The list of ship decommissionings in 2018 includes a chronological list of ships decommissioned in 2018.
| Operator | Ship | Flag | Class and type | Pennant | Fate | Other notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 February |  Royal Navy | Gleaner | Survey Motor Launch | H86 | Awaiting disposal | [1] | |
| 27 March | Royal Navy | Ocean | Landing Platform Helicopter | L12 | Sold to Brazil | [2] |
The Oliver Hazard Perry class is a class of guided-missile frigates named after the U.S. Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, the hero of the naval Battle of Lake Erie. Also known as the Perry or FFG-7 class, the warships were designed in the United States in the mid-1970s as general-purpose escort vessels inexpensive enough to be bought in large numbers to replace World War II-era destroyers and complement 1960s-era Knox-class frigates. In Admiral Elmo Zumwalt's "high low fleet plan", the FFG-7s were the low capability ships with the Spruance-class destroyers serving as the high capability ships. Intended to protect amphibious landing forces, supply and replenishment groups, and merchant convoys from aircraft and submarines. They were also later part of battleship-centred surface action groups and aircraft carrier battle groups/strike groups. Fifty-five ships were built in the United States: 51 for the United States Navy and four for the Royal Australian Navy (RAN). In addition, eight were built in Taiwan, six in Spain, and two in Australia for their navies. Former U.S. Navy warships of this class have been sold or donated to the navies of Bahrain, Egypt, Poland, Pakistan, Taiwan, and Turkey.
A corvette is a small warship. It is traditionally the smallest class of vessel considered to be a proper warship. The warship class above the corvette is that of the frigate, while the class below was historically that of the sloop-of-war. The modern types of ships below a corvette are coastal patrol craft, missile boat and fast attack craft. In modern terms, a corvette is typically between 500 tons and 2,000 tons, although recent designs may approach 3,000 tons, which might instead be considered a small frigate.
HMS Ark Royal was a light aircraft carrier and former flagship of the Royal Navy. She was the third and final vessel of Invincible class. She was built by Swan Hunter on the River Tyne and launched by them in 1981. Ark Royal was christened by Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother. She followed sister ships HMS Invincible and HMS Illustrious into service in 1985.
INS Viraat was a Centaur-class aircraft carrier of the Indian Navy. INS Viraat was the flagship of the Indian Navy before INS Vikramaditya was commissioned in 2013. The ship was completed and commissioned in 1959 as the Royal Navy's HMS Hermes, and decommissioned in 1984. It was sold to India in 1987. INS Viraat was commissioned into the Indian Navy on 12 May 1987, and served for almost 30 years.
HMS Sheffield is a Type 22 frigate originally in service with the British Royal Navy. Initially it was meant to be called Bruiser but was named Sheffield in honour of the previous Sheffield, a Type 42 destroyer sunk in the Falklands War. Entering service in 1988, Sheffield served with the Royal Navy until 2002. In 2003, the vessel was acquired by the Chilean Navy and renamed Almirante Williams. The frigate is currently in service with the Chilean Navy.
HMS Campbeltown was a Batch 3 Type 22 frigate of the British Royal Navy. Built by Cammell Laird Shipbuilders Ltd. in Birkenhead. She was part of the third batch of Type 22s, which were larger than their predecessors and incorporated advanced close-in weapons after lessons learnt from the 1982 Falklands War. She was decommissioned on 7 April 2011.
RFA Orangeleaf was a Leaf-class fleet support tanker of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary.
Landing platform helicopter (LPH) is a term used by some navies to denote a type of amphibious warfare ship designed primarily to operate as a launch and recovery platform for helicopters and other VTOL aircraft. As such, they are considered a type of helicopter carrier.
The River class is a class of offshore patrol vessels built primarily for the Royal Navy of the United Kingdom. A total of nine were built for the Royal Navy (RN), four Batch 1 and five Batch 2. One Batch 1 (HMS Clyde), which was the Falklands guard ship, was decommissioned and transferred at the end of its lease to the Royal Bahrain Naval Force.
HMSML Gleaner (H86) was the smallest commissioned vessel in the Royal Navy, at the time of her decommissioning, with a length of just under 15 metres and a ship's company of just nine. She was based in Devonport, Plymouth. The ship prefix "HMSML" stands for Her Majesty's Survey Motor Launch.
The Kanimbla class was a class of amphibious transport ships operated by the Royal Australian Navy (RAN). Two ships were purchased by Australia in 1994 and modified. Problems during the handover process and the need to repair previously unidentified defects meant the ships did not enter operational service until the end of the decade.
A helicopter carrier is a type of aircraft carrier whose primary purpose is to operate helicopters. A helicopter carrier has a large flight deck that occupies a large part of the ship, which can extend the full length of the ship like HMS Ocean of the Royal Navy (RN), or only partway, usually aft, as in the Soviet Navy's Moskva class or in the Chinese Navy's Type 0891A. It often also has a hangar deck for the storage of aircraft.
The Belgian Navy, officially the Belgian Naval Component of the Belgian Armed Forces, is the naval service of Belgium.
HMS Walney (M104) was a Sandown-class minehunter of the British Royal Navy. She was the fourth of the Sandown-class minehunters, and the second ship to carry the name, which comes from the island off Barrow-in-Furness in Cumbria on the north-west coast of England.
Aircraft carriers have their origins during the days of World War I. The earliest experiments consisted of fitting temporary "flying off" platforms to the gun turrets of the warships of several nations, notably the United States and the United Kingdom. The first ship to be modified with a permanent flight deck was the battlecruiser HMS Furious, which initially had a single flying-off deck forward of the original superstructure. Subsequently, she was modified with a separate "landing on" deck aft and later with a full flush deck. Other ships, often liners, were modified to have full flush flight decks, HMS Argus being the first to have such modification begun. Those first faltering steps gave little indication of just how important the aircraft carrier was to prove to be. During the inter-war years, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States built up significant carrier fleets so that by the beginning of World War II, they had 18 carriers between them. The 1940 Battle of Taranto and 1941 Attack on Pearl Harbor in retrospect showed the world that the aircraft carrier was to be the most important ship in the modern fleet. Today, aircraft carriers are the capital ships of the navies they serve in, and in the case of modern US "supercarriers", they embark an air group that is effectively a small air force.
| Ship events in 2018 | |||||||||||
| Ship launches: | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | |
| Ship commissionings: | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | |
| Ship decommissionings: | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | |
| Shipwrecks: | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | |