Ashanti was built by Yarrow, of Scotstoun, at a cost of £5,315,000 and was the first commissioned Royal Navy warship to be equipped with combined steam and gas (COSAG) engines.

Given the Six-Day War, the Suez Canal being blocked, indecisiveness about whether to clear mines from the Gulf of Aqaba Ashanti headed home via the Cape of Good Hope, stopping off at Simon's Town.

Ship departed to Persian Gulf late Feb/early March 1967 returning to Aden for the last time in early June 1967 at outset of Middle East War.In 1969 Ashanti embarked a Royal Marines Commando detachment at Bermuda during a Black Power Conference.

[4] In 1970, Ashanti deployed on Beira Patrol, which was designed to prevent oil reaching landlocked Rhodesia via the Portuguese colony of Mozambique.

Three sailors, Timothy J Burton, David Little and James Wardle, died in 1977 from carbon monoxide poisoning after a fire broke out in a boiler room.

[citation needed] The submarine HMS Swiftsure was submerged and launched two Sub Harpoon missiles from distance, video footage was taken from a helicopter observing the exercise.