The Type 23s were designed primarily as anti-submarine warfare ships, but with the changes in the global political picture their versatility has been tested to the full.

They operate in a wide range of roles in the Fleet, from Montrose's current deployment as a singleton, supported by a Fleet tanker as she goes about her patrols and exercises on her own, to working with a task group, as was the case with sister ship HMS Northumberland during Exercise Argonaut 2001 to the Middle East.

Montrose displaces 4,200 tons when she is fully loaded, and has a ship's company under normal conditions of around 180, of whom 13 are officers.

She is armed with Harpoon anti-ship missiles, Seawolf anti-air missiles and Stingray torpedoes, and she has a 4.5in gun for anti-ship, anti-air and shore bombardment.

The frigate can carry a Lynx or a new Merlin anti-submarine helicopter.

Powered by gas turbine and diesel-electric engines, the ship is designed to create as little disturbance as possible - her vertical surfaces are sloped at seven degrees to minimise radar reflection, and corners are rounded, while a 'hull bubble' principle reduces the noise of her propulsion system.

Montrose, part of the Sixth Frigate Squadron based in Devonport, left Plymouth on a snowy day for a first overseas trip which took her to the warmer ports of Gibraltar, Istanbul and El Ferrol in Spain, undertaking defence exhibitions on the way.

Her first operational deployment was to the cooler seas of the South Atlantic as Falklands Guardship in mid-1996, which saw the first sea-going deployment of a Mk 8 Lynx helicopter.

She also managed to fit in a number of Pacific port visits by transitting the Panama Canal, returning to the Atlantic via the Patagonian Canals.

Her South Atlantic deployment took her 29,000 miles and visits to 11 countries.

In the spring of 1995 Montrose had the honour of carrying the departing Governor of Gibraltar, Admiral Sir Hugo White, home from the Rock.

In 1998 she was back to the Falklands, and undertook exercises off the United States, while in 1999 she was part of the Normandy Landings commemorations, sailing under the new Pegasus Bridge.

In April 2000 she joined her NATO compatriots at Naples for a first taste of the Standing Naval Force Mediterranean - SNFM - which subsequently took her into the Black Sea and the port of Odessa.

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