County - class destroyer The County class was a class of guided missile destroyer , the first such vessels built by the Royal Navy . Designed specifically around the Sea Slug anti - aircraft missile system , the primary role of these ships was area air - defence around the aircraft carrier task force in the nuclear - war environment . The class represented a merging of the cruiser and destroyer role on a displacement of about that of the Second World War era " Dido " - class cruiser , but with modern combined gas turbine and steam turbine propulsion and , although short on the support and logistic spares stocks of a traditional cruiser , able to fulfil traditional flagship and admiral ' s barge functions in the 1960s — the last decade when the UK oversaw significant colonial territory ( " East of Suez " ) . Its missile capability was overtaken by aircraft development by 1962 – 63 , when HMS " Devonshire " and " Hampshire " entered service , but in the early and mid - 1960s the modern lines of these guided - missile destroyers , with their traditional RN cruiser style and their impressive - looking missiles , enabled the overstretched Royal Navy to project sufficient power to close down the threat of a militant , left - leaning Indonesia to Malaysia and Borneo during the Indonesia - Malaysia confrontation . Design features . The County class was designed around the GWS1 Sea Slug beam riding anti - aircraft missile system . Sea Slug was a first - generation surface to air missile intended to hit high - flying nuclear - armed bombers and shadowing surveillance aircraft like the Tupolev Tu - 95 " Bear " , which could direct strikes against the British fleet from missile destroyers and cruise missile - armed submarines . Bears were formidable targets for a missile like Sea Slug ; the long - range Soviet turboprop aircraft flew at an altitude of 7 . 5 miles , at and were barely within the engagement capability of Sea Slug . The Sea Slug system was a large weapon . From the missile itself - - long and weighing two tons , to its handling arrangements and electronics systems — even fitting a single system aboard a ship the size of the " Counties " was a challenge . The missile was stowed horizontally in a large magazine that took up a great deal of internal space . On the last four ships , some of the missiles were stored partly disassembled in the forward end of the magazine to enable the complement of missiles to be increased . These missiles had their wings and fins reattached before being moved into the aft sections of the handling spaces and eventually loaded onto the large twin launcher for firing . The electronics required for the Sea Slug were the large Type 901 fire - control radar and the Type 965 air - search radar . These required a great deal of weight to be carried high up on the ship , further affecting ship layout . According to the Royal Navy architect , " Sea Slug did not live up to expectations " and was obsolete by 1957 . Its ineffectiveness and dangerous missile fuel degraded the value of the class , which had potential as command ships , having more operations room space than later Type 42 destroyer and ADAWS and the MIL - STD - 6011 communications system . Following problems with the original version , a reworked Action Data Automation Weapon System ( ADAWS ) was successfully trialled on HMS " Norfolk " in 1970 . In the mid - 1960s the County missile destroyers were assets , their impressive appearance and data links , feeding off the carriers ' Type 984 radar , projected effective capability during the Indonesia – Malaysia confrontation . The Mark 1 Seaslug was operationally reliable and proved useful as a missile target for the new Sea Dart missiles in the late 1970s and early 1980s . ( The supersonic Mark 2 version proved less effective for this . ) There are questions as to whether it was ever fully operational and there were problems with missiles breaking up when the boosters separated . Inaccuracy , primitive beam - riding guidance and lack of infra red homing or a proximity fuse in the Mk 1 made it of limited value . Short - range air defence was provided by the GWS - 22 Sea Cat anti - aircraft missile system , which made the " Counties " the first Royal Navy warships to be armed with two different types of guided missile . As constructed , the County - class ships were armed with a pair of twin QF 4 . 5 - inch gun mountings . The second batch of four ships ( " Antrim " , " Fife " , " Glamorgan " and " Norfolk " ) were refitted in the mid - 1970s – their ' B ' - position turrets were removed and replaced by four single MM38 Exocet surface - to - surface anti - ship - missile launcher boxes . This was partly to counter the continuing threat of Soviet gun - and missile - armed cruisers , but also because the two twin 4 . 5 mountings , located forward on the County - class , were cramped and hot to fire , with the heat from firing the upper gun being felt by the gun crew in the turret below ; and , the forward twin turrets had space for only small magazines – only 225 shells for each gun , two - thirds of the magazine capacity for the same guns in the " Leander " ( Type 12L ) frigates . This made the County - class ships the only Royal Navy ships to be fitted with three separate types of guided missile . It also left the un - refitted ships as the last Royal Navy vessels to be able to fire a broadside from multiple main armament turrets . The last multi - turreted broadside was fired from HMS " London " on her return from deployment in the West Indies in 1981 , prior to her hand - over to the Pakistani Navy . " Antrim " and " Glamorgan " both served in the Falklands War ; " Antrim " was the flagship of Operation Paraquet , the recovery of South Georgia in April 1982 . Her helicopter , a Westland Wessex HAS Mk 3 , nicknamed " Humphrey " , was responsible for the remarkable rescue of 16 Special Air Service operators from Fortuna Glacier and the subsequent detection and disabling of the Argentinian submarine " Santa Fe " . In San Carlos Water , " Antrim " was hit by a 1 , 000 lb ( 450 kg ) bomb which failed to explode . " Glamorgan " , after many days on the " gun line " bombarding Port Stanley airfield , was hit by an Exocet launched from land at the end of the conflict . It destroyed her aircraft hangar and the port Sea Cat mounting . Fortunately , her captain ' s prompt reaction to visual detection of the incoming Exocet narrowly averted a hit on the Sea Slug magazine , which could have destroyed the ship . Ships of the class . Eight vessels were built in two batches between 1959 and 1970 , the later four vessels carrying the improved Sea Slug GWS2 and updated electronics requiring rearranged mastheads . The major identifying feature was the Batch 2 vessels ' prominent " double - bedstead " AKE - 2 antennas of the Type 965 air - search radar , and their taller foremast carrying the Type 992Q low - angle search radar . Batch 2 . Four of the " Counties " took names used by the 1926 s : " London " , " Norfolk " , " Devonshire " and " Kent " . ( The last of these , HMS " Cumberland " , had survived until 1959 ) . " Devonshire " , " Hampshire " , " Antrim " and " Kent " inherited names of armoured cruisers of the First World War . Four of the new ships were named after counties containing a Royal Navy Dockyard ; these were : " Devonshire " ( HMNB Devonport ) , " Hampshire " ( HMNB Portsmouth ) , " Kent " ( Chatham Dockyard ) , and " Fife " ( Rosyth dockyard ) . " Glamorgan " and " Antrim " were named after the counties in Wales and Northern Ireland which contain the port cities and regional capitals of Cardiff and Belfast ( by analogy to London , England ) . " Norfolk " commemorated the county of Nelson ' s birth , and the important 19th - century ports of Great Yarmouth and King ' s Lynn . All eight of the class had short Royal Navy careers , serving on average less than 16 years . Only " London " of the first batch was transferred ( to Pakistan ) and served further , while the other three Batch 1 ships were decommissioned by 1980 . However , the four ships of Batch 2 operated for 20 more years after sale to the Chilean Navy , in which they all received extensive upgrades and modernisation . Construction programme . The ships were built at the major UK yards , with some of the machinery coming from Associated Electrical Industries of Manchester , Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company of Wallsend - on - Tyne , John I . Thornycroft & Company of Southampton , Yarrows of Glasgow , and the Wallsend Slipway and Engineering Company , Wallsend - on - Tyne . Appearances in media . Extensive stock footage of HMS " Hampshire " on exercise was used in the 1970 UK science fiction series " UFO " , episode 1 – 11 , " Destruction " .