Royal Navy destroyer named Britain's best warship at naval 'Oscars'
A WARSHIP is celebrating bagging a clutch of top military awards at the Royal Navy’s annual ‘Oscars’.
HMS Defender has been hailed the best ship in the fleet after picking up six titles at the Surface Flotilla Excellence awards.
As well as being crowned the best destroyer, the Portsmouth-based warship also won the naval capability, above water warfare, engineering, signal intelligence and seamanship titles.
Defender completed a demanding tour in the Gulf, when at times she was providing air defence for more than two dozen coalition warships, as well as providing protection for ships passing through the Hormuz/Bab-al-Mandeb choke points more than 30 times.
The £1bn warship also spent time honing her warfare techniques and tactics during time in home waters
In the words of her citation: ‘2020 has been a year in which HMS Defender has consistently maintained the utmost level of professional effectiveness, delivering all tasking required of her to the highest standard. Defender continues to set the standard as the most operationally experienced and effective air defence vessel in the fleet.’
The nation’s flagship HMS Albion edged out carrier Portsmouth-based HMS Queen Elizabeth as the most effective capital ship after delivering an experimental amphibious deployment in the Mediterranean.
Plymouth-based frigate HMS Sutherland was praised as one of the navy’s ‘hardest-working ships’ after being in constant demand for her anti-submarine warfare skills, keeping watch of Russian warships and helping train future submarine commanders.
New River-class ship HMS Medway bagged the Offshore Patrol Vessel Trophy having made her mark in her first 12 months deployed to the Caribbean, always on stand-by to provide help in the event of a natural disaster, as well as seizing £160m illegal drugs in combined operations with the US Coast Guard.
Crew 5 of 2nd Mine Countermeasures Squadron threw themselves immediately into their mission aboard HMS Brocklesby in the Gulf during a period of heightened tensions and then battled through difficulties caused by the global pandemic to take the MCM Trophy.
Portsmouth-based frigate HMS Kent claimed the underwater warfare trophy, while P2000 boat HMS Puncher lived up to its name, claiming the inshore patrol vessel trophy for its work preparing UK Border Force for Brexit and protecting HMS Queen Elizabeth while she was anchored in the Solent earlier this year.
Portsmouth destroyer HMS Dragon proved experts in communications and HMS Montrose excelled in electronic warfare.
Other vessels praised included HMS Enterprise, who scooped the fleet intelligence trophy for her data-gathering missing in the Pacific, and the newly-formed Expeditionary Diving Unit 3 who won the fleet diving unit trophy.