French frigate Enseigne de Vaisseau Henry

Commandant Rivière-class frigate
History
France
NameEnseigne de Vaisseau Henry
NamesakePaul Charles Joseph Martin Henry
BuilderArsenal de Lorient, Lorient
Laid downSeptember 1962
Launched14 December 1963
Commissioned1 January 1965
Decommissioned1994
IdentificationPennant number: F749
FateScrapped, 2016
General characteristics
Class and typeCommandant Rivière-class frigate
Displacement
  • 1,720 long tons (1,750 t) standard
  • 2,190 long tons (2,230 t) full load
Length
  • 98.0 m (321 ft 6 in) oa
  • 103.0 m (337 ft 11 in) pp
Beam11.5 m (37 ft 9 in)
Draught4.3 m (14 ft 1 in)
Propulsion
Speed25 knots (46 km/h; 29 mph)
Range7,500 nmi (13,900 km; 8,600 mi) at 16 knots (30 km/h; 18 mph)
Boats & landing
craft carried		2 × LCP landing craft
Complement166
Sensors and
processing systems
  • DRBV22A air search radar
  • DRBC32C fire control radar
  • DUBA3 sonar
  • SQS17 sonar
Armament

Enseigne de Vaisseau Henry (F749) is a Commandant Rivière-class frigate in the French Navy.

Development and design

[edit]
Main article: Commandant Rivière-class frigate

Designed to navigate overseas, the escort escorts were fully air-conditioned, resulting in appreciated comfort, which was far from being the case for other contemporary naval vessels.

A posting on a Aviso-escort was a boarding sought after by sailors because it was a guarantee of campaigning overseas and visiting the country.

Four other similar units were built at Ateliers et Chantiers de Bretagne (ACB) in Nantes for the Portuguese Navy under the class name João Belo.[1]

All French units were decommissioned in the mid-1990s. Three ships were sold to the Uruguayan Navy.[2][3]

In 1984, Commandant Rivière underwent a redesign to become an experimentation building. It will retain only a single triple platform of 550mm anti-submarine torpedo tubes and all the rest of the armament was landed, replaced by a single 40mm anti-aircraft gun and two 12.7mm machine guns.

Construction and career

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Enseigne de Vaisseau Henry was laid down in September 1962 at Arsenal de Lorient, Lorient. Launched on 14 December 1963 and commissioned on 1 January 1965.[4]

In 1973, an experimental helicopter platform was installed above the rear deck, to be then dismantled in 1979, to reinstall its old 100 mm gun.

In 1985, two 40 mm Bofors anti-aircraft guns replaced the 30 mm HSS831 guns.

Her ASM mortar (305 mm) and torpedo tubes were landed in 1990.

In 1994, she was decommissioned and served as a breakwater at the port of Brest.[5]

Provisionally anchored in the Landévennec ship cemetery awaiting dismantling, it left the scene on September 12, 2015 for the military port of Brest, where it was prepared for its transfer which took place on February 25, 2016, to the shipyard of Ghent, Belgium, to be deconstructed by the Franco-Belgian group Galloo.

Citations

[edit]
  1. ^ "Navires". Mer et Marine (in French). Archived from the original on 18 September 2021. Retrieved 18 September 2021.
  2. ^ Gardiner and Chumbley 1995, p. 117.
  3. ^ "Aviso-escorteur Commandant Rivière". netmarine.net (in French). Retrieved 21 June 2015.
  4. ^ "Historique". www.netmarine.net. Retrieved 18 September 2021.
  5. ^ "Histoire de l'Aviso Escorteur Enseigne de Vaisseau HENRY (1962-1994)". Enseigne de Vaisseau HENRY (in French). Retrieved 18 September 2021.
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