HMS Coventry (F98)


HMS Coventry (F98)
Career (UK)
Name: HMS Coventry
Operator: Royal Navy
Builder: Swan Hunter
Laid down: 29 March 1984
Launched: 8 April 1986
Commissioned: 14 October 1988
Decommissioned: 17 January 2002
Fate: Sold to Romania on 14 January 2003
General characteristics
Displacement: 4,800 tons
Length: 146.5 m (480 ft)
Beam: 14.8 m (48 ft)
Draught: 6.4 m (21 ft)
Propulsion: 2-shaft COGOG
2 × Rolls-Royce Olympus TM3B high-speed gas turbines (54,000 shp / 40 MW)
2 × Rolls-Royce Tyne RM1C cruise gas turbines (9,700 shp / 7.2 MW)
Speed: 18 knots (33.3 km/h) cruise
30 knots (56 km/h) full
Range: 8,000 nm (16,000 km)
Complement: 273
Armament: 2 × 6 GWS25 Sea Wolf SAM launchers
4 × 1 Exocet SSM launchers
2 × Twin 30 mm AA guns
2 × 20 mm GAM-BO1 guns
4 × 7.62 mm GPMGs
Aircraft carried: 2 × Lynx MK 8 helicopters
Career (Romania)
Name: Regele Ferdinand
Namesake: king Ferdinand of Romania
Laid down: 29 March 1984
Launched: 8 April 1986
Acquired: 14 January 2003
Commissioned: 9 September 2004
Fate: in service
General characteristics
Class and type: Type 22 frigate
Displacement: 5,300 tons
Length: 148.1 m
Beam: 14.8 m
Draught: 6.4 m
Propulsion: 4X Rolls Royce gas turbine engines
Speed: 18 knots (33 km/h) cruise
30 knots (56 km/h) sprint
Range: 4500nm
Complement: 250
Armament: 76/62 Oto Melara Super-Rapid gun
Aircraft carried: IAR-330 Puma Naval

HMS Coventry (F98) was a Type 22 frigate of the Royal Navy. She was originally intended to be named Boadicea but was named Coventry in honour of the previous Coventry (D118), a Type 42 destroyer sunk in the Falklands War.

It was purchased from the United Kingdom by the Romanian Navy on 14 January 2003, and renamed Regele Ferdinand (King Ferdinand) after Ferdinand I of Romania. The ship was handed over to Romania on 19 August 2004, and underwent sea trials at the same time. Regele Ferdinand was commissioned into the Romanian Navy on 9 September 2004, and is the current flagship of the Romanian Navy. There has since been some controversy over the price at which she was bought.[1]

On 22 March 2011, Romanian President Traian Băsescu said, after a CSAT meeting, that Romania will send the frigate Regele Ferdinand with 205 mariners and two officers on board to enforce an arms embargo in the Mediterranean Sea, as part of the 2011 military intervention in Libya.[2]

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