HMS Amazon was the first Type 21 frigate of the Royal Navy. Her keel was laid down at the Vosper Thornycroft shipyard in Southampton, England. The ship suffered a fire in the Far East in 1977, drawing attention to the risk of building warships with aluminium superstructure.
Design
The Type 21 frigates were intended as a class of general purpose frigates to replace the diesel-powered frigates of the and es, and to maintain the Royal Navy's frigate numbers until the specialist anti-submarine ships of the Type 22 class could enter service. The contract for the design of the class was placed with the commercial shipbuilder Vosper Thornycroft, with the intent that the design would be cheaper than those produced by the Royal Navy's own design staff, while being attractive for export buyers.
Amazon was long overall and between perpendiculars, with a beam of and a maximum draught of . She was powered by two Rolls-Royce Olympus TM3B gas turbines rated at a total of and two Rolls-Royce Tynes rated at a total of in a Combined gas or gas (COGOG) arrangement, giving a speed of when powered by the Olympuses and when powered by the Tynes. A Type 992Q surface/air search and target indication radar was fitted, together with a Type 978 navigation radar. Two Type 912 fire control radars (the Italian Selenia RTX-10X) directed the ship's gun and the Seacat, while a Type 184M medium range search sonar and a Type 162M bottom search sonar (modernised versions of the sonars used on the Leander-class) were fitted.
Later ships of the class completed with four Exocet anti-ship missiles forward, and two triple tubes for United States USN/NATO-standard Mark 44 or Mark 46 torpedoes,
Construction
Amazon, the first of her class, was ordered on 26 March 1969. She was laid down at Vosper Thornycroft's Woolston, Southampton shipyard on 6 November 1969 and was launched by Princess Anne on 26 April 1971. Construction was slow, and Amazon was not completed until 11 May 1974,
Royal Navy Service
In June 1977 Amazon took part in the Fleet Review, of the Royal Navy at Spithead in celebration of HM the Queen's Silver Jubilee, while in July she carried out successful trials with the Lynx helicopter. From 1978 Amazons Wasp helicopter was replaced by a Lynx.
In December 1980 the ship struck a coral pinnacle off Belize.
In December 2014, after serving 22 years of military service, Babur was retired and decommissioned.
Commanding officers
thumb|HMS Amazon during Exercise RIMPAC 86.
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:left"
!From||To|||Captain
|-
|1973||1975||Commander W John Bingham OBE RN
|-
|1975||1977|||Commander David Dobson RN
|-
|1977||1978|||Commander A B Richardson RN
|-
|1978||1979|||Commander R N Woodard RN
|-
|1980||1982|||Commander Ian Garnett RN
|-
|1982||1984|||Commander J E K Ellis RN
|-
|1986||1988|||Commander R J Lippiett RN
|-
|1988||1990|||Commander David A Lewis RN
|-
|1990||1992|||Commander David J M Mowlam RN
|-
|1992||1993|||Commander Patrick H Watson RN
|-
|}