HMS Blackwood (F78)

HMS Blackwood was the name ship of her class (also known as the Type 14-class frigate) of second-rate anti-submarine frigates built for the Royal Navy in the 1950s.

Description
The Blackwood class displaced 1180 LT at standard load and 1456 LT at deep load. They had an overall length of 310 ft, a beam of 33 ft and a draught of 15 ft. The ships were powered by one English Electric geared steam turbine that drove the single propeller shaft, using steam provided by two Babcock & Wilcox boilers. The turbine developed a total of 15000 shp and gave a maximum speed of 27 kn. The Blackwoods had a range of 4500 nmi at 12 kn. Their complement was 140 officers and ratings.

The ships were armed with three Bofors 40 mm guns in single mounts. The mount on the quarterdeck was later removed as it was unusable in heavy seas. The first four ships to be completed, including Blackwood, were fitted with two above-water twin mounts for 21 in anti-submarine homing torpedoes, but these were removed in the early 1960s. They were equipped with two triple-barrelled Limbo Mark 10 anti-submarine mortars. The Blackwood-class ships had the same sonar suite as the larger Whitby-class frigates where the Limbo mortars were controlled by three sonars, the Type 174 search set, Type 162 target-classification set and the Type 170 'pencil beam' targeting set to determine the bearing and depth of the target.