Should a Type 23 frigate be preserved?

What should happen to retiring Type 23 frigates?

Sale or transfer is more likely, but preserving one would provide an important Cold War naval-history reference point.

Sale or transfer is more likely than preservation, chiefly because maintaining a large modern warship is expensive. A Type 23 would nevertheless make the Royal Navy’s late-Cold-War and post-Cold-War story tangible. A preserved Leander-class frigate, HMS Hermes, or an Invincible-class carrier could have served a similar interpretive purpose, but those opportunities were lost. Keeping one Type 23 would show how sensors, weapons, propulsion, and crewing evolved beyond the older museum fleet. Preservation would provide a material basis for studying that history.