HMS Sheffield (D80)

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See HMS Sheffield for other ships of the same name.

Career	Image:RN-White-Ensign.svg
Image:HMS Sheffield (D80).jpg
Ordered:
Laid down:	15 January 1970
Launched:	10 June 1971
Commissioned:	16 February 1975
Fate:	Sunk by Argentine air attack on 4 May 1982 during Falklands War
General Characteristics
Displacement:	4,820 tonnes
Length:	125 m (410 ft)
Beam:	14.3 m (47 ft)
Draught:	5.8 m
Propulsion:	4 Rolls-Royce (2 Olympus and 2 Tyne) producing 36 MW COGAG (Combined Gas and Gas) arrangement
Speed:	30 knots (56 km/h)
Range:
Complement:	287
Armament:	Sea Dart missiles 114 mm (4.5 in) Mk 8 gun
Aircraft:	Lynx HAS1
Motto:

HMS Sheffield (D80) was the second Royal Navy ship to bear the name Sheffield, after the city of Sheffield in Yorkshire. She was a Type 42 destroyer laid down by Vickers Shipbuilding and Engineering at Barrow-in-Furness on 15 January 1970, launched on 10 June 1971 and commissioned on 16 February 1975. The ship was part of the Task Force sent to the Falkland Islands during the Falklands War. She was struck by an Exocet cruise missile fired by a French-made Dassault Super Étendard belonging to the Argentine Navy on 4 May, 1982. Although the Exocet reportedly failed to explode, the impact of the missile travelling at 315 m/s and laden with unburnt rocket fuel was enough to set the ship ablaze. Accounts suggest that the initial impact of the missile immediately destroyed the ship's onboard electricity generating systems and prevented the anti-fire mechanisms from operating effectively, dooming the ship to be consumed by the raging fire.

While the ship was sinking, her crew, waiting to be rescued, sang "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" from Monty Python's Life of Brian. The burnt out hulk was taken in tow by the Rothesay Class Frigate Yarmouth but sank on 10 May 1982 because of bad weather turning the ship into a waterlogged hulk, making it the first Royal Navy vessel sunk in action in almost forty years. Twenty-one of her crew died during the attack and the wreck is a designated war grave.

The sinking of the Sheffield is sometimes blamed on a superstructure made wholly or partially from aluminium, the melting point and ignition temperature of which are significantly lower than those of steel. However, this story is untrue because the Sheffield's superstructure was made entirely of steel [1]. The confusion is related to the US and British Navies abandoning aluminum after several fires in the 1970s involving ships that had aluminum superstructures. The sinking of the Type 21 frigates HMS Antelope and Ardent, both of which had aluminium superstructures, probably also had an effect on this belief though these cases are disputed. In both cases, it is likely the ships would have been lost in any event, due to amount of explosives involved, though alumnium fires did break out. The fires on these ships did result in one clear change, which was the shift away from the nylon and synthetic fabrics then worn by British sailors. The synthetics had a tendency to melt on to the skin causing more severe burns than if the crew had been wearing non-synthetic clothing.

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