Pakistani Navy's cruiser PNS “Babur” at Karachi, 10th April 1980
Builder: Hawthorn Leslie & Co., Hebburn
Displacements: 5,900 standard. 7,560 full load
Length overall: 156.1 m
Max. draft: 5.6 m
Engines: Parsons geared turbines, 62,000 s.h.p.; 4 propellers
Speed: originally 30 knots, downgraded to 18 knots c.1965
Main armament: 3” & 2” guns
Complement 588
Laid down 5th November 1939
Commissioned into Britain's Royal Navy 6th January 1944 as the Dido-class light cruiser HMS “Diadem”
Purchased by Pakistan January 1956. Refitted at HM Dockyard, Portsmouth; transferred & renamed 5 July 1957
She was the flagship for “Operation Somnath” (the bombardment of the town of Dwarka in India) during the 1965 Indo-Pakistan War
By 1982 her engines were in such poor condition that they were permanently deactivated and the ship was downgraded to a “floating AA battery”.
Decommissioned 1984 & scrapped the following year.