advantage of some Horizon development work and utilise the Sea Viper missile system (the SAMPSON radar variant of the Principal Anti-Air Missile System).

The ships are fitted with the 114 mm Mk 8 Mod 1 medium-calibre gun system for shore bombardment and two 30 mm guns. There is provision for the installation of two close-in weapons systems such as the Raytheon Phalanx.

In an “intensive attack” a single Type 45 could simultaneously track, engage and destroy more targets than five Type 42 destroyers operating together. The Daring class are the largest escorts ever built for the Royal Navy in terms of displacement, at around 8.000 tons. The ships have a designed top speed of more than 27 knots and a range of more than 7.000 nautical miles.

See Admiral Lord West, the former First Sea Lord and Falklands veteran coments