Scale: 1:96. Full hull model of the Type 42 destroyer HMS 'Sheffield' (1971). The model is decked and equipped. The name ‘Sheffield’ is painted on the port and starboard stern quarters, ‘D80’ is on the port and starboard and stern, and the number ‘3’ is on either side of the funnel. There are Royal Navy markings on the lynx helicopter, on the helipad at the stern. Visible on the forward deck is a twin Sea Dart missile launcher and a Vickers Mark 8 4.5-inch gun.

Built at Barrow-in-Furness by Vickers, ‘Sheffield’ was launched in 1971 by Her Majesty The Queen and completed in 1975. The lead ship of a class of 14, she measured 410 feet in length by 48 feet in the beam. She was the first Royal Navy destroyer to be propelled entirely by gas turbines: marine Rolls-Royce Tyne and Olympus. The lynx helicopter was incorporated into the vessel’s outfit largely as an anti-submarine measure. To make the helicopter suitable for operating from the decks of small ships such as this, it incorporates a special wheeled landing gear and a harpoon deck securing system, which, coupled with a negative rotor thrust facility, enables take-offs and landings over a wide range of weather conditions and sea states.

In May 1982 during the Falklands Conflict in the South Atlantic, ‘Sheffield’ was hit by an Exocet missile fired from the air, causing a severe fire and subsequently had to be abandoned. She was the first of four ships sunk during the Conflict, a sister ship, HMS ‘Coventry’ was also lost.