HMS Cardiff (D108)

HMS Cardiff in Portsmouth, c. 2005
History
United Kingdom
Name	HMS Cardiff
Namesake	Welsh capital city of Cardiff[5]
Builder	Vickers Shipbuilding and Engineering
Laid down	6 November 1972
Launched	22 February 1974
Commissioned	24 September 1979
Decommissioned	14 July 2005
Homeport	HMNB Portsmouth
Identification	Pennant number: D108 Deck code: CF IMO number: 4907024
Motto	Acris in cardine rerum (Latin: "Keen in emergency")
Nickname(s)	"The Welsh Warship"[4]
Honours and awards	2 × battle honours: Falkland Islands 1982[1] Kuwait 1991[2] Freedom of the City of Cardiff[3]
Fate	Scrapped
Badge
General characteristics
Class and type	Type 42 destroyer
Displacement	4,000 t (3,900 long tons; 4,400 short tons)
Length	125 m (410 ft)
Beam	14.3 m (47 ft)
Draught	5.8 m (19 ft)
Propulsion	2 × COGOG turbines producing 36 MW (48,000 shp), driving 2 shafts
Speed	56 km/h (30 kn)
Range	7,400 km (4,000 nmi) at 33 km/h (18 kn)
Complement	287–301
Electronic warfare & decoys	UAA1
Armament	1 × Twin Sea Dart missile launcher 1 × 4.5 inch (113 mm) Mk.8 gun 2 × 20 mm Oerlikon guns 2 × Phalanx close-in weapon system 2 × Triple anti-submarine torpedo tubes NATO Seagnat and DLF3 decoy launchers
Aircraft carried	Lynx HAS.3

HMS Cardiff was a British Type 42 destroyer and the third ship of the Royal Navy to be named in honour of the Welsh capital city of Cardiff.

Cardiff served in the Falklands War, where she was involved in the 1982 British Army Gazelle friendly fire incident. She also shot down the last Argentine aircraft of the conflict and accepted the surrender of a 700-strong garrison in the settlement of Port Howard.

During the 1991 Gulf War, her Lynx helicopter sank two Iraqi minesweepers. She later participated in the build-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq as part of the Royal Navy's constant Armilla patrol, but was not involved in the actual invasion.

Cardiff was decommissioned in July 2005, and sent for scrapping despite calls by former servicemen for her to be preserved as a museum ship and local tourist attraction in Cardiff.