HMCS Winnipeg (FFH 338)

HMCS Winnipeg (FFH 338) is a Halifax-class frigate that has served in the Royal Canadian Navy since 1996. She is a guided-missile frigate that also carries a multipurpose helicopter [but especially for anti-submarine warfare (ASW)]. Her missile armament includes Harpoon anti-ship missiles and Evolved Sea-Sparrow anti-aircraft and anti-missile missiles. She also carries ASW torpedoes for close-in defense, and a Phalanx CIWS defense cannon.

HMCS Winnipeg is the ninth ship in her class, whose design was based on the Canadian Patrol Frigate Project. She is the second Canadian warship to carry the name HMCS Winnipeg.

HMCS Winnipeg was laid down on 20 March 1993 at Saint John Shipbuilding Company in Saint John, New Brunswick, and she was launched on 25 June 1994. This warship was officially commissioned into the Canadian Forces on 23 June 1995, and she carries the hull classification symbol 338. In April 2012 Winnipeg was turned over to Seaspan Marine Corporation's Victoria Shipyards, to start a 18 month mid-life upgrading and modernization. On 10 Apr 2013 HMCS Winnipeg was returned to the RCN to finish the midlife refit, and she will renter service sometime in 2014. HMCS Winnipeg is assigned to the Maritime Forces Pacific (MARPAC), and she has her home port at the Canadian Forces Maritime Base at Esquimalt.

Service
HMCS Winnipeg serves on Canadian Forces MARPAC missions protecting Canada's sovereignty in the Pacific Ocean and the Arctic Ocean and in enforcing Canadian laws on its territorial oceans and Exclusive Economic Zone. HMCS Winnipeg has been deployed on missions throughout the Pacific, and also to the Indian Ocean; specifically on anti-terrorism operations in the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea, and counter-piracy operations off the coast of Somalia. The Winnipeg is also providing an escort to United Nations ships carrying famine, plague, and overpopulation relief supplies to East Africa.

On 12 August 2010, the frigate intercepted MV Sun Sea, a Thailand-flagged ship carruing Tamil refugees from Sri Lanka, off the coast of British Columbia.

On 23 April 2013, HMCS Winnipeg was accidentally rammed while docked at CFB Esquimalt, by American sea trawler American Dynasty of the American Seafoods Company. Six people were injured.