Editing County-class destroyer (section)

==Ships of the class==
Eight vessels were built in two batches between 1959 and 1970, the later four vessels carrying the improved Seaslug 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 radar|Type 965 air-search radar]], and their taller foremast carrying the Type 992Q low-angle search radar.

===Ships' names===

Four of the "Counties" had names which had been used by the famous interwar {{sclass2|County|cruiser}}s: ''London'', ''Norfolk'', ''Devonshire'' and ''Kent''. (The last of that class, {{HMS|Cumberland|57|6}}, had survived until 1959 as a trials ship). ''Devonshire'', ''Hampshire'' and ''Antrim'' had been the names of  {{sclass|Devonshire|cruiser (1903)|0}} [[armoured cruiser]]s of the [[First World War]].

Four of the new ships were named after counties containing a [[Royal Navy Dockyard]]: [[Devonshire]] ([[HMNB Devonport|Devonport Dockyard]]), [[Hampshire]] ([[HMNB Portsmouth|Portsmouth Dockyard]]), ''Kent'' ([[Chatham Dockyard]]), and [[Fife]] ([[Rosyth dockyard]]). [[Glamorgan]] and [[County Antrim|Antrim]] are 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]] is the county of [[Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson|Nelson]]'s birth, and the important 19th-century ports of [[Great Yarmouth]] and [[King's Lynn]].

Three of the ships' names have been subsequently re-used: {{HMS|London|F95|6}} was a [[Type 22 frigate]].  HMS ''Kent'' and HMS ''Norfolk'' were used for RN [[Type 23 frigate]]s though in their case after [[List of dukedoms in the peerages of Britain and Ireland|British dukedoms]].

{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders"
|-
!
! scope="col" | Ship
! scope="col" | Builder
! scope="col" | Laid down
! scope="col" | Launched
! scope="col" | Commissioned
! scope="col" | Fate
|-
!rowspan=4|Batch 1
|{{HMS|Devonshire|D02|2}}
|[[Cammell Laird]], [[Birkenhead]]
|9 March 1959
|10 June 1960
|15 November 1962
|Sunk as target, 17 July 1984
|-
|{{HMS|Hampshire|D06|2}}
|[[John Brown & Company]], [[Clydebank]]
|26 March 1959
|16 March 1961
|15 March 1963
|Broken up at [[Briton Ferry]], 1979
|-
|{{HMS|Kent|D12|2}}
|[[Harland & Wolff]], [[Belfast]]
|1 March 1960
|27 September 1961
|15 August 1963
|Broken up at [[Alang Ship Breaking Yard|Alang]], 1998
|-
|{{HMS|London|D16|2}}
|[[Swan Hunter]], [[Wallsend]]
|26 February 1960
|7 December 1961
|4 November 1963
|Sold to [[Pakistan Navy|Pakistan]] as ''Babur'', March 1982
|-
!rowspan=5|Batch 2
|-
|{{HMS|Fife|D20|2}}
|[[Fairfield Shipbuilding & Engineering Company|Fairfield Shipbuilding]], [[Govan]]
|1 June 1962
|9 July 1964
|21 June 1966
|Sold to [[Chilean Navy|Chile]] as ''Blanco Encalada'', August 1987
|-
|{{HMS|Glamorgan|D19|2}}
|[[Vickers-Armstrongs]], [[Newcastle upon Tyne|Newcastle]]
|13 September 1962
|9 July 1964
|14 October 1966
|Sold to Chile as ''Almirante Latorre'', September 1986
|-
|{{HMS|Antrim|D18|2}}
|[[Upper Clyde Shipbuilders]], [[Govan]]
|20 January 1966
|19 October 1967
|14 July 1970
|Sold to Chile as ''Almirante Cochrane'', June 1984
|-
|{{HMS|Norfolk|D21|2}}
|Swan Hunter, Wallsend
|15 March 1966
|16 November 1967
|7 March 1970
|Sold to Chile as ''Capitán Prat'', April 1982. Decommissioned from Chilean Navy in 2006 and sold for scrap in 2008
|}