Almirante-class destroyer

The destroyer Almirante Williams underway in the Strait of Magellan during UNITAS XXXII

The Almirante class were two destroyers built for the Chilean Navy by Vickers in Barrow in Furness, UK, in 1960, named after Chilean admirals. Their weapons and Marconi sensors were in advance of the RN , but their internal layout resembled that of the . They served until the late 1990s. They were fitted with a unique Vickers-designed 4-inch dual purpose naval gun, which fired up to 50 rounds per minute. The gun was in advance of the standard RN 4.5-inch guns, more automated and reliable than the 3 and 6-inch mounts, but not water-cooled. It was rejected for RN use because of doubt about its sustained firing, the large stocks of surplus WW2 single 4.5 and twin 4-inch guns which the RN claimed wrongly were close to the new 4-inch N(R) in performance, and mainly because it was a private out-of-house, Vickers design. The ships were modernised in Britain in 1975, and decommissioned in the late 1990s.

Programme

Chile decided to upgrade its destroyer fleet in the early 1950s and turned to British yards to fulfil the order. Bids were received from Vickers and Thornycroft; the Vickers design was chosen. The order was announced in January 1954 and finalised in 1955. The sensors were a mixture of British- and Netherlands-made radars.

Chile had considered buying a second pair of destroyers in the mid-1960s but instead purchased two s, a derivative of the , instead.

Ships

Pennant	Name	Named after	Commissioned	Decommissioned
DDG-18		Galvarino Riveros Cárdenas	1962	1995
DDG-19		Juan Williams Rebolledo	1960	1996

Vickers offered two similar ships to the Colombian Navy but the Colombians bought two s from Sweden instead.

File:DN-ST-92-01276.jpg

The destroyer Almirante Riveros sails off the coast of Chile during the multinational naval exercise UNITAS XXXII

External links

• Ship-Pics
• Riveros, Chilean Navy site Template:In lang
• Williams, Chilean Navy site Template:In lang