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Blackwood Class Frigate | colspan="2"| HMS Keppel | | tyle="color: white; height: 30px; background: navy no-repeat scroll top left;"|Type 14-class | style="color: white; height: 30px; background: navy no-repeat scroll top left;"|RN Ensign | | olspan="2" align="center" style="color: white; height: 30px; background: navy no-repeat scroll top left;"|General Characteristics | | isplacement: | 1,456 tons full load | | ength: | 310 ft | | eam: | 33 ft | | raught: | 15 ft | | ropulsion: | 1 shaft, 1 steam turbine (Exmouth later had gas turbine), 2 boilers, 15,000 shp | | peed: | 27 knot | | ange: | 5200 nautical miles at 12 knots | | omplement: | 112 | | rmament: | 3 x 40mm Mk 9 Bofors (one aft 40mm later removed from all ships of the class) 4 x 21-in submerhed torpedo tubes (Blackwood, Exmouth, Malcolm and Palliser. They were later removed) 2 x Limbo ASW mortars | The Type 14 Blackwood class were a twelve ship class of anti-submarine warfare (ASW) frigates of the Royal Navy, designed and built during the increasing threat from the Soviet Union's large fleet of submarines that roamed the Atlantic Ocean. They were designed to be cheaper and smaller to complement the expensive Type 12 frigates and had light armament. The class were very specialised for the ASW role and thus had little capability in any other role, though they did perform fishery protection duties. One of the ships, HMS Exmouth, was later converted to gas turbines in 1966, becoming the first major warship of the Royal Navy to be powered by gas turbines. In the late 1950s, during their time on patrols around Iceland to ensure that Icelandic fishermen did not attempt to fish in British waters, problems were found with the hulls of the Type 14s in such heavy waters, such that their hulls had to be strengthened to cope with patrols in heavy waters. The Type 14s size, at just 310 ft, prevented them from continuing past the 1970s and continuing the work they had been doing in the ASW role, as it prevented the Type 14s from being modernised with more effective weapons, thus making them obsolete. They were all decommissioned in the 1970s.
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