Falklands War, 1982, Thread

[TerraN_EmpirE]

Harrier losses The Falklands islands,
4 May 1982
Royal Navy Sea Harrier FRS1 (XZ450) crashed after being hit by 35mm cannon shells during a photographic sortie after earlier bombing raids on Goose Green airstrip, pilot killed.
6 May 1982
Two Royal Navy Sea Harrier FRS.1s, XZ452 and XZ453 of 801 NAS on combat air patrol from HMS Invincible of the Falklands task force, collided in poor visibility killing both pilots.
21 May 1982
RAF GR3 (XZ972) crashed after being hit by a Blowpipe missile during an armed reconnaissance over Port Howard.
23 May 1982
Royal Navy Sea Harrier FRS1 (ZA192) crashed into the sea following an explosion on departing from HMS Hermes, pilot killed.
27 May 1982
RAF GR3 (XZ988) of No. 1 Squadron crashed following being hit by gunfire during an attack on Goose Green.
29 May 1982
Royal Navy Sea Harrier FRS1 (ZA174) slid off the deck of HMS Invincible into the sea in bad weather, pilot recovered.
30 May 1982
RAF GR3 (XZ963) of No. 1 Squadron crashed into the sea after running out of fuel, aircraft had been hit by small arms fire west of Port Stanley.
1 June 1982
Royal Navy Sea Harrier FRS1 (XZ456) crashed into sea after being hit by a Roland missile during an armed reconnaissance mission south of Stanley Airport.
8 June 1982
RAF GR3 (XZ989) of No. 1 Squadron damaged beyond repair landing on a metal strip runway at San Carlos, Falkland Islands.
6 November 1982
RAF GR3 (XW767) abandoned following engine failure and crashed in sea off Falklands Island

11 Machines 4 being sea Harriers 7 being Gr3 of the RAF, 5 having taken ground fire. when you consider how hard it is to fly a harrier and combat conditions these make sense.

 

[Obi Wan Russell]

I am not for a moment suggesting one side always lies and another always tells the truth. The Argentine press and the Government of the time have demonstrably been proven to be highly unreliable sources. I have already shown the numbers of Sea Harrier claimed destroyed by the Argentines could not possibly be true because there simply weren't enough Sea Harrier aircraft existing in the world to account for that many losses AND the number that returned.

The only question mark about any of the losses are the two SHARs that launched in thick fog and disappeared from radar moments later. No other aircraft were in the vicinity and the reasonable presumption is they collided in poor visibility with no survivors. If they had been shot down in combat, that would have been a more 'honourable' and 'heroic' way to be remembered than a stupid and pointless accident, don't you think? Also the one that rolled off the deck because the carrier was making a hard turn to port in wet weather, hardly a glorious admission, but undeniable because there were witnesses. Oh right, sorry, it was Invincible, and all the crew died when she was sunk. All their families were of course bribed by the UK Government to keep quiet about it, Not to mention the Shipyard workers (either US or British) who built the second Invincible in just six weeks...

 

[FORBIN]

A good PDF especialy maps :

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[FORBIN]

Ah you are being deliberately obtuse again. I said 28 SEA HARRIERS. I should have mentioned the 10 Harrier GR.3s of the RAF as well, but the topic was focussing on the Sea Harrier, which is a different aircraft operationally from the GR.3. In the same way a Mirage III is a different aircraft from an IAI Dagger, despite appearances.

Yes Sir ! a Mirage V in fact but a scandalous illegal copy

 

[Miragedriver]

Some pictures of downed Harriers

 

[Miragedriver]

There are few new lessons to be learned from the war. Such as that all the British ships lost succumbed to fire. Had the British been able to suppress on board fires, most of the ships would have been salvageable, if not promptly able to return to battle. The Royal Navy had thought itself well prepared and well drilled in shipboard firefighting. Indeed, each ship of the task force had been stripped as far as possible of flammable materials, and each crewman wore flame retardant flash hoods and gloves to protect him at battle stations. But the heat, toxicity and persistence of shipboard fires came as a surprise to the fleet. Lessons relearned in the war would go a long way to saving the USS Stark 5 years later in the Persian Gulf.

The lack of effective point defense against air and missile threats was something of a surprise to the Royal Navy. The fleet had been tailored for an open ocean “blue water” mission. Its primary area air defense missile, the Sea Dart, was quite effective against medium altitude, long range targets. But the involved steps to identify, localize, track, and engage targets took time, and made it less than effective against low altitude threats and those threats that appeared at very close range. The most common short range air defense missile in the fleet, the ancient Sea Cat missile, was virtually useless. Last ditch weapons such as optically aimed 40mm and 20mm cannon were recognized as obsolete by the end of World War II, and yet they were still the only close in weapons for many RN ships in the war nearly 40 years later. Not surprisingly, almost immediately after the war, money was found to install the Phalanx Close in Weapon System on most ships.

In all Royal Navy performed a logistics masterpiece and utilized the basics of fleet warfare to achieve victory. While the Royal Navy of the Napoleonic Wars didn’t have to deal with attacking jets, they had a clear understanding of the basics of moving a fleet long distances, blockading an objective, and landing a force to take control from an enemy.

 

[Miragedriver]

I'm not sure where that 80M came from because in 1982 the exchange rate was ridiculous in Argentina so peso may not make sense either.. unless the modern day press took liberty in doing the exchange rates themselves instead of quoting verbatim

In Argentina the “unofficial” currency is the US dollar. When buying a home, large purchase item, or dealing import/export, all items are priced in US dollars.

 

[b787]

11 Machines 4 being sea Harriers 7 being Gr3 of the RAF, 5 having taken ground fire. when you consider how hard it is to fly a harrier and combat conditions these make sense.

you　are repeating what yoou have been told and you have no questioned at all the information, basically you have been indoctrinated, a true historian questions what he has been told

 

[b787]

I am not for a moment suggesting one side always lies and another always tells the truth. The Argentine press and the Government of the time have demonstrably been proven to be highly unreliable sources. ..

let us go by parts.

British sources in the 1982 denied from the beginning any claim made by Argentina except when there were POW or Basically they could not hide it anymore remember the Argentine also had TV and cameras in 1982.

You mention the Invincible, what about Prince Andrew duke of York saying in 2012 admitting he was aboard it during a missile attack? only missile Argentina had to do that was an Exocet and the distance obviously is from an Etendard. plus Argentina has claimed that since 1982

You press is not better.


A true historian questions both sides, also you have to understand in the heat of battle 28 sea harriers can mean a total of 28 harriers of all versions, you are trying to go into technicalities and minor mistakes the press may have committed.


I can say 28 Harriers and England had 38 there.

But as a Historian, you have to think too the Argies/Argentinos also are human and lied, so i also doubt 28 Harriers.


In my personal opinion there is a possibility maybe 1 or 2 harriers may have been shot down in air to air i give some credibility, because Generalizations are wrong, i think there are reasons to believe England hides losses by saying these were accidents, i must doubt both sides, why because both sides gain by hiding information and both sides have different accounts.
So i think England very likely lost around 10 Harriers in combat operations and that number goes well with the 2012 claim by Martin Balza`s account

 

[FORBIN]

There are few new lessons to be learned from the war. Such as that all the British ships lost succumbed to fire. Had the British been able to suppress on board fires, most of the ships would have been salvageable, if not promptly able to return to battle. The Royal Navy had thought itself well prepared and well drilled in shipboard firefighting. Indeed, each ship of the task force had been stripped as far as possible of flammable materials, and each crewman wore flame retardant flash hoods and gloves to protect him at battle stations. But the heat, toxicity and persistence of shipboard fires came as a surprise to the fleet. Lessons relearned in the war would go a long way to saving the USS Stark 5 years later in the Persian Gulf.

The lack of effective point defense against air and missile threats was something of a surprise to the Royal Navy. The fleet had been tailored for an open ocean “blue water” mission. Its primary area air defense missile, the Sea Dart, was quite effective against medium altitude, long range targets. But the involved steps to identify, localize, track, and engage targets took time, and made it less than effective against low altitude threats and those threats that appeared at very close range. The most common short range air defense missile in the fleet, the ancient Sea Cat missile, was virtually useless. Last ditch weapons such as optically aimed 40mm and 20mm cannon were recognized as obsolete by the end of World War II, and yet they were still the only close in weapons for many RN ships in the war nearly 40 years later. Not surprisingly, almost immediately after the war, money was found to install the Phalanx Close in Weapon System on most ships.

In all Royal Navy performed a logistics masterpiece and utilized the basics of fleet warfare to achieve victory. While the Royal Navy of the Napoleonic Wars didn’t have to deal with attacking jets, they had a clear understanding of the basics of moving a fleet long distances, blockading an objective, and landing a force to take control from an enemy.

Interesting from a fair personn and not all as that... and your Argentinian in more Amigo as Obi Wan i congratulates you fine gents for your right opinions and fair appraisal of the facts ! and cheers

RN crew was very trained for control damages but can't do impossible.

For SAMs i quote for capacities :

The more capable ships, for LR AAW Sheffields and Bristol which have 38 Sea darts vs 22 and for SR SAMs the 2 Broadsword but the Sea cat is very numerous and don' t have occcured failure than others better.
And the old Sea Slug was also anti-ships and land targets ! i ignore that.

Sea Dart
In total at least eighteen missiles were launched by Type 42 destroyers, six by Invincible, and two by Bristol. Out of five missiles fired against helicopters or high flying aircraft, four were successful, but only two of nineteen fired at low level aircraft hit: just eleven percent; however a number of missiles were fired without guidance to deter low level attacks. Exeter's success can be partially attributed to being equipped with the Type 1022 radar, which was designed for the system and provided greater capability than the old Type 965 fitted to the earlier Type 42s.

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The Type 965 was unable to cope with low level targets as it suffered multiple path crossings and targets became lost in radar clutter from the surface of the South Atlantic, this resulted in Sea Dart being unable to lock onto targets at distance obscured by land, or fast-moving low-level targets obscured in ground clutter or sea-returns.

The

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was well aware of the Sea Dart's capabilities and limitations, having two Type 42s of its own. Consequently, Argentine planes, opting to fly below the Type 965 radar ("sea skimming"), frequently dropped bombs which failed to explode: The arming vane on the bomb had insufficient time to complete the number of revolutions required to arm the

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, in which case, the fuze remained in safe mode and would not function on impact.

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Seaslug
During the

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Seaslug was only launched once against an aircraft target, by

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, and did not hit. This is hardly surprising, as the Royal Navy considered the system to be obsolete and the low-level attacks experienced in the Falklands War were outside the missile's operational capacity. It was fired again in anger, this time against an Argentine radar at

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airfield that the

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had been unable to destroy. During a shore bombardment

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triangulated the last known position of the radar with her ESM and fired a Seaslug. She later fired several at the runway to cover it with debris which would have damaged any aircraft attempting to land or take off. Results, if any, are unknown, but the impressive fireworks display associated with the launch sequence was something of a morale booster to the troops ashore.

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Sea Wolf
During the Falklands War, Sea Wolf was the Royal Navy's only modern point-defence weapon. It equipped the Type 22 frigates

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,

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and the Batch 2 Leander class frigate

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. These ships were assigned "goalkeeper" duties, to provide close anti-aircraft defence of the carrier task force.

In an attempt to overcome the fleet's overall air defence deficiency following the loss of

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, a new tactic was devised, which saw each of the two Type 22 frigates paired with each of the two remaining

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area air defence destroyers. The pairing was unofficially termed Type 64, the sum of both classes numbers".

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The two pairs were deployed some distance from the main fleet, covering likely attack routes, in an attempt to draw attacking aircraft into a "missile trap", the intention being that, if the Type 42 was unable to engage targets at longer ranges with its

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missiles, the Type 22 would use its short-range Sea Wolf missiles to defend both ships. On 12 May 1982, Brilliant and

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were in combination and were attacked by a flight of four

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aircraft. Brilliant was able to shoot down two of these and cause a third to crash trying to avoid the missile. A second wave of aircraft attacked during a failure of the missile system, which led to the Type 42 Glasgow suffering heavy damage. Broadsword was then unable to successfully defend

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when the pair were attacked on 25 May. Coventry, moving evasively, crossed in front of Broadsword and broke the Sea Wolf's lock on the attacking aircraft.

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Sea Wolf also suffered from problems with hardware failure causing launches to fail, and broken lock resulting from the extreme sea conditions and the Argentines' low altitude hit-and-run tactics, and multiple targets and crossing targets - neither of which it was designed to intercept. Sea Wolf accounted for two confirmed "kills" and three further possible successes from eight launches.

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