Sailors of British Navy HMS Kent Type 23 frigate conducts military exercises during BALTOPS 2020.

According to information released by the British Navy on June 15, 2020, the crew of the British Navy HMS Kent frigate conducts different types of military exercises during Baltops 2020. The frigate is one of two Royal Navy warships joining more than two dozen vessels, a similar number of aircraft and upwards of 3,000 military personnel in the annual international test of naval and air power, in 2020 in its 49th year.
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British Navy frigate HMS Kent passes under the iconic bridge that separates Denmark and Sweden during BALTOPS 2020. (Picture source Britsh Navy)

The goal of Baltops is to test the ability of NATO and allied/partner nations to guarantee the freedom and security of nations with a Baltic coastline. Portsmouth-based Kent has covered well over 500 miles during Baltops 2020 from the southern Baltic and around the Danish island of Bornholm, to the Latvian coastline.

The upper deck gunners tested their marksmanship with machine-guns and Miniguns (ship-mounted Gatling guns) and the 30mm Automatic Small Calibre Gun (ASCG) against dummy surface targets before ‘air attacks’ as Banshee drones – 9ft long, 8ft wingspan, moving at about 120mph – were deployed against Kent.

Also, put to the test were the flight team as maintainers prepared and loaded a dummy Sting Ray for the Merlin helicopter, which promptly headed off on a sortie with the torpedo at the ready.

The anti-submarine warfare elements of the exercise allowed Kent’s underwater warfare team to consolidate their training – and the maintainers from 814 Naval Air Squadron to hone their skills in readying a torpedo for a potential attack; a Sting Ray-armed Merlin is the frigate’s premier weapon against any submarine foe.

The British Navy HMS kent is one of the newest of the Type 23 Duke class frigates in service with the British Navy. It was launched on 28 May 1998 and commissioned on 8 June 2000. She was the first ship to enter the Royal British Navy service in the 21st Century.

The Type 23 frigate is armed with eight Harpoon surface-to-surface missiles in two four-cell launchers and vertical-launch Seawolf (GWS 26 Mod 1 VLS). The Harpoon is an all-weather, over-the-horizon, anti-ship missile, developed and manufactured by McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing Defense, Space & Security). Sea Wolf is a naval guided missile system designed and built by BAC, later to become British Aerospace (BAe) Dynamics (now MBDA).

The Type 23 is also fitted with 324mm torpedo tubes carrying BAE Systems Stingray lightweight torpedoes. Stingray has depth 750 m and a range of 11 km. The ship has also one BAE 4.5 inch Mk 8 naval gun, two 30 mm DS30M Mk2 guns, or, 2 × 30 mm DS30B guns, two Miniguns, and four General-purpose machine guns.

The Type 23 frigate is powered by a diesel-electric and gas (CODLAG) system, which consists of two Rolls Royce Spey SM1A 34,000 hp gas turbines and two Alstom 1.5 MW 4,400 hp electric motors. There are also four Alstom 12 RP2000CZ 1.3MW 7,000 hp auxiliary diesel. Using the diesel-electric motors, the economical speed is 15 kt and the range is 7,800 miles. Its maximum speed is 28 kt.

HMS kent's weapons crews practice close range gunnery whilst on BALTOPS 2020 (Picture source British Navy)