ARA Rosales (P-42)

History

The 1980s saw a period of significant modernization of the Argentine Navy's fleet, mainly involving the procurement of ships and submarine designs from Europe. The MEKO 140 frigate was developed by German shipyard Blohm & Voss, and the design was selected as the standard for the Argentine Navy's Espora-class surface fighters - intended to be classified as a frigate in service and fully integrated into Argentina.

Six of the frigates were acquired in two tranches, led by ARA Espora, ARA Rosales and ARA Spiro, followed by ARA Parker, ARA Robinson and ARA Gomez Roca. Today (2017) half of the group is still relatively active due to deteriorating conditions.

Structure

ARA Rosales (P-42) laid on April 1, 1981 at the Rio Santiago shipyard, the ship was acquired by the Navy on November 14, 1986. She officially entered service on March 24, 1987, and was assigned to her home port of Belgrano. The warship was named after Argentine Navy Captain Leonardo Rosales.

The warship is designed to perform airspace blockade and general patrol duties.

When completed, Rosales will have a displacement of 1,560 tons, a length of 300 feet, a beam of 36 feet, and a draft of 10.9 feet. Power comes from 2 x SEMPT Pielstick 16PC2-5 V400 22,600 hp marine diesel engines to 2 x axles under the stern.

This gives the vessel a top speed of 27 knots and a range of up to 4,000 nautical miles.

Crew and systems

There is a planned crew of more than 90 on board, consisting of officers, non-commissioned officers and soldiers. The warship is equipped with a variety of sensors, communications equipment and processing systems, including Thales DS-05/2 air search radar, Decca TM 1226 navigation suite and Atlas AQS-1 hull sonar system.

Jammers and decoys will be used to protect ships from increasing threats from the air or water.

Armed

The armament is concentrated on a mix of conventional and missile weapons. These include 1 x 76mm/62 caliber OTO-Melara Dual Purpose (DP) deck gun with forecastle above the turret, 4 x MM38 Exocet anti-ship missiles and 2 x 40mm DARDO automatic cannons (for anti-aircraft).

The ship is also equipped with 2 x 12.7mm heavy machine guns and 2 x 324mm triple torpedo tubes for close range operations.

Structure

The ship's profile is traditional, with a raised forecastle and a stepped stern section. As usual, the bridge is in the forward part of the superstructure, with the main mast just aft and above. The chimney was integrated into the middle of the superstructure, and a helipad was added aft - albeit in front of the stern. A unique, rather modern quality of this warship is the use of a panel fairing, which gives her some of the stealth qualities of a 1980s warship.

Low profile smoke funnels also help to encourage ships that are usually low on the horizon.

Service Passes

ARA Rosales has few moves worth mentioning for his time on the water. It participated in the post-Desert Storm blockade of Iraq (1991) and subsequently served as a patrol in Gulf waters. Like other Argentine Navy vessels, she was required to limit illegal fishing in Argentine waters.

Her most recent assignment was to find the ARA San Juan diesel-electric attack submarine (details elsewhere on this site), which went dead on November 15, 2017.

Specification

Basic

Roles

Dimensions

Weight

Performance

Performance

Armor

Wing