page_title: HMS Kent (D12)
section_title: Decommissioning and harbour service
hierarchical_section_title: HMS Kent (D12) / Decommissioning and harbour service
caption_attribution_description: "Royal Navy 'County' Class Destroyer "HMS KENT" in the Portsmouth Navy Yards in July 1989. Name: HMS Kent Ordered: 6 February 1957 Builder: Harland &amp; Wolff, Belfast Laid down: 1 March 1960 Launched: 27 September 1961 Commissioned: 15 August 1963 Decommissioned: 1980 Struck: 1993 Identification: Pennant number: D12 Fate: Sold for scrap in 1998 Class &amp; type: County-class destroyer Beam: 53 ft (16 m) Propulsion: COSAG (Combined steam and gas) turbines, 2 shafts Aircraft carried: 1 × Lynx or Wessex helicopter Camera: Olympus AZ-4 Zoom 35mm SLR.
context_page_description: HMS Kent was a batch-1 County-class destroyer of the Royal Navy. She and her sisters were equipped with the Sea Slug Mk-1 medium-range surface-to-air missile SAM system, along with the short-range Sea Cat SAM, two twin 4.5-inch gun turrets, two single 20mm cannon, ASW torpedo tubes, and a platform and hangar that allowed her to operate one Wessex helicopter. The County class were large ships, with good seakeeping abilities and long range, and were ideal blue-water ships for their time.
context_section_description: Kent was decommissioned in the summer of 1980, after only 17 years of active service and became the replacement for HMS Fife and Fleet Training Ship (FTS), moored to the lower end of Whale Island outboard of the defunct support ship HMS Rame Head opposite Fountain Lake, Portsmouth Naval Base. At the beginning of the Falklands War, she was surveyed for possible recommissioning (her large size, helicopter deck and four 4.5-inch guns would have made her a good command and shore bombardment ship), but her two years of unmaintained status meant a substantial amount of refit would be required to make her seaworthy, and no work was begun. 
  She spent 1982 through to 1984 as a live asset for artificer and mechanic training supporting HMS Collingwood and HMS Sultan, her machinery largely in serviceable condition.  
  In 1984 she also became a harbour training ship for the Sea Cadet Corps. She was paid off from this in 1987 and became a training hulk at Portsmouth until stricken in 1993, though she lingered on, tied up to the same pier at Portsmouth Naval Base until 1996.
  Kent was sold for scrap, and in 1998 she was towed to India to be broken up.
caption: HMS Kent as a training ship, 1989
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