ARA Rosales (P-42)

ARA Rosales (P-42) is the second ship of the MEKO 140A16 Espora series of six corvettes built for the Argentine Navy. The ship is the fourth ship to bear the name of Colonel (Navy) Leonardo Rosales, who fought in the Argentine Navy during Argentina's war of independence and the Cisplatine War.

The Argentine Navy struggles to meet maintenance and training requirements because of financial problems and import restrictions. The operational status of Rosales is not clear, as of November 2012 she was waiting for spares.

Origin
Rosales and her sister ships were part of the 1974 Naval Constructions National Plan, an initiative by the Argentine Navy to replace old World War II-vintage ships with more advanced warships. The original plan called for six MEKO 360H2 destroyers, four of them to be built in Argentina, but the plan was later modified to include four MEKO destroyers and six corvettes for anti-surface warfare and patrol operations.

Construction
Rosales was constructed at the Río Santiago Shipyard of the Astilleros y Fábricas Navales del Estado (State Shipyards and Naval Factories) state corporation. Her keel was laid on 1 April 1981 and was launched on 4 March 1983. The ship was officially delivered to the Navy on 14 November 1986 and formally commissioned on 24 March 1987.

Service history
On February 1991, as part of Task Group 88.1 Rosales along with ARA Bahia San Blas participated as part of the Coalition of the Gulf War in the United Nations-mandated blockade of Iraq following its invasion of Kuwait. She participated in patrol and escort missions as part of Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, returning to Argentina on July 1991

Rosales participated in several naval exercises and conducted fishery patrol duties in the Argentine Exclusive Economic Zone, capturing two illegal fishing ships in 1992.

She is homeported at Puerto Belgrano Naval Base and is part of the Navy's 2nd Corvette Division with her five sister ships.