As I rightly remember the first sealord tells Maggie 'if there is to be an escalation it's better that we start it ' so hitting the mainland Argentina would be protecting the fleet
As I rightly remember the first sealord tells Maggie 'if there is to be an escalation it's better that we start it ' so hitting the mainland Argentina would be protecting the fleet
The officer wore a Chilean military uniform with the rank of captain but did not seem to have any actual purpose within the centre and unlike the offer personnel in the room wore no name tag or unit flashes. He was noticeable in that he hardly ever spoke to any of the other people in the room and seemed to spend most of his time just observing. Whenever he did speak it was nearly always to another officer who always accompanied him and often spoke seemingly on his behalf. The air force colonel who was in charge of the operations room seemed to either ignore him completely or even sometimes give hints of a possible resentment of his presence. The only time this man had ever spoken to one of the enlisted men had been a very brief conversation on the 21st when information had started to come in from the various radar stations that indicated a large number of aircraft taking off from Argentine air bases. The enlisted man recalled that while this man had spoken in excellent Spanish his accent was somewhat unusual and the enlisted man had been unable to place which part of the country this man had originated from based upon his accent. The officer had also seemed to be unfamiliar with some of the Chilean military words.
Military, yes. Politically, it's always better to appear as the injured party. Which is why the whole "omg Belgrano murder" crap still holds to this day... despite being fully justitfied military.
I don't understand why the Phantoms are calling Fox One at such short range - Skyflash has a range of fifty plus NM (75 KM)
Against fighters?
I know the Skyflash was a good missile but 6 kills from 8 missiles seems like a high Pk even if the Argies are coming straight and dumb and don't have much in the way of ECM.
In short its a case of sheer bad luck for the Argentinians due to facing planes a little more advanced and with better missiles than they can get hold of.Seems eminently reasonable to me. I discussed in an earlier post how AIM-7M / P (both of which use lessons drawn from Skyflash, yet still not quite matching it in capability) had achieved around 70 % in GW I, so a Pk of 75% doesn't seem unreasonable - particularly for targets that won't be maneuvering (because the're not going to have the warning) & are over open ocean until the mx enter the terminal phase.
How dumb can you get? Sure lets take off the thing that telks our pilots a missile is coming up their tailpipe and they need to take evasive action right bleeding now. ..Also the Argentinian Mirages were modified when buy by taking their radar illumination warning off for a question of cost (the saving being less than expected as Dassault work in modifying the aircrafts was not cheap)
How dumb can you get? Sure lets take off the thing that telks our pilots a missile is coming up their tailpipe and they need to take evasive action right bleeding now. ..
The Mirage is an interceptor, its kind of in the job description it will be facing other jets and many South American nations had upgraded to simular grades of fighters by that point. Surely you needed some warning even if its only for short range weapons?Its almost as if they were not expecting to take on a first tier NATO member flying Phantom and only shotgun armed natives