Type 22 frigate

The Type 22 frigate, also known as the Broadsword class, was a class of fourteen frigates built for the British Royal Navy in three batches. It began as an anti-submarine design for the Royal Navy's contribution to NATO and grew into a general-purpose warship with weapons against ships, aircraft and submarines, and the ships were often used as flagships on deployments thanks to enhanced command and control facilities. The first batch, Broadsword, came from Yarrow on the Clyde, while Swan Hunter at Wallsend built later hulls including Sheffield, which was ordered as Bruiser and renamed after the destroyer of that name was lost in the Falklands War, Coventry, ordered as Boadicea, and Chatham of the third batch. The ships were powered by Olympus and Tyne gas turbines in a combined gas or gas arrangement. HMS Cornwall, the last in Royal Navy service, was retired on 30 June 2011, and seven of the others were sold to Brazil, Romania and Chile. This entry covers the class as a whole, with Swan Hunter as the make of its Wallsend-built hulls.