Graceful Antelope
Text from Ships Of The Royal Navy No. 242
Second of the New Generation

According to the dictionary, the antelope is an animal "remarkable for grace and speed" - an apt description of HMS Antelope, second of the Amazon class of Type 21 frigates to enter service with the Royal Navy.

Her graceful lines are obvious from the photograph and her two Rolls-Royce Olympus TM3 gas turbines give her a top speed of more than 30 knots.

Like the others in her class of general purpose frigates, the Antelope represents a new generation of Royal Navy warships and incorporates many features destined for future surface vessels. Designed from the outset for all gas turbine machinery in a twin-screw arrangement, she also has two Rolls-Royce Tyne RB 209 engines, enabling her to cruise for extended ranges.

She is capable of contributing effectively to the defence of a convoy or other force against attack by surface ships or submarines and is fully able to defend herself against aircraft, missile or fast patrol craft.

She can match any comparable, contemporary foreign warship in fighting power and performance and can maintain all-weather patrol in any part of the world.

The Antelope's armament consists of a Vickers 4.5in MK. 8 automatic gun, a quadruple launcher for Seacat anti-aircraft missiles, a helicopter armed with air-to-surface guided missiles and anti-submarine torpedoes, and two 20mm. Oerlikon guns. Later ships of the class will carry a surface-to-surface missile system.

By installing fully-computerised, highly-automated weapon systems, specially-designed action information equipment, centralized store-room complex supplied by a vertical hoist, and the gas turbine machinery, it has been possible to man the ship with only two-thirds of the complement needed for any equivalent vessel.

This large reduction of about 80 men in all has resulted in the ship's ten officers and 150 ratings enjoying better accommodation than in warships of any other class in the Royal Navy.

Designed by Vosper Thorycroft in collaboration with Yarrow Ltd., the Antelope was ordered on May 11, 1970, laid down on March 23, 1971, launched by Mrs Peter Kirk, wife of the then Under-Secretary of State for the Royal Navy at Woolston, Southampton, on March 16, 1972, an commissioned at Southampton on July 19, 1975. The ship is commanded by Cdt Nicholas Hill-Norton.

The day after commissioning, the ship sailed for her base port, Devonport, and after five weeks' leave period, Navy Days and pre-Portland checks, sailed for a safety operational sea training period at Portland.

Later she cruised to Greenwich for the Royal Naval Equipment Exhibition. A showpiece for the Royal Navy and for the companies involved in building her, she was visited by many British and foreign V.I.P.s.

A week of trials followed the Greenwich visit and then the Antelope paid her first call to a foreign country by spending four days in Rotterdam. The ship sailed from Holland full of clogs and Geneva gin for a few more trials - and then back home to Devonport.

After a visit to Newport, South Wales, the ship once more returned to Devonport for a trials period to be followed by a return visit to Portland for her basic operational sea training.


Links with Fusiliers and trianing ships
HMS Antelope is affiliated to the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers whose Colonel-in-Chief is the Duke of Kent. The original affiliation was to the Sixth of Foot, the Royal Warwickshire Fusiliers, who with three other regiments of fusiliers formed the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers in 1968.

A live antelope or black buck has accompanied the battalions of the regiment as their mascot in many stations during the past 150 years and is one of nine live mascots authorized for Army regiments.

The ship is also affiliated to sea Cadet Corps units in Hertford and Middlesbrough, both training ships called Antelope, and was adopted by the City of Hereford in 1974.

To strengthen her link with Hereford, the frigate visited Newport, South Wales, for a week-end last autumn to allow visits from the people of Hereford.