NRP Afonso de Albuquerque (1934)

Afonso de Albuquerque in 1935
History
Portugal
Name	Afonso de Albuquerque
Namesake	Afonso de Albuquerque
Builder	Hawthorn Leslie
Launched	1934
Commissioned	28 May 1934
Fate	Destroyed in combat in 1961
General characteristics
Class and type	Afonso de Albuquerque class
Displacement	1,811 tons standard, 2,100 tons normal load, 2,435 tons full load
Length	100 m (328 ft 1 in)
Beam	13.49 m (44 ft 3 in)
Draught	3.81 m (12 ft 6 in)
Propulsion	2 Parsons geared turbines; 4 Yarrow boilers, 8,000 shp (6,000 kW) Oil fuel: 600 tons
Speed	21 knots (39 km/h)
Range	8,000 mi (13,000 km) at 10 knots (19 km/h)
Complement	191
Armament	4 × 120 mm guns, 2 × 76 mm guns, 4 × 40 mm anti-aircraft guns, 2 × throwers for depth charges, Fitted to carry 40 mines
Aircraft carried	1

NRP Afonso de Albuquerque was a warship of the Portuguese Navy, named after the 16th-century Portuguese navigator Afonso de Albuquerque. She was destroyed in combat on 18 December 1961, defending Portuguese interests in Goa against the Indian Armed Forces Liberation of Goa.

The ship was the first of the Afonso de Albuquerque class, which also included NRP Bartolomeu Dias. These ships were classified, by the Portuguese Navy, as avisos coloniais de 1ª classe (1st class colonial aviso or sloop) and were designed to maintain a Portuguese naval presence in the Overseas territories of Portugal. They had limited capacity to combat other surface vessels, as they were intended, mainly, to support amphibious operations and troops on land.

After the Second World War, the Afonso de Albuquerque-class ships were reclassified as frigates.

In her career Afonso de Albuquerque served mainly in the Indian and the Pacific Oceans, protecting the Portuguese territories of Mozambique, India, Macau and Timor.