Forum: Air Power

JMAN wrote:

The Sea Harriers downed more than just one Mirage III, and it was not the one/s that was destroyed by fratricide.

I quoted 2 missile kills in the AIM-9 Sidewinder article in the Armaments section. Do you have further info to suggest there were other Mirage kills to the Sea Harrier?

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Great news! The legendary Avro Vulcan might be ready for Falkland anniversary .

Hats off to the 558 group! A big lump of cash from Jack Hayward certainly helped. I fear though that it will be just too expensive to keep flying.

Last edited by locum on Apr 03, 2007 - 03:56 PM; edited 1 time in total

beinticinco anos... exactly 25 years ago the Argentines invaded the Falklands/ Malvinas.
At page 5 of this thread; the 'sinking' of the HMS Invicible was discussed.

At Sunday 30 May 1982, 1 Super Etendard launched an Exocet missile at the 'Invincible', its inertial navigation system was used to guide 4 A-4Cs armed with iron bombs to the target area. The Scooters ingressed at 50ft / 15 m. and with a speed of nearly 500 kts / 926 km/h!, which made accurate bombing extremely difficult, but increased their chances of survival.

Two Skyhawks were shot down by Sea Dart SAMs and 4.5in / 115mm gunfire from HMS Exeter, killing Jose Vasques y Omar Castillo.
The first sighting in the target area of the 2 survivors, Lt Ernest Ureta (from Buenos Aires) and Lt Alferez Gerardo Isaac (Madrid), had been a black-grey cloud of smoke ust above the ocean. In fact, from the AM-39 Exocet exploding harmlessly.
Both pilots were young and lacked experience of Tactical Air Support Maritime Operations. They were moreover, under very considerable stress as a result of losing comrades, they were the only survivors of the 'Zonda' flight and being on the losing side in the conflict.
Since 25 May 1982, the British forces had the upper hand, I am not 100% sure, but approx 33% of the Argentinian Air fleet was destroyed at that time.
This helped them to see what they wished to see. Attacking at low level and high speed and hindered by high waves and sea/ salt spray, it is all too easy to confuse a frigate, when approached from the rear quarter, where the helicopter deck is located. (**)

The 2 pilots genuinely believed they had attacked the Invincible, but in fact their bombs narrowly missed HMS Arrow.
Another reason given both by Isaac and Ureta, why they believed they had hit the carrier, was the bad weather and her silhouette was hazy.

(**) British Harrier pilots have had difficulty indentifying ground targets in the Falklands War, Sqn. Leader Bob Iveson got shot down while trying to ID. But also in Afghanistan, UK Harriers use the Thales-Vinten Joint Recon. Pod instead of the LITENING, the former lacks the targeting functions. I can assure you, it is very uncomfortable to eat shrapnel and/ or to butthead incoming ordnance provided by 'friendly' forces.

Jofi Pesach chaverim.

to all the soldiers of both sides

Nice post locum, but I had understood that the British declared (after the attack of May 30th) that the attacked ship had been the "SS Atlantic Conveyor", and not the "Arrow" frigate.

Cheers

Holla Ryan,
At May 25th, 2 Super Etendards attacked a group of UK ships. They launched 2 Exocets from 15 - 30 kilometers away (8-16 nm) from the east in order to surprise the British. The surprise did not work, HMS Ambuscade spotted the Super Etendards with their radar and alerted the other ships. All the naval ships laid down a chaff screen except the Atlantic Conveyor (A.C.), because it had no chaff dispensers. At least 1 of the Exocets hit the A.C. below the superstructure at the port side, a fire broke out onboard, destroying the helicopters on deck. I know that during the 'Tanker War' in 1980-88 in the Persian Gulf, several Exocets hit their targets, but the 165 kg / 364lbs heavy warhead did not always explode, maybe the same happened here. Also I do not know what happened with Exocet no. 2, maybe Snypa777 can shed more light on this.
At 25 May, the A.C. was abandonded but it did not sink.
At 30 May, confusion arose, which big boat was hit?. The British used this confusion by declaring that the Atlantic Conveyor got hit again and finally sunk.

locum wrote:

The Scooters ingressed at 50ft / 15 m. and with a speed of nearly 500 kts / 926 km/h!, which made accurate bombing extremely difficult, but increased their chances of survival.

Two Skyhawks were shot down

I felt sorry for the Argentine pilots. They were inadequately trained and poorly equip!
1) The Scooters did not have the mortar's for the ejection seats.
2) Argentina starting a war having only six Exocet Missiles.
3) The bombs they dropped were for land targets not ships. Therefore, many
of the bomb fuses did not explode when they hit twelve ships.
4) Having maritime patrol aircraft to accurately locate naval targets. [They
never found and identified the Royal carriers.]
5) Argentine pilots did not have specific combat training. Harrier pilots
went through a "Red Flag" type program for several weeks, training
specifically with the French Air Forces Mirage fighters.
6) Having an aircraft carrier unable to launch an aircraft when the wind
speed is low.
7) Not having a political leadership that was prepared to fight a war.

locum wrote:

during the 'Tanker War' in 1980-88 in the Persian Gulf, several Exocets hit their targets, but the 165 kg / 364lbs heavy warhead did not always explode

This was a consistent problem for a long while but, it was found that the warhead did not cause as much damage as the remaining missile 'fuel' burning! The fires burn hotter and becomes more violent when water is put on the fire.

Adrian

AVON 1944, just a few points, sorry to nitpick!

1. A4 not having proper ejection seats?
Can you elaborate?

2. Argentina had limited Exocet
Agree but they made them count and used them expertly, especially converting a ship based round to launch from a fixed land base, the back of an army truck I believe!

3. The bombs they dropped were for land targets.
Not quite correct, the attacking aircraft had to fly low to stay out of Seadart and Seawolf engagement envelopes, the fuzes were set incorrectly for hitting targets at that altitude, it took them a long time to correct that mistake, it cost them the battle in many respects.

4. Not having maritime patrol aircraft to pick up RN ships.
Argentina used commercial aircraft to spy on the task force, the RN asked permission to shoot them down but were denied by Whitehall. They also used Lear jets flying at 50K ft + believing they would be invulnerable to Seadart. In fact, one of these biz` jets was shot down by a Seadart SAM way above the accepted max` alt` of the Seadart. Argentina had good intel` about RN ship movements and deployments.

5. Argentine pilot tactical training against the Harrier was zero.
So true, the Harrier really was an unknown quantity. The RN/RAF Harrier pilots trained against Mirages prior to heading south and were slaughtered by the Armee d`le air in the high altitude high speed game (French air force). The Harrier pilots chose to stay at medium to low altitudes and maintain their advantage.

6.Carrier unable to launch aircraft.
Poor equipment and tactics. RN nuclear attack boats which numbered 4 in the region would have posed a deadly threat to the carrier anyway, that is why the Argentine navy stayed in port after Belgrano.

7. Having a leadership that wasn`t prepared for war
I think the military were the ones unprepared for war against a modern, better trained NATO power.

Agree about Exocet, the Exocet that struck the destroyer Sheffield didn`t explode but caused a catastrophic fire from the unburnt rocket fuel. Some people think this was in part due to the use of an Aluminium superstructure on the type 42 destroyers but this is in doubt. The Sheffield was using Sat` comms gear when the Exocet bore down on it, the ships ESM gear which would have detected the Exocets active radar was switched off as it interfered with this gear. If the Sheffield had detected the Exocet early the ship may have been able to maneuver and throw up a chaff screen, these tactics defeated Exocet on several occasions.

On the Exocet, Margaret Thatcher hounded the French president for the "secret codes" that the RN could transmit to get the Exocet to "fail" in flight. Has anybody else heard that one? I find it incredible.

First your request snypa777, is not nipicking but rather a simple request asking for more details.

AVON1944 wrote:

1. A4 not having proper ejection seats?

snypa777 wrote:

Can you elaborate?

Yes, the A-4's ejection seat mortars were well past their usage date and were removed for safety reasons, an uncommanded ejection 'could' have occurred.

AVON1944 wrote:

3. The bombs they dropped were for land targets.

snypa777 wrote:

Not quite correct, the attacking aircraft had to fly low to stay out of Seadart and Seawolf engagement envelopes, the fuzes were set incorrectly for hitting targets at that altitude, it took them a long time to correct that mistake, it cost them the battle in many respects.

I read that a British equivalent to our EOD, stated that many of the bombs did not explode due to the fuse being damaged by the metal hulls. That the particular fuses being used was designed to be used against dirt.
It is true if all the bombs that hit British ships exploded, the Royal Navy would have had to change its tactics dramatically or withdraw.

AVON1944 wrote:

4. Not having maritime patrol aircraft to pick up RN ships.

snypa777 wrote:

Argentina used commercial aircraft to spy on the task force, the RN asked permission to shoot them down but were denied by Whitehall. They also used Lear jets flying at 50K ft + believing they would be invulnerable to Seadart. In fact, one of these biz` jets was shot down by a Seadart SAM way above the accepted max` alt` of the Seadart. Argentina had good intel` about RN ship movements and deployments.

Thanx for that information.

AVON1944 wrote:

5. Argentine pilot tactical training against the Harrier was zero.

snypa777 wrote:

So true, the Harrier really was an unknown quantity. The RN/RAF Harrier pilots trained against Mirages prior to heading south and were slaughtered by the Armee d`le air in the high altitude high speed game (French air force).

Which is the reason the Harrier used medium altitudes to fight the Argentine aircraft. The Argentine Mirages should have stayed at the higher speeds and altitudes to used slashing attacks with a SARH missile to beat the Harriers. The worst thing they could have done was to come down to lower altitudes and speeds to turn and burn with the Harriers.

AVON1944 wrote:

6.Carrier unable to launch aircraft.

snypa777 wrote:

Poor equipment and tactics. RN nuclear attack boats which numbered 4 in the region would have posed a deadly threat to the carrier anyway, that is why the Argentine navy stayed in port after Belgrano.

I didn't know that, I had heard there were only two SSNs. I also read the USA provided satellite coverage for the Royal Navy.

AVON1944 wrote:

7. Having a leadership that wasn`t prepared for war

snypa777 wrote:

I think the military were the ones unprepared for war against a modern, better trained NATO power.

Plus, the political leadership was depending on the UN to intervene and then the two countries could debate the issue for years before some kind of treaty would be signed. Meanwhile the Argentine people would stop worrying the economy which was in bad shape.

AVON1944 wrote:

2. Argentina had limited Exocet

snypa777 wrote:

Agree about Exocet, the Exocet that struck the destroyer Sheffield didn`t explode but caused a catastrophic fire from the unburnt rocket fuel. Some people think this was in part due to the use of an Aluminium superstructure on the type 42 destroyers but this is in doubt.

The aluminum super structure lost strength and the Royal navy felt that a steel super structure maintained its strength longer and steel must reach a higher temperature before it starts to burn and contribute to the fire.
Actually the HMS Sheffield was sunk on the design boards when funds were cut and the decision to eliminate one of the foam generators! When the Exocet hit, according to Murphy's Law, the only foam generator was destroyed.

One thing that is for sure, the lack of air to air refueling and ECM doomed the Argentine Air Force to lose the air battle.

I have not read many books on the topic, most of my information comes from AW&ST and US Naval Proceedings. Current events we used to call it.

Adrian

Even with "slashing" attacks AVON, you need the radar and missiles that have the capability of look down shoot down and can "snap down" to attack, I don`t think the Argentine airforce Mirages had the tools to do that.

The Mirages HAD to remove the Harrier threat. The Harriers could wait all day at low to medium altitudes because their job was to protect the task force ships. The Mirages couldn`t simply circle above at high altitude wasting fuel, they HAD to mix it with the Harrier.

A correction, there were in fact 5 SSNs in place and 1 SSK that were used to pen the Argentine navy within their 12 mile waters limit. One of the SSNs, HMS Spartan had several opportunities to attack Argentine naval vessels but had to withdraw as they were just inside the 12 mile limit. SSNs also did quite a lot of intelligence gathering ensuring the defending Harrier CAPS were in the right place at the right time on many occasions.

The US indeed provided coverage with satellite imagery to UK forces.

On Sheffield, fire fighting gear was damaged and the fires got away from the crew, there were also questions about insulation and fire resistant materials, all part of ways to make the Type 42s cheaper to build. A huge lesson learned there.

On bomb fuzing, a lot of bombs dropped by Argentine Scooters simply skipped and bounced off decks and superstructures because of the shallow release angles associated with low level attacks. AFAIK the fuzes were set incorrectly, I will do some reading, I have no knowledge of the "wrong" fuzes being used, thanks. Cool

snypa777 wrote:

Even with "slashing" attacks AVON, you need the radar and missiles that have the capability of look down shoot down and can "snap down" to attack, I don`t think the Argentine airforce Mirages had the tools to do that.

You are correct their but, weren't most of the attacks against the ships made with A-4 Skyhawks?

snypa777 wrote:

The Mirages HAD to remove the Harrier threat.

Without an effective air to air missile, while the Harriers had the state of the art missile. It is not realistic to expect them to be able to complete their task.
All the Harriers had to do is to protect against the low level penetrator. Fleet SAMs could handle the rest of the airborne threats.

snypa777 wrote:

AFAIK the fuzes were set incorrectly

Thanx for your input, "I stand corrected!" URL:
http://www.defense-training.com/quips/03Jan07.html
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ ... 84/HTJ.htm

Adrian

Today the Fuerza Aérea Argentina lost one of its pilots in an accident, Lt. Marcos Pereti, 25 years after the Air Force made their first war mission.
My condolences to the family.

"He is gone, but not forgotten"

Salute

snypa wrote:

Even with "slashing" attacks AVON, you need the radar and missiles that have the capability of look down shoot down and can "snap down" to attack, I don`t think the Argentine airforce Mirages had the tools to do that.

Avon1944 wrote:

You are correct their but, weren't most of the attacks against the ships made with A-4 Skyhawks?

I was actually referring to the Mirage/Harrier air war?

Avon1944 wrote:

Without an effective air to air missile, while the Harriers had the state of the art missile. It is not realistic to expect them to be able to complete their task.
All the Harriers had to do is to protect against the low level penetrator. Fleet SAMs could handle the rest of the airborne threats.

The problem was not I think missiles, just tactics, the Argentine pilots played into the Harriers hands. The Mirage also lacked the gas to stay in the combat zone. The Mirage pilots were forced into fighting the Harrier on the Harriers terms by going low level where the Harriers stayed put! If they didn`t attack the Harriers, there would have been no point in them taking off from their bases in the first place.

The Argentine air force A4s best tactic was to attack at ultra low level, if they flew in any higher they would have been smack in the middle of the ships SAM envelopes and made easy targets. The Harriers provided MUCH more than air defence of the fleet. If the Mirages had taken care of the Harriers, the RN task force would have had to have sailed home because they would have had NO defence from low level attackers at long range and been unable to project ANY firepower, anywhere.
You can`t win a war without air power as you know.

The Harrier was the linchpin for the British, we needed the Harrier to perform the CAP mission for the ships and to protect land forces by intercepting enemy Pucara, re-supply Hercs` and A4s, any ships slipping through the naval screen, perform CAS, etc. In fact, they were our only tool for counter air and defensive air ops`. The Fuerza Aérea Argentina's` Mirage primary task was to remove the RN task force air power and in that , they failed. That lost them the war in my opinion.

Ryan, my condolences to Lt. Marcos Pereti and his family.

Snypa.

Does anyone know why the HMS Sheffield did not respond to the HMS Glasgow's missile warnings?

Adrian

Forum: Air Power

Aerial Combat during Falkland Campaign 1982