Iroquois-class destroyer
1970 class of Canadian destroyers
Iroquois-class destroyers (also known as the DDH 280 class, DDG 280 class or ambiguously as the Tribal class) were a class of four helicopter-carrying, guided missile destroyers of the Royal Canadian Navy. The ships were named to honour the First Nations of Canada.
The Iroquois class are notable as the first all-gas turbine powered ships of this type in the west. Launched in the 1970s, they were originally fitted out for anti-submarine warfare, using two CH-124 Sea King helicopters and other weapons, while their Mk III RIM-7 Sea Sparrow anti-air missiles were sufficient only for point defense. A major upgrade programme in the 1990s overhauled them for area-wide anti-aircraft warfare with the installation of a vertical launch system for Standard SM-2MR Block IIIA missiles.
Due to their extended service lives, the Iroquois-class destroyers were used in a variety of operational roles. They served as flagships for NATO's maritime force, deployed as part of United Nations and NATO forces in the Adriatic, Arabian and Caribbean seas and Atlantic and Indian oceans. The destroyers also performed coastal security patrols and search and rescue missions nearer to Canada.
One was sunk in a live-fire exercise in 2007, two more were decommissioned in 2015 and the last in 2017.
Background
With the disbandment of Banshee fighter aircraft squadrons and the retirement of the Second World War-vintage destroyers in the early 1960s, the Royal Canadian Navy no longer had air cover nor fire support capabilities.
The public source identifies “Iroquois-class destroyer” as 1970 class of Canadian destroyers. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Iroquois-class, destroyer and class.
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This entry incorporates text from “Iroquois-class destroyer” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.