The third and present HMS Cardiff (D108) is a Type 42 (Batch 1) destroyer and is much smaller than the Batch 3 of the Type. She was launched in 1974 by Lady Caroline Gilmore and commissioned in 1979. She is one of only a few ships still in the Royal Navy to have been involved in the Falklands War.

She was under the command of Captain M.G.T. Harris for the duration of the Falklands War. During that conflict, she was not damaged, though two of her sister-ships were sunk (HMS Sheffield and HMS Coventry) and one suffered damage (HMS Glasgow). A very tragic incident involving Cardiff occured during the war, when an Army Air Corps Gazelle was shot down by Cardiff's Sea Dart missile system. Four people were killed.

In 1991, Cardiff was deployed at the then largest deployment of Royal Navy warships since the Falklands War, in which she also had the distinction of being part of, during the Gulf War. On 24th January, while deployed to the Persian Gulf, Cardiff sighted three Iraqi vessels operating from the occupied Kuwaiti island of Qaruh. Her Lynx helicopter destroyed two of the vessels, which later turned out to be minesweepers. In 2003, Cardiff was once again in the Persian Gulf this time on a six-month deployment as part of Armilla Patrol. She returned to Britain in August 2003.

See HMS Cardiff for other ships of the name.

Type 42 (Batch 1) Statistics