HMNZS Otago (F111)
_refueling_HMNZS_Otago_(F111)_in_1968.jpg) USS Bennington (CVS-20) refueling Otago, 1968 | |
| Career (New Zealand (RNZN)) |   |
|---|---|
| Name: | HMNZS Otago |
| Namesake: | Otago Province |
| Builder: |
John I. Thornycroft & Company Woolston, Hampshire |
| Launched: | 11 December 1958 [1] |
| Commissioned: | 22 June 1960 [2] |
| Decommissioned: | 7 November 1983 |
| Fate: | Sold and broken up, 1987 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Rothesay Class Type 12 Frigate |
| Displacement: | 2,144 tonnes standard 2,577 tonnes full load |
| Length: | 370 ft (113 m) |
| Beam: | 41 ft (12 m) |
| Draught: | 17.4 ft (5 m) |
| Propulsion: | 2-shaft double-reduction geared steam turbines |
| Speed: | 30 knots (56 km/h) |
| Range: | 400 tons oil fuel, 5,200 nautical miles (9,630 km) at 12 knots (22 km/h) |
| Complement: | originally 219, later 240 |
| Armament: | 2 × 4.5 in (110 mm) guns 1 × 40 mm gun 1 × quad Sea Cat missile launcher 2 × Limbo anti-submarine mortars 12 × 21 in (530 mm) torpedo tubes (later replaced by 6 × 12.75 in (324 mm) Mk.32 torpedo tubes) |
HMNZS Otago (F111) was a Rothesay Class Type 12 Frigate, acquired from the Royal Navy before completion. She was launched on 11 December 1958 by Princess Margaret,[1] and was commissioned into the Royal New Zealand Navy on 22 June 1960.
She was named after the province of Otago in New Zealand, on the South Island and associated with the city of Dunedin.
Service history
Otago took part in various SEATO (Southeast Asia Treaty Organization) deployments, and took part, with HMAS Supply in support and succeeded by HMNZS Canterbury, in a protest against French nuclear tests at Mururoa Atoll in 1973.
In a long refit in 74-5, her limbo mortars were replaced with Mk 32 torpedo tubes for Type 44/46 torpedoes thought more effective in short range a/s. Proposals to fit a hangar and landing pad without the complete reconstruction, done on the RN Rothesay class which had effectively required the ship to be split in half were rejected by the Rear Admiral on the grounds, ' nothing should be done that jeopardizes the RNZN case for a new combat ship' [3]
Otago continued as the 3rd combat ship in the 3 frigate fleet designated by the 1978 Defence Review.In the second half of 1979 it had another extensive refit, with its Seacat missile system ,repaired after breakage by using stored parts from the HMNZS Taranaki system. In early 1980 it deployed to Pearl harbour, and the West Coast of the United States and Canada for extensive exercises with the USN and RCN firing hundreds of round of 4.5 AA and surface shells,under command of Cmdr Karl Moen, who described the Otago as the 'one true fighting ship in the RNZN' with Ltd Cmdr Robert Martin as his second. Martin assumed command during a final 6 month refit, leaving the ship on 7 April 1982. Even at the time of the Falklands War, the Captain of Otago and the Minister of Defence, Peter Thompson, declared the ship to still be fully combat capable.[4] Thompson, in a general debate in the house, attacked a 7/82 Listener article by I.Bradley, claiming the Captain had lost his eye for ship observation as photos in the Listener article clearly show a 'identical' (sic) RN Rothesay frigate, defending itself, in Falkland Sound. The frigate nevertheless become the RNZN training ship in 1983, and paid off into inactive reserve in November 1983. The vessel was sold for scrap in 1987 and broken up in Auckland.
References
External links
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
.svg.png){kind=small}
| ||||||
