HMS EAGLE in the Falklands
- Thread starter flasheart
- Start date
Yep. By then, the ships are pretty much empty shells. They are also completely cleaned up of polutants: fuel, oil. chemicals, etc.
But a longer finer hull also gives better speed off the same power, better seakeeping, a more stable helicopter platform, better ability to absorb battle damage, etc etc etc.
It’s not an automatic decision which is best, as you can see by the tendency for RN ships to be built “equipped for but not with” and pootling about as huge empty hulls armed with a helicopter, two missiles, five pool cues and a set of cooks knives.
I am afraid the cooks knives have been removed and replaced with the new 5 billion pound BAEsystems food delivery system 3000. As a result 47 seamen have died of malnutrition and Scurvy has invalided another 700.
Asian Jumbo
Monthly Donor
The Provisonal Health And Safety (Executive Wing) hav claimed responsibility
It is an eight cell launcher but in the Mark 41 VLS, you can put a quad pack of Sea Sparrows in each cell, meaning each one of these FFGs can carry 32 Sea Sparrows. Otherwise there wouldn't be much point. The Sea Sparrow is a point defense missile and if all the eight cell VLS can handle is eight missiles, you would be better off just keeping an old fashioned box launcher.
The first units had Sea Sparrow initially. From Ship 5 (of 10) onwards, they were equipped with ESSM from build.
HMAS Warramunga was the first Australian warship fitted with ESSM and I think she might have been involved in the trials program for the ESSM?
Good close-range boost, then. Still, it's a "quick and dirty" easy(ish) setup to do, even on a support ship. Not the same as large, long range SAMs requiring lots of hull space and far more complicated radar & fire control systems.
Apologies for the lack of recent updates I’ve been abroad for the last few weeks. I’m still working on the next update for the TL but in the meantime in light of current events I thought this might be interesting.
BBC News
Argentine Submarine ARA SAN LUIS Found
17 November 18
The Argentine navy has today announced that the wreckage of a submarine discovered North East of the Falkland Islands has been positively identified as the submarine ARA SAN LUIS.
The US based company Ocean Infinity which specialises in mapping the seabed was contracted by the Argentine government earlier in the year to carry out searches for the remaining undiscovered wreaks of the Argentine ships lost during the Falklands conflict.
Using highly advanced side scanning sonars and other technologies to search an area based upon the SAN LUIS’s last known location a large elongated object measuring just under 60m in length was discovered on the sea floor by the ship SEABED CONSTRUCTOR on the 16th of November. Cameras mounted on underwater remote operated vehicles captured images that confirmed that this object was indeed the Type 209 class submarine that has been missing for more than 36 years.
The submarine went missing on the 2nd of May 1982 when it stopped communicating with Argentine naval command. The vessel had been ordered to attack British ships as part of the ill fated Operation Hammer (or Operation Martillo as it is referred to in Argentina) which led to the Battle of the Falkland Islands that saw the destruction of numerous ships of the Argentine navy. While in the immediate aftermath the most common theory surrounding her disappearance was that she had been sunk by British forces this was never confirmed. The British task force which included the aircraft carrier HMS EAGLE used torpedoes and depth charges against numerous suspected submarines throughout the conflict controversially resulting in the death of a number of whales.
Other theories included the submarine being lost in an accident or due to some sort of equipment failure. These theories were supported by declassified Argentine navy records from the time that show the submarine to have been in a poor state of repair.
Questions were also raised regarding the competence of the crew with the boats commander Captain Azcueta and others known to have been relatively inexperienced with vessels of SAN LUIS’s class.
The location of the wreak will likely prove the British claim to have sunk the submarine on the 2nd of May 1982. Sonar operators aboard the British warships HMS BROADSWORD and HMS YARNMOUTH reported hearing the sounds of torpedoes coming towards them which resulted in an anti-submarine operation in the area lasting for many hours which included both ships and Sea King helicopters flying from HMS INVINCIBLE. Pilots in the helicopters later claimed to have seen an oil slick in the sea in the area where depth charges had been dropped.
While the Argentine navy later changed ARA SAN LUIS’s status from missing to presumed sunk on the 2nd of May they for years disputed the British claim. British records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act give the position of the area torpedoes and depth charges were used which are almost identical to the position of the wreak.
In a speech today the President of Argentina announced that a memorial service will take place at the Malvinas War Memorial in Buenos Aries where the names of all of the Argentinian’s who lost their lives in the conflict are listed. The 31 men of the ARA SAN LUIS have their own plaque both at the memorial in Buenos Aries and at the naval memorial in Puerto Belgrano Naval Base where many of the Argentine ships were based. The president further announced that the Argentine navy would be sending a ship out to sea to perform a service of remembrance at the site of the wreak and that relatives of the men lost aboard the SAN LUIS would be invited to accompany the ship. The president ended by vowing to continue the search for the remaining ships.
The discovery of the ARA SAN LUIS brings the total number of Argentine vessels located up to eight out of ten lost during the conflict Robert Ballard the oceanographer famous for discovering the wreak of the TITANIC and the German battleship BISMARK mounted a pair of expeditions during the 1990’s that resulted in the discovery of all six of the ships sunk by Buccaneer strike aircraft from the British aircraft carrier HMS EAGLE including the Argentinian flagship the aircraft carrier ARA VEINTICINCO DE MAYO.
The submarine ARA SANTA FE which was sunk during the recapture of the island of South Georgia was located in 1984 by the survey ship HMS HERALD which had also seen service in the Falklands conflict.
The only ships remaining undiscovered are the cruiser ARA GENERAL BELGRANO and the destroyer ARA HIPOLITO BOUCHARD which were sunk by the British nuclear submarine HMS CONQUEROR south of the Falkland Islands during the Battle of the Falkland Islands.
The discovery of the wreak of the SAN LUIS will likely give some degree of hope to the relatives and surviving comrades of the BELGRANO and the BOUCHARD that they may soon have the same closure as Argentina after decades still struggles to come to terms with the events of 1982.
BBC News
Argentine Submarine ARA SAN LUIS Found
17 November 18
The Argentine navy has today announced that the wreckage of a submarine discovered North East of the Falkland Islands has been positively identified as the submarine ARA SAN LUIS.
The US based company Ocean Infinity which specialises in mapping the seabed was contracted by the Argentine government earlier in the year to carry out searches for the remaining undiscovered wreaks of the Argentine ships lost during the Falklands conflict.
Using highly advanced side scanning sonars and other technologies to search an area based upon the SAN LUIS’s last known location a large elongated object measuring just under 60m in length was discovered on the sea floor by the ship SEABED CONSTRUCTOR on the 16th of November. Cameras mounted on underwater remote operated vehicles captured images that confirmed that this object was indeed the Type 209 class submarine that has been missing for more than 36 years.
The submarine went missing on the 2nd of May 1982 when it stopped communicating with Argentine naval command. The vessel had been ordered to attack British ships as part of the ill fated Operation Hammer (or Operation Martillo as it is referred to in Argentina) which led to the Battle of the Falkland Islands that saw the destruction of numerous ships of the Argentine navy. While in the immediate aftermath the most common theory surrounding her disappearance was that she had been sunk by British forces this was never confirmed. The British task force which included the aircraft carrier HMS EAGLE used torpedoes and depth charges against numerous suspected submarines throughout the conflict controversially resulting in the death of a number of whales.
Other theories included the submarine being lost in an accident or due to some sort of equipment failure. These theories were supported by declassified Argentine navy records from the time that show the submarine to have been in a poor state of repair.
Questions were also raised regarding the competence of the crew with the boats commander Captain Azcueta and others known to have been relatively inexperienced with vessels of SAN LUIS’s class.
The location of the wreak will likely prove the British claim to have sunk the submarine on the 2nd of May 1982. Sonar operators aboard the British warships HMS BROADSWORD and HMS YARNMOUTH reported hearing the sounds of torpedoes coming towards them which resulted in an anti-submarine operation in the area lasting for many hours which included both ships and Sea King helicopters flying from HMS INVINCIBLE. Pilots in the helicopters later claimed to have seen an oil slick in the sea in the area where depth charges had been dropped.
While the Argentine navy later changed ARA SAN LUIS’s status from missing to presumed sunk on the 2nd of May they for years disputed the British claim. British records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act give the position of the area torpedoes and depth charges were used which are almost identical to the position of the wreak.
In a speech today the President of Argentina announced that a memorial service will take place at the Malvinas War Memorial in Buenos Aries where the names of all of the Argentinian’s who lost their lives in the conflict are listed. The 31 men of the ARA SAN LUIS have their own plaque both at the memorial in Buenos Aries and at the naval memorial in Puerto Belgrano Naval Base where many of the Argentine ships were based. The president further announced that the Argentine navy would be sending a ship out to sea to perform a service of remembrance at the site of the wreak and that relatives of the men lost aboard the SAN LUIS would be invited to accompany the ship. The president ended by vowing to continue the search for the remaining ships.
The discovery of the ARA SAN LUIS brings the total number of Argentine vessels located up to eight out of ten lost during the conflict Robert Ballard the oceanographer famous for discovering the wreak of the TITANIC and the German battleship BISMARK mounted a pair of expeditions during the 1990’s that resulted in the discovery of all six of the ships sunk by Buccaneer strike aircraft from the British aircraft carrier HMS EAGLE including the Argentinian flagship the aircraft carrier ARA VEINTICINCO DE MAYO.
The submarine ARA SANTA FE which was sunk during the recapture of the island of South Georgia was located in 1984 by the survey ship HMS HERALD which had also seen service in the Falklands conflict.
The only ships remaining undiscovered are the cruiser ARA GENERAL BELGRANO and the destroyer ARA HIPOLITO BOUCHARD which were sunk by the British nuclear submarine HMS CONQUEROR south of the Falkland Islands during the Battle of the Falkland Islands.
The discovery of the wreak of the SAN LUIS will likely give some degree of hope to the relatives and surviving comrades of the BELGRANO and the BOUCHARD that they may soon have the same closure as Argentina after decades still struggles to come to terms with the events of 1982.
This is kinda ominous as bbc have just done some article on recent missing Argentine sub today.
Yes it’s about the San Juan which in OTL sank last year (and has apparently imploded), this is just @flasheart incorporating a real news report into his story.
Its a flash forward which tells us just how far in the hole Argentina really is. The fleets been annihilated and it will take nearly 40 years just to find all those ships graves.
Correct.
The Type 42's Batch III's were modified to this.
Lengthened by around 47 plus feet, which didn't impair actual range and economy.
Coincidently . . . this was the spec that the MOD declined to the RN as it was too expensive.
RE: Salamanders, Modern Destroyers & Modern Royal Navy Warships by Paul Beaver.
Battle of San Carlos Part 3
HMS INVINCIBLE
Under his anti-flash hood the Lt Cdr was sweating not because he was overheating but because he was right now a very busy and somewhat stressed man. As the Air Warfare Officer, he was the most senior of all the PWO’s onboard and was responsible for all things air related. Being an aircraft carrier equipped with the most up to date Type 1022 long range air search radar and a large operations room staffed by men who were well practised in tracking and controlling large numbers of aircraft meant that INVINCIBLE or more accurately the Lt Cdr had been designated as the force AWO responsible for all aspects of the air defence of the carrier group currently located well over a hundred miles north east of San Carlos water where right now the landing force was desperately struggling to fend off a heavy and sustained Argentine air attack.
Sat next to Captain Jeremy Black and one of the other PWO’s in the centre of the Ops room the three men poured over an alarmingly busy force plot that the various radar plotters around them were working feverishly to keep up to date. With forces spread out over such a large area radar coverage was limited meaning that a lot of the information was being passed between ships by voice communications massively slowing down the rate at which information was passed. This was particularly frustrating in the case of the Gannet AEW aircraft that being closer to the action had a much clearer understanding of what was going on.
As the situation stood right now the attacking Argentine aircraft were in the process of making their bombing runs over the landing force and were being reported by various ships within San Carlos Water as exiting the area westwards over West Falkland presumably on their return trip. It was these aircraft that currently held the interest of the three men. The more of these aircraft that could be prevented from returning to the mainland would mean the lesser the air threat in the long term. Though he wasn’t an intelligence officer the AWO knew enough about the A4 Skyhawk from his experiences of working alongside the Americans and Australians to recognise that the Argentine aircraft would be at the near limit of their fuel endurance to be able to fly sorties over these distances. In his opinion it may not even be necessary to shoot them down. Perhaps forcing them to manoeuvre would be enough to burn just enough fuel to prevent them from returning home.
To that end the three officers were examining the position and statuses of their own aircraft to see who would be best placed to make the interception.
At that moment there was a grand total of 10 Phantoms and 10 Sea Harriers in the air working in pairs as well as the AEW Gannets a pair of Buccaneers returning from an air to air refuelling sortie and the various helicopters that were now being scrambled or retasked to assist the ships that had been hit in San Carlos Water.
Of the Phantoms 4 had been positioned to the west of the Falklands working with HMS BRISTOL and accompanying ships to intercept inbound Argentine aircraft with a third pair having been scrambled from HMS EAGLE when the first raids were detected. The air of Phantoms that had engaged the first group of Argentine aircraft believed to have been Mirages had used their entire complement of Skyflash’s. While they still had a full compliment of Sidewinders their heavy use of afterburners to get away from the pursuing Mirages that had survived the initial missile volley had used up a lot of fuel meaning that they were now heading back towards EAGLE. While they still theoretically had fuel remaining for a few minutes loitering time with so many aircraft that would have to eventually be recovered to EAGLE that fuel would probably be best saved in case they had to wait for their turn to recover.
The second pair of Phantoms had used up their missile compliment and being further away from EAGLE than the first had also used up their fuel endurance and so like the first were making the return trip to EAGLE.
The third pair of Phantoms had yet to arrive on station but it was already clear that they had missed the incoming raids. They had been proceeding south west as planned anyway in order to guard against any follow up raids but the AWO was now recommending that they be turned eastwards to try and intercept the outbound raids.
The remaining four Phantoms were providing outer CAP for the carrier group with one pair covering the western approach and the other the south. Here the AWO was recommending that the pair to the south be released to move south west and try to bring down some of the Argentine aircraft using Skyflash. Captain Jeremy Black however had reservations about this. The Phantoms on CAP had been on station for a while now and would soon have to conduct an air to air refuelling with Buccaneers equipped with “buddy packs” as there wasn’t the time to get them back onto EAGLE’s deck and then launch them again. He was worried about the risk of leaving one pair of Phantoms behind to protect the carriers that would have to conduct AAR to stay in the air which for a time would limit their ability to respond to any sudden emergent threat. With every serviceable Phantom already in the air there would be now aircraft coming to relieve the CAP aircraft meaning that they would be in the air for longer meaning that crew fatigue and its associated risks were in the back of everyone’s minds.
However, he was also tempted by the opportunity to down some more Argentine aircraft and therefore reduce the long term air threat.
Of the Sea Harriers four of them were providing inner CAP to the carrier group and realistically would not be able to move quickly enough to be able to move into a position to intercept any of the outbound Argentine aircraft.
The four that had been positioned over West Falkland had exhausted the meagre eight Sidewinders that they had had between them and not being of much more use were returning to INVINCIBLE.
Like the Phantoms a pair of Sea Harriers had been scrambled to try and intercept inbound raids. Unfortunately like the Phantoms also they were too late in this case due to their slower speed. While in a good position to intercept the outbound raids there was some concern about the risk of friendly fire with potentially two pairs of Phantoms launching large numbers of beyond visual range missiles.
After a few minutes of discussion, it was decided that the two pairs of Phantoms would be redirected east and south to intercept returning Argentine aircraft as they left San Carlos Water and transited over West Falkland. The Sea Harriers would be for now kept clear in order to give the Phantom crews a completely free field of fire. Support could to a degree be provided by INVINCIBLES Type 1022 long range air search radar which was much better than other RN radars at identifying targets against land backdrops and was also longer ranged than most other radars. However, to a large degree the Phantoms would be operating as lone hunters largely free from the control of others (something most fighter pilots dream of) which was another reason for keeping the Sea Harriers clear.
Then just as the necessary orders were about to go out the Argentinians decided to throw a spanner into the works.
Flying out of NAS ALMIRANTE QUIJADA in Rio Grande approximately 300 miles to the south west of the Falklands came the Argentine Navy’s last remaining potent weapon and hoped for revenge. Four Super Etendard’s of 2nd Naval Air Fighter/Attack Squadron were making their way NNE carrying Argentina’s three remaining air launched Exocet missiles that had already proved their worth when they had destroyed HMS GLASGOW on the 6th of May. Making use of one of the precious KC-130’s for AAR the pilots orders were to search and prosecute targets of opportunity in the area immediately north of the Malvinas. The highest priority targets were the British aircraft carriers which while their exact position was unknown were known to be located somewhere to the north of the islands. However, in the fairly likely event that they were unable to locate the carriers it was hoped that they would be able to find and sink British transport ships making their way to San Carlos water. While this mission was effectively a last desperate throw of the dice for a decisive victory the Argentines recognised that if high enough casualties could be inflicted on the British it may be enough to make it politically unviable for the British government to continue with the campaign. The helicopter carrier HMS HERMES was thought likely to be in open water relatively near to the British landing at San Carlos to enable it to provide helicopter support. This ship would be an ideal target for both of the Argentinians aims.
Flying at low level the Super Etendard Pilots (who had been well trained by the French and ironically the British) kept strict radio silence passing instructions through wing movements and when forced to use the radio simply transmitting two numbers. One to designate the intended recipient and one for the actual order.
The flight leader Frigate Captain Jorge Colombo was in the aircraft that wasn’t carrying an Exocet. While the others attempted to stay at a low enough altitude to avoid detection by British radars it was his job to “pop up” and scan for targets with his Agave radar. If necessary, he would act as a decoy to protect the vital Exocet carrying aircraft.
Like their army and air force counterparts, the naval airmen had been somewhat surprised at the British choice of San Carlos for a landing. Unlike the air force pilots however this largely didn’t affect their pre-prepared operational plan which had always assumed that the British would approach the Malvinas from the north.
As they had made their way NNE the Super Etendard pilots had been intently listening to the radio transmissions from the other aircraft involved in the operation. First had come the warnings and calls for help from aircraft being engaged by British interceptors. While this had been expected it was hard to listen to the voices of men very much like them who knew they were about to die be it in their cockpits or the cruel waters of the South Atlantic. The Super Etendards had flown a little closer to the water after hearing that. Next had come something very surprising. A flight of Skyhawks was reporting being engaged by SAM’s most likely to be Sea Darts. Clearly there was at least one British ship to the west of the islands. Frigate Captain Colombo decided that he had to investigate. Waggling his wings to communicate his intentions to his wingmen he pulled back on his stick and brought his aircraft up to an altitude of 3000 ft and started sweeping the area ahead of him with his radar. His radar screen showed three white blips, three ships. While it was extremely unlikely that any of these ships were the carriers of landing ships, they had shown themselves to be a significant danger the Argentine aircraft and indeed his own flight would have to alter their course slightly to remain outside of the probable Sea Dart range. While the probable destroyers and frigates were not his primary targets neutralising, them would remove a significant obstacle to the success of the operation and could he really pass up such a tempting target. He gave the order to fire by simply saying two numbers. 1 (Wingman number one, Frigate Lieutenant Armando Mayora) 3 (Launch weapon). Frigate Lieutenant Mayora increased his aircrafts altitude slightly in order to give the seeker head a better “view” and launched his Exocet. With the technical faults having finally been ironed out the weapon functioned perfectly and sped off towards its target while the two Etendards dropped their altitude and in company with their comrades attempted to use the distraction of the Exocet to get around the British ships.
Aboard HMS BRISTOL in the operations room everyone’s heart skipped a beat when they heard the dreaded sound of the electronic warfare operator blowing his whistle. The men in the Ops room were all familiar with that sound from countless exercises and wargames where it usually meant a few minutes of frantic work. Out here in the real world in a real war it took had a whole new terrifying implication. The operator proceeded to shout out that he had a positive detection of radar emissions from an Agave type radar on a bearing of approximately 190 degrees. Knowing what this likely meant Captain Grose without a hint of fear in his voice (as was expected of a Royal Navy captain, especially one as experienced as he) gave the order to both his Ops room team and the accompanying ships to carry out Zippo 3. A Zippo was a pre-planned response to an emergent threat with each Zippo given a different number depending on the threat, 3 usually meaning radar guided missile but having been slightly modified specifically for the Exocet based on the lessons of HMS GLASGOW.
The three ships of the Bristol group turned northwards onto a heading of 010 so that the threat axis was now astern of them. In line abreast formation with HMS BRISTOL in the centre separated by just over 1000 yards from HMS BRILLIANT to port and HMS EXETER to starboard now presented the smallest possible radar cross-section to the incoming Exocet. This was further enhanced by all three ships launching chaff to both port and starboard. To the missile seeker head the thin strips of fluttering metal foil were almost identical to the actual ships. Three targets had just become nine greatly increasing the chance of a “soft kill” (the incoming missile being drawn away from its target). All of this happened within a matter of seconds. However, the three ships were also preparing to attempt a “hard kill” (physical destruction). The most potent defence against was HMS BRILLIANT’s Seawolf point defence missile system positioned astern atop the hanger. They System now operating in automatic mode was now directed to search astern for the incoming missile (or missiles for all the British knew at that point) with the Sea Wolfs primed and ready to go. BRISTOL had her Sea Dart Launcher mounted astern but it was by now well known that the Sea Dart would find it extremely difficult to identify let alone engage a sea skimming missile. The most vulnerable ship was HMS EXETER. Like BRISTOL she was equipped with Sea Dart but unlike BRISTOL her launcher was positioned forward of the superstructure meaning that the missile was approaching from her blind arc.
When Captain Hoddinott formerly of HMS GLASGOW had been fished out of the South Atlantic he had been debriefed extensively regarding the minutes leading up to his ship sustaining critical damage. The results of this debrief had been compiled into a “lessons learned” document which contained advice and some changes to procedures that had been passed around all of the other commanders within the Task Force.
When the Exocet that ultimately killed his ship was inbound from astern HMS BROADSWORD had been leading HMS GLASGOW followed by HMS ALACRICTY in line astern formation. Hoddinott had ordered GLASGOW to make a turn to port in order to get out of the way of BROADSWORD’s Seawolf’s line of sight and in order to be able to bring his own Sea Darts to bare.
It had been assessed that HMS GLASGOW’s rapid turn and thus massively increased radar cross section had highly likely drawn the Exocet towards her and away from it otherwise most probable target HMS ALACRICTY. Furthermore, though for obvious reasons there had been no opportunity to properly investigate this theory it was thought that a Type 42 Destroyer would be more likely to survive a missile impact on its stern than anywhere else.
Ironically though she was not going to be in a position to shoot back EXETER was equipped with a Type 1022 Radar and therefore the most able of the three ships to detect both the missile and intermittently the Super Etendards that had launched it.
In an example could easily have come out of any number of textbooks and training manuals (and subsequently made its way into a few) relating to modern warfare at sea the British plan worked perfectly and lead to the first ever successful defence against an Exocet missile in flight. As it drew close enough to begin to become visible to observers on the upper decks and the Sea Wolf systems TV tracking system cameras the Exocet was seen to be aiming towards the northern part of the formation. Whether it was homing in on HMS BRILLIANT or HMS BRISTOL or had been successfully seduced by the chaff is still up for discussion. However, this slight change of course was all that was needed for bring it to the attention the Sea Wolf system which proceeded to automatically launch two missiles a little over a second apart. The first though coming reasonably close sailed right by the Exocet having apparently failed to achieve a lock. The second Sea Wolf while not being able to manoeuvre quickly enough to impact it head on detonated mere meters away from the Exocet causing it to fly into a thick cloud of deadly shrapnel. Observers on the ships clearly saw splashes in the water from something crashing down into it. They prayed that it was the remains of the Exocet until maybe 20 seconds later they began to realise that the simple fact that they were all still alive now meant that whatever had happened that particular missile was no longer a threat. The men on the upper decks and in the Ops rooms now kept their eyes peeled for the expected next missiles which ultimately never came.
Back aboard the INVINCIBLE the sudden occurrence of an air to surface missile attack against the Bristol group had necessitated a reappraisal of the situation and tactical battle plan. Less than two minutes had elapsed between the Flash message from BRISTOL that she was under attack by a probable Exocet to receiving a message stating to everyone’s relief that she had successfully fended off the attack. Soon after another message came through. There had been no further missiles detected leading Captain Grose to assess that the raid was likely complete. EXETER was reporting intermittent radar contact with a possible launch aircraft tracking NNE.
Upon receiving this particular piece of information Captain Black had called over INVINCIBLE’s intelligence officer.
The four men around the plot were now trying to work out was there still an immediate Exocet threat to the ships of the Task Force? Did this threat outweigh the long term threat posed by the Argentine aircraft that had survived the bombing runs over San Carlos? And how should they proceed?
The intelligence officer and AWO were of differing opinions with regards to the threat. While they agreed that there were highly likely to be Exocet armed Super Etendards in the air at that very moment their opinions differed over the direction of the threat. The intelligence officer believed that EXETER was indeed detecting a flight of Super Etendards that had stumbled across the Bristol group and thought they might as well try their luck and were now continuing north looking for targets of opportunity in an area where they must know that British ships would be present. The AWO thought it more likely that there was more than one flight of Super Etendards out there approaching the presumed location of the Task Force from the south west and west (where the distance would have been shorter) and that the flight that had attacked the Bristol group had probably done so in support of their comrades that were being engaged by the Sea Darts.
In the end Captain Black made the decision.
The pair of Phantoms to the west of the Islands that had originally been sent to support the four aircraft attempting to intercept inbound raids was retasked yet again. Instead of intercepting aircraft returning to the mainland they were to move towards an estimated flight path of the possible Super Etendards and cover the carrier groups south western flank. To try and compensate for this the pair of Sea Harriers that had been being kept clear of this pair of Phantoms expected missile engagement envelopes would be retasked to replace them. They wouldn’t be anywhere near as effective in this role as the Phantoms would have been but it was better than letting the Argentines go home unmolested and besides every little helps. The pair of Phantoms on CAP for the carrier group were to be detached and despatched further westwards to guard against any aircraft approaching from the west.
It was decided that the pair of Phantoms originally on CAP that had been despatched south to try and claim a few Argentines on their return run would remain on task. With the attention of the various controllers now focused on fending off a possible Exocet attack these Phantoms would be largely left to their own devices within their assigned area much to the joy of the crews.
Providing inner CAP for the carriers the two pairs of Sea Harriers remained in the air forming the second line of defence.
The Gannets were still in play as well but it was apparent that they would be of little use. The Super Etendards flew too low for the ancient AN/APS-20 air search radar to be able to pick them out from the radar returns generated by the water. Theoretically the observers in the back of the aircraft would be able to identify an aircraft flying just above the horizon but the Gannets normal operating altitude and thus angle relative to the horizon meant that the contact would be beyond the range of the radar anyway.
As they continued towards their planned hunting grounds Frigate Captain Colombo twice more brought his Super Etendard up to a few thousand feet to scan for potential targets. While he was not expecting to find anything just yet he was keen to avoid blundering into the firing line of a British SAM system like then unfortunate Skyhawks to the SW had. When Frigate Captain Bedacarratz had been debriefed after his successful sortie which had resulted in the sinking of the British destroyer GLASGOW, he had recounted how despite his Exocet having a 100nm range he had only become aware of his target at a range of 20nm when he had decided to perform a radar sweep. Had he not done this he would probably have carried on until he ran right into the ship and great danger. Therefore, it had been decided that future sorties should include more frequent radar sweeps. The extra situational awareness however came at the price of more radio emissions advertising their presence to anyone who cared to listen. Ultimately it was a combination of these factors that led to the failure of the mission.
The three Super Etendards (Frigate Lieutenant Mayora having turned for home after launching his missile) were now NW of the islands heading eastwards. They were keeping an extremely close eye on their fuel gauges. Rather than returning to the naval airfield at Tierra Del Fuego the plan was for them to make for the closer airfield at Puerto San Julian where most of the other aircraft flying today would be recovering too. The issue was their orders were to bring the Exocets back with them if for whatever reason they were not launched. The extra weight limited the time and range they had in which to search for targets. Mindful that the needle on his fuel gauge was slowly creeping towards the point where he would have to make a decision the flight leader decided to once again climb and scan for targets. At an altitude of 3000ft he allowed his radar to conduct 3 sweeps with no returns detected. Deciding that it was worth the risk rather than increase the possibility of returning home empty handed he increased his altitude to 4000ft and scanned again.
A radars effective range is only really half the distance of its full range. Radio emissions need to travel the same distance twice to make it from their source to a contact and back. If they do not hit anything the radio waves will continue to travel on beyond the limits of what the operator will be able to see on screen. Even if they do then bounce back off an object, they will not have the strength to get back to the receiver before dissipating. Electronic warfare specialists play this effect to their advantage.
Although again he still could not see anything on his screen that didn’t mean that Colombo’s Agave radar wasn’t making contact with something.
Miles to the east aboard HMS SHEFFIELD the ESM equipment operators called over the Ops room manager. He was pretty certain that he had for a brief moment detected a faint radio wave with characteristics similar to an Agave type radar. The reason he hadn’t blown his whistle and begun a full investigate procedure was because even he was not sure whether or not he had imagined it. Even if he had not, he hadn’t had time to spot the exact bearing and was only able to say roughly west. The ORM passed this information over to the PWO. In normal times such a thing would have been most likely disregarded as a spurious radio wave but these were most certainly not normal times.
The pair of Phantoms guarding the SW approach were vectored SSE and began scanning with their radars to see if they could find anything. Furthermore, one of the pairs of Sea Harriers on CAP was ordered to overfly SHEFFIELD and head down the rough bearing that the emissions were supposed to have originated from, like the Phantoms scanning with their radars.
In the cockpits of the Super Etendards the pilots were horrified to see their ESM warning equipment suddenly come to life indicating that they were being painted by radar. The crews of the Phantoms whose radars were the source of the Argentine pilot’s worries were unaware of their presence at first as the returns from the ultra-low flying Super Etendards were at this point impossible to distinguish from the sea clutter. Deciding that his odds of success had just plummeted and that discretion was probably the better part of valour Captain Colombo gave the signal to abort and turn westwards. Afterall his fuel was running low and he had probably destroyed a British escort meaning that his mission most certainly wasn’t a failure. Unfortunately for the Argentines the manoeuvre of executing a 180-degree turn meant that they had to raise their altitude ever so slightly and rolled over to one side massively increasing their radar cross section. This created a radar return that was clearly identifiable as something other than sea returns. Having spotted this the Phantoms quickly increased speed and tried to close the distance with this probable aircraft while lowering their altitude to change their angle relative to the target in the hopes of putting it above the horizon relative to them to give the radars a better chance of reacquiring them.
The Super Etendards resorted to the defence of trying to hug the water as closely as possible. While this certainly helped that Phantoms were still able to close with them and get just enough of a radar paint to make them willing to try their luck. Being to far away and travelling to fast to have much of a chance with an IR guided Sidewinder both Phantoms each launched a single longer ranged Skyflash radar guided missile.
While neither missile actually achieved a hit, they still had the desired effect. Alerted to the fact that there was now a missile coming towards him one of the Super Etendards through a combination of the pilot being distracted at the wrong moment and trying to get slightly lower to the water struck a wave with his starboard wingtip causing his aircraft to cartwheel spectacularly into the sea killing him instantly.
While this had been going on the Phantoms and Sea Harriers sent to intercept the Argentine aircraft returning home after attacking San Carlos had been having what could be described as a hell of a time (The same could be said of the Argentinian pilots but with a rather different meaning). Pitched against now unarmed and fuel limited Skyhawks and Daggers they had accounted for another nine aircraft bringing the final score up to 54 destroyed out of 78 aircraft that had sortied out from Argentina that day. For the first time in history a naval fleet had not only defeated but also practically destroyed an air force.
Puerto San Julian Airfield
Not long after the final jets had left the runway at Rio Gallegos AFB Brigadier Crespo and the majority of his staff had boarded an aircraft and flown north to Puerto San Julian. Being the airfield closest to the Malvinas and with fuel a concern the airfield here had been designated as the landing field for a large number of the jets sortieing today as well as the primary alternate landing strip for emergencies. Therefore, Crespo and his officers had relocated here in order to meet the returning aircraft.
As the sun finally slipped below the horizon Crespo looked at his watch and saw that the final cut off time had finally passed. Any aircraft that had still been in the air would by now have definitely run out of fuel. He turned to look at the officers manning the bank of phones. Without even having to say anything they knew what he wanted to know, it was a question he had already asked many times. They simply shook their heads. None of the other airfields had reported anymore aircraft returning.
In the back of his mind Crespo still hoped that perhaps some had landed at civilian airfields or even perhaps made a forced landing in a field somewhere. Deep down however he knew that this hope would be in vain.
He just couldn’t believe how this could have happened. He had been expecting losses but this an utter catastrophe! Out of nearly 80 aircraft which meant 80 of his pilots that he had despatched a mere 24 of them had returned with their aircraft.
Barely had most of these men’s feet touched solid ground again than Crespo’s officers had stopped them and demanded to know what had happened out there.
Having been in a transport aircraft for most of the actual mission Crespo and his staff had been unable to keep track of the missions’ progress as well as they could of on the ground.
The pilots were now in debriefing while various other officers examined gun camera footage, attempted to ascertain the status of downed pilots in the hopes of finding survivors and otherwise attempted to salvage something from this debacle.
All the time Crespo was having to fend of questions both from his superiors in Buenos Aries and elsewhere including the Malvinas garrison as to the missions’ outcome. Until the debriefing was completed whereupon he would have a more complete picture of what had happened he was deliberately stalling rather than drip feeding pieces of information at a time which could very easily adversely affect the various decision making processes.
In debriefings that often veered towards interrogations pilots were asked to recount their bombing runs second by second and were shown photographs of the British ships known to be in the British fleet and told to point out the ones they had attacked.
many of the pilots were unsure as to exactly what type of ship they had attacked but when asked to point to the photographs of the ships that it could have been nearly all pointed to frigates or destroyers. When questioned as to the other ships that they had seen they nearly all pointed to the picture of the large white coloured liner SS CANBERRA though annoyingly none of them seemed to have attacked it.
As the gun camera footage was developed and analysed the picture started to become clearer. Analysing one frame at a time it became possible to identify individual ships both in the crosshairs and background. A satisfying number of ships seemed to have been subjected to strafing and Crespo was particularly fond of a clip that showed a strafing run against a small landing craft that was visibly in distress when the clip ended. Furthermore, it was possible to confirm the reported sightings from the pilots of flames and smoke plumes.
Through bringing these various sources together Crespo’s staff were confident that they had destroyed at least three warships with others likely sustaining damage.
Rather than make the calls himself Crespo had delegated the task of disseminating this information to members of his staff while he went to check on a more pressing matter.
Making contact with Port Stanley via radio he asked for a status update on the efforts to recover at least some of his men. A total of 2 pilots had thus far been identified as having successfully ejected from their aircraft and parachuted down onto the island of West Falkland where they had made radio contact with local forces on their handheld emergency radios. Efforts were being made to recover these men but with neither party knowing their exact position there was a lot of potential ground to search and the darkness of the night wasn’t helping. Crespo muttered a silent prayer for these men to be found before they succumbed to exposure. He also prayed for any of his men who had been unlucky enough to eject and land in the sea where they faced a cold, lonely and agonizing death at the hands of the South Atlantic rather than dying quickly in their cockpits. With the navy now unable and unwilling to even attempt to put anything to sea Crespo had been trying to convince the Malvinas garrison to mount a helicopter search at first light. Brigadier Castellano while desperate to do something to save these men (many of whom he knew personally as is the close knit nature of aircrew communities) was wary of risking more pilots and aircraft. The British now effectively controlled both the air and the channel of water between East and West Falklands. Sending helicopters to search for men adrift at sea may just end up adding to their number. Especially as there was no way of telling whether or not the British Sea Dart destroyers that had surprised them west of the Malvinas were still in the area waiting for anymore targets of opportunity.
Neither man wanted to say it but they knew that the best hope for any of these men to survive was probably the British destroyer captains feeling merciful.
Shutting himself in his commandeered office Brigadier Crespo took a few moments to think about the outcome of the day. His pilots while he was extremely proud of their bravery had somehow managed to expend all their efforts and sacrifice themselves by attacking the British escorts rather than the landing ships. It would take a while to figure out how that had happened. While they had certainly given the British a bloody nose and showed them that the Argentine armed forces were not about to go out quietly into the night, they had payed for it in blood and treasure and the British were most likely still exactly where they had left them. It was a pyrrhic victory if at all.
While he was certain the media of both sides would try to claim victory and skip over their own losses, he thought that future historians would probably describe this battle as a modern day Jutland.
Of all the thoughts going around in his head one kept repeating itself and he even began to mutter it and ended up saying it out loud over and over. But at what cost? BUT AT WHAT COST?!
HMS EAGLE
With the light fading and the air threat warning now relaxed the final remaining airborne aircraft withdrew from their CAP duties and began to recover to the deck.
Within the ships island Admiral Woodward was holding a meeting of his staff in order to discuss the days events. While they had successfully beaten off the air attack and inflicted significant losses upon the Argentinian’s they hadn’t by any stretch of the imagination gotten away with it cleanly.
Since Operation Corporate began the Task Force had lost a total of six ships. HMS GLASGOW, HMS ARDENT and HMS ARGONAUT had been sunk. HMS ALACRICTY had been damaged during an air attack on the 6th and was still limping back to the UK for repairs. HMS ANTRIM had sustained heavy damage and was now slowly making her way to rendezvous with the requisitioned oil rig support ship MV STENA INSPECTOR which was acting as a repair ship. She would help make ANTRIM sea worthy enough to make the trip back home for serious repairs (assuming they were judged to be economical). The Royal Navy’s dedicated heavy repair ship HMS TRIUMPH had been decommissioned and scrapped a few years before along with a number of other ships that would be of considerable help right now. TRIUMPH, ALBION, BULWARK, ARK ROYAL, BLAKE and TIGER. Some wondered whether the Argentine invasion and subsequent conflict was some sort of karma for ministers so willingly disposing of these ships.
The conversation turned to HMS ANTELOPE. The ship now lay at anchor abandoned and far away from anyone else just outside of San Carlos water. There was a total of four unexploded 1000ib bombs onboard. Two of these had been defused but would probably still go up if the others detonated. One of the bombs was in the most dangerous state that a bomb could be in. The bomb disposal team that had examined it had concluded that the detonator had already functioned and the slightest knock could be enough to help the explosives the rest of the way to an explosion. The Warrant Officer leading the team was of the opinion that even the rocking of the ship if the sea state got up might well be enough to cause an explosion. The final bomb was inaccessible due to its being covered with debris. The bomb disposal team fearing that it would be in a similar state to the other one hadn’t even wanted to go near it let alone risk moving it by trying to remove wreckage. The risk of a detonation was too great.
With the ship effectively terminally sick the Senior Warfare Officer had volunteered to go back aboard by himself where he had recovered the ships logs and secret documents making sure to destroy anything that he could not bring back with him. He would certainly be getting some sort of medal for that.
He had been ordered not to attempt to remove the ships crest or ensign as the RN wasn’t quite ready to give up on the young ship just yet.
Woodward was unsure how to proceed regarding her and so had sent a signal to Northwood to request guidance on this very unusual situation. He had also ordered that the bomb disposal experts be given anything and anyone they might need if they had to go back aboard and attempt to defuse the unexploded ordinance. This included the use of satellite communications equipment to contact their counterparts in the UK for advice. The bombs had turned out to be British made so there must be someone somewhere who would have some idea of how to proceed beyond “get as far away as you can as fast as you can”.
The topic of discussion now turned to EAGLE’s own ordinance. The large number of combat sorties flown throughout this campaign so far had depleted the air weapons magazines on EAGLE and INVINCIBLE which had to be repeatedly replenished by the RFA’s. Now that the ground campaign had begun, they would be able to start getting an idea of how well the Argentines would fight. The big fear was them turning out to be determined and dug in opponents who would have to be dug out (bombed and shelled out) of every single position. Woodward’s staff were doubtful as to if there would be enough ordinance within the Task Force to finish the job if this turned out to be the case. The plan to begin rerolling the Phantoms to ground attack and air support now that there was potentially less need for CAP would only exacerbate this problem. Woodward asked one of his officers to reappraise them of the RAF’s proposed Operation Black Buck as it might be a way of potentially relieving pressure on the Task Forces air weapons stocks. Just as the officer was about to start however disaster struck.
Within the ships island the sounds of aircraft launching and recovering and generally moving around the deck were quite audible. Those who spent most of their time in this part of the ship or anywhere near the flight or weather decks after a while barely paid any attention to it. Throughout the meeting Woodward and his staff had heard the sounds of aircraft landing on deck without it really registering in their brains. Anyone in the compartment who cared to actually listen would normally have heard a dull thud and screech as the aircraft’s undercarriage made contact with the flight deck followed by the sounds of the arrestor gear functioning finished off by the loud and no very close roar of the engines still on full power for approximately a second before the pilot was able to power them down and begin to taxi.
this time however there was a loud bang as opposed to a thud followed by a much louder and longer screeching than usual and then a second loud bang that the men felt just as much as heard.
Before anyone even had a chance to say anything the general alarm sounded and a voice that Captain Slater recognised as the officer of the watch shouted CRASH ON DECK CRASH ON DECK.
Under his anti-flash hood the Lt Cdr was sweating not because he was overheating but because he was right now a very busy and somewhat stressed man. As the Air Warfare Officer, he was the most senior of all the PWO’s onboard and was responsible for all things air related. Being an aircraft carrier equipped with the most up to date Type 1022 long range air search radar and a large operations room staffed by men who were well practised in tracking and controlling large numbers of aircraft meant that INVINCIBLE or more accurately the Lt Cdr had been designated as the force AWO responsible for all aspects of the air defence of the carrier group currently located well over a hundred miles north east of San Carlos water where right now the landing force was desperately struggling to fend off a heavy and sustained Argentine air attack.
Sat next to Captain Jeremy Black and one of the other PWO’s in the centre of the Ops room the three men poured over an alarmingly busy force plot that the various radar plotters around them were working feverishly to keep up to date. With forces spread out over such a large area radar coverage was limited meaning that a lot of the information was being passed between ships by voice communications massively slowing down the rate at which information was passed. This was particularly frustrating in the case of the Gannet AEW aircraft that being closer to the action had a much clearer understanding of what was going on.
As the situation stood right now the attacking Argentine aircraft were in the process of making their bombing runs over the landing force and were being reported by various ships within San Carlos Water as exiting the area westwards over West Falkland presumably on their return trip. It was these aircraft that currently held the interest of the three men. The more of these aircraft that could be prevented from returning to the mainland would mean the lesser the air threat in the long term. Though he wasn’t an intelligence officer the AWO knew enough about the A4 Skyhawk from his experiences of working alongside the Americans and Australians to recognise that the Argentine aircraft would be at the near limit of their fuel endurance to be able to fly sorties over these distances. In his opinion it may not even be necessary to shoot them down. Perhaps forcing them to manoeuvre would be enough to burn just enough fuel to prevent them from returning home.
To that end the three officers were examining the position and statuses of their own aircraft to see who would be best placed to make the interception.
At that moment there was a grand total of 10 Phantoms and 10 Sea Harriers in the air working in pairs as well as the AEW Gannets a pair of Buccaneers returning from an air to air refuelling sortie and the various helicopters that were now being scrambled or retasked to assist the ships that had been hit in San Carlos Water.
Of the Phantoms 4 had been positioned to the west of the Falklands working with HMS BRISTOL and accompanying ships to intercept inbound Argentine aircraft with a third pair having been scrambled from HMS EAGLE when the first raids were detected. The air of Phantoms that had engaged the first group of Argentine aircraft believed to have been Mirages had used their entire complement of Skyflash’s. While they still had a full compliment of Sidewinders their heavy use of afterburners to get away from the pursuing Mirages that had survived the initial missile volley had used up a lot of fuel meaning that they were now heading back towards EAGLE. While they still theoretically had fuel remaining for a few minutes loitering time with so many aircraft that would have to eventually be recovered to EAGLE that fuel would probably be best saved in case they had to wait for their turn to recover.
The second pair of Phantoms had used up their missile compliment and being further away from EAGLE than the first had also used up their fuel endurance and so like the first were making the return trip to EAGLE.
The third pair of Phantoms had yet to arrive on station but it was already clear that they had missed the incoming raids. They had been proceeding south west as planned anyway in order to guard against any follow up raids but the AWO was now recommending that they be turned eastwards to try and intercept the outbound raids.
The remaining four Phantoms were providing outer CAP for the carrier group with one pair covering the western approach and the other the south. Here the AWO was recommending that the pair to the south be released to move south west and try to bring down some of the Argentine aircraft using Skyflash. Captain Jeremy Black however had reservations about this. The Phantoms on CAP had been on station for a while now and would soon have to conduct an air to air refuelling with Buccaneers equipped with “buddy packs” as there wasn’t the time to get them back onto EAGLE’s deck and then launch them again. He was worried about the risk of leaving one pair of Phantoms behind to protect the carriers that would have to conduct AAR to stay in the air which for a time would limit their ability to respond to any sudden emergent threat. With every serviceable Phantom already in the air there would be now aircraft coming to relieve the CAP aircraft meaning that they would be in the air for longer meaning that crew fatigue and its associated risks were in the back of everyone’s minds.
However, he was also tempted by the opportunity to down some more Argentine aircraft and therefore reduce the long term air threat.
Of the Sea Harriers four of them were providing inner CAP to the carrier group and realistically would not be able to move quickly enough to be able to move into a position to intercept any of the outbound Argentine aircraft.
The four that had been positioned over West Falkland had exhausted the meagre eight Sidewinders that they had had between them and not being of much more use were returning to INVINCIBLE.
Like the Phantoms a pair of Sea Harriers had been scrambled to try and intercept inbound raids. Unfortunately like the Phantoms also they were too late in this case due to their slower speed. While in a good position to intercept the outbound raids there was some concern about the risk of friendly fire with potentially two pairs of Phantoms launching large numbers of beyond visual range missiles.
After a few minutes of discussion, it was decided that the two pairs of Phantoms would be redirected east and south to intercept returning Argentine aircraft as they left San Carlos Water and transited over West Falkland. The Sea Harriers would be for now kept clear in order to give the Phantom crews a completely free field of fire. Support could to a degree be provided by INVINCIBLES Type 1022 long range air search radar which was much better than other RN radars at identifying targets against land backdrops and was also longer ranged than most other radars. However, to a large degree the Phantoms would be operating as lone hunters largely free from the control of others (something most fighter pilots dream of) which was another reason for keeping the Sea Harriers clear.
Then just as the necessary orders were about to go out the Argentinians decided to throw a spanner into the works.
Flying out of NAS ALMIRANTE QUIJADA in Rio Grande approximately 300 miles to the south west of the Falklands came the Argentine Navy’s last remaining potent weapon and hoped for revenge. Four Super Etendard’s of 2nd Naval Air Fighter/Attack Squadron were making their way NNE carrying Argentina’s three remaining air launched Exocet missiles that had already proved their worth when they had destroyed HMS GLASGOW on the 6th of May. Making use of one of the precious KC-130’s for AAR the pilots orders were to search and prosecute targets of opportunity in the area immediately north of the Malvinas. The highest priority targets were the British aircraft carriers which while their exact position was unknown were known to be located somewhere to the north of the islands. However, in the fairly likely event that they were unable to locate the carriers it was hoped that they would be able to find and sink British transport ships making their way to San Carlos water. While this mission was effectively a last desperate throw of the dice for a decisive victory the Argentines recognised that if high enough casualties could be inflicted on the British it may be enough to make it politically unviable for the British government to continue with the campaign. The helicopter carrier HMS HERMES was thought likely to be in open water relatively near to the British landing at San Carlos to enable it to provide helicopter support. This ship would be an ideal target for both of the Argentinians aims.
Flying at low level the Super Etendard Pilots (who had been well trained by the French and ironically the British) kept strict radio silence passing instructions through wing movements and when forced to use the radio simply transmitting two numbers. One to designate the intended recipient and one for the actual order.
The flight leader Frigate Captain Jorge Colombo was in the aircraft that wasn’t carrying an Exocet. While the others attempted to stay at a low enough altitude to avoid detection by British radars it was his job to “pop up” and scan for targets with his Agave radar. If necessary, he would act as a decoy to protect the vital Exocet carrying aircraft.
Like their army and air force counterparts, the naval airmen had been somewhat surprised at the British choice of San Carlos for a landing. Unlike the air force pilots however this largely didn’t affect their pre-prepared operational plan which had always assumed that the British would approach the Malvinas from the north.
As they had made their way NNE the Super Etendard pilots had been intently listening to the radio transmissions from the other aircraft involved in the operation. First had come the warnings and calls for help from aircraft being engaged by British interceptors. While this had been expected it was hard to listen to the voices of men very much like them who knew they were about to die be it in their cockpits or the cruel waters of the South Atlantic. The Super Etendards had flown a little closer to the water after hearing that. Next had come something very surprising. A flight of Skyhawks was reporting being engaged by SAM’s most likely to be Sea Darts. Clearly there was at least one British ship to the west of the islands. Frigate Captain Colombo decided that he had to investigate. Waggling his wings to communicate his intentions to his wingmen he pulled back on his stick and brought his aircraft up to an altitude of 3000 ft and started sweeping the area ahead of him with his radar. His radar screen showed three white blips, three ships. While it was extremely unlikely that any of these ships were the carriers of landing ships, they had shown themselves to be a significant danger the Argentine aircraft and indeed his own flight would have to alter their course slightly to remain outside of the probable Sea Dart range. While the probable destroyers and frigates were not his primary targets neutralising, them would remove a significant obstacle to the success of the operation and could he really pass up such a tempting target. He gave the order to fire by simply saying two numbers. 1 (Wingman number one, Frigate Lieutenant Armando Mayora) 3 (Launch weapon). Frigate Lieutenant Mayora increased his aircrafts altitude slightly in order to give the seeker head a better “view” and launched his Exocet. With the technical faults having finally been ironed out the weapon functioned perfectly and sped off towards its target while the two Etendards dropped their altitude and in company with their comrades attempted to use the distraction of the Exocet to get around the British ships.
Aboard HMS BRISTOL in the operations room everyone’s heart skipped a beat when they heard the dreaded sound of the electronic warfare operator blowing his whistle. The men in the Ops room were all familiar with that sound from countless exercises and wargames where it usually meant a few minutes of frantic work. Out here in the real world in a real war it took had a whole new terrifying implication. The operator proceeded to shout out that he had a positive detection of radar emissions from an Agave type radar on a bearing of approximately 190 degrees. Knowing what this likely meant Captain Grose without a hint of fear in his voice (as was expected of a Royal Navy captain, especially one as experienced as he) gave the order to both his Ops room team and the accompanying ships to carry out Zippo 3. A Zippo was a pre-planned response to an emergent threat with each Zippo given a different number depending on the threat, 3 usually meaning radar guided missile but having been slightly modified specifically for the Exocet based on the lessons of HMS GLASGOW.
The three ships of the Bristol group turned northwards onto a heading of 010 so that the threat axis was now astern of them. In line abreast formation with HMS BRISTOL in the centre separated by just over 1000 yards from HMS BRILLIANT to port and HMS EXETER to starboard now presented the smallest possible radar cross-section to the incoming Exocet. This was further enhanced by all three ships launching chaff to both port and starboard. To the missile seeker head the thin strips of fluttering metal foil were almost identical to the actual ships. Three targets had just become nine greatly increasing the chance of a “soft kill” (the incoming missile being drawn away from its target). All of this happened within a matter of seconds. However, the three ships were also preparing to attempt a “hard kill” (physical destruction). The most potent defence against was HMS BRILLIANT’s Seawolf point defence missile system positioned astern atop the hanger. They System now operating in automatic mode was now directed to search astern for the incoming missile (or missiles for all the British knew at that point) with the Sea Wolfs primed and ready to go. BRISTOL had her Sea Dart Launcher mounted astern but it was by now well known that the Sea Dart would find it extremely difficult to identify let alone engage a sea skimming missile. The most vulnerable ship was HMS EXETER. Like BRISTOL she was equipped with Sea Dart but unlike BRISTOL her launcher was positioned forward of the superstructure meaning that the missile was approaching from her blind arc.
When Captain Hoddinott formerly of HMS GLASGOW had been fished out of the South Atlantic he had been debriefed extensively regarding the minutes leading up to his ship sustaining critical damage. The results of this debrief had been compiled into a “lessons learned” document which contained advice and some changes to procedures that had been passed around all of the other commanders within the Task Force.
When the Exocet that ultimately killed his ship was inbound from astern HMS BROADSWORD had been leading HMS GLASGOW followed by HMS ALACRICTY in line astern formation. Hoddinott had ordered GLASGOW to make a turn to port in order to get out of the way of BROADSWORD’s Seawolf’s line of sight and in order to be able to bring his own Sea Darts to bare.
It had been assessed that HMS GLASGOW’s rapid turn and thus massively increased radar cross section had highly likely drawn the Exocet towards her and away from it otherwise most probable target HMS ALACRICTY. Furthermore, though for obvious reasons there had been no opportunity to properly investigate this theory it was thought that a Type 42 Destroyer would be more likely to survive a missile impact on its stern than anywhere else.
Ironically though she was not going to be in a position to shoot back EXETER was equipped with a Type 1022 Radar and therefore the most able of the three ships to detect both the missile and intermittently the Super Etendards that had launched it.
In an example could easily have come out of any number of textbooks and training manuals (and subsequently made its way into a few) relating to modern warfare at sea the British plan worked perfectly and lead to the first ever successful defence against an Exocet missile in flight. As it drew close enough to begin to become visible to observers on the upper decks and the Sea Wolf systems TV tracking system cameras the Exocet was seen to be aiming towards the northern part of the formation. Whether it was homing in on HMS BRILLIANT or HMS BRISTOL or had been successfully seduced by the chaff is still up for discussion. However, this slight change of course was all that was needed for bring it to the attention the Sea Wolf system which proceeded to automatically launch two missiles a little over a second apart. The first though coming reasonably close sailed right by the Exocet having apparently failed to achieve a lock. The second Sea Wolf while not being able to manoeuvre quickly enough to impact it head on detonated mere meters away from the Exocet causing it to fly into a thick cloud of deadly shrapnel. Observers on the ships clearly saw splashes in the water from something crashing down into it. They prayed that it was the remains of the Exocet until maybe 20 seconds later they began to realise that the simple fact that they were all still alive now meant that whatever had happened that particular missile was no longer a threat. The men on the upper decks and in the Ops rooms now kept their eyes peeled for the expected next missiles which ultimately never came.
Back aboard the INVINCIBLE the sudden occurrence of an air to surface missile attack against the Bristol group had necessitated a reappraisal of the situation and tactical battle plan. Less than two minutes had elapsed between the Flash message from BRISTOL that she was under attack by a probable Exocet to receiving a message stating to everyone’s relief that she had successfully fended off the attack. Soon after another message came through. There had been no further missiles detected leading Captain Grose to assess that the raid was likely complete. EXETER was reporting intermittent radar contact with a possible launch aircraft tracking NNE.
Upon receiving this particular piece of information Captain Black had called over INVINCIBLE’s intelligence officer.
The four men around the plot were now trying to work out was there still an immediate Exocet threat to the ships of the Task Force? Did this threat outweigh the long term threat posed by the Argentine aircraft that had survived the bombing runs over San Carlos? And how should they proceed?
The intelligence officer and AWO were of differing opinions with regards to the threat. While they agreed that there were highly likely to be Exocet armed Super Etendards in the air at that very moment their opinions differed over the direction of the threat. The intelligence officer believed that EXETER was indeed detecting a flight of Super Etendards that had stumbled across the Bristol group and thought they might as well try their luck and were now continuing north looking for targets of opportunity in an area where they must know that British ships would be present. The AWO thought it more likely that there was more than one flight of Super Etendards out there approaching the presumed location of the Task Force from the south west and west (where the distance would have been shorter) and that the flight that had attacked the Bristol group had probably done so in support of their comrades that were being engaged by the Sea Darts.
In the end Captain Black made the decision.
The pair of Phantoms to the west of the Islands that had originally been sent to support the four aircraft attempting to intercept inbound raids was retasked yet again. Instead of intercepting aircraft returning to the mainland they were to move towards an estimated flight path of the possible Super Etendards and cover the carrier groups south western flank. To try and compensate for this the pair of Sea Harriers that had been being kept clear of this pair of Phantoms expected missile engagement envelopes would be retasked to replace them. They wouldn’t be anywhere near as effective in this role as the Phantoms would have been but it was better than letting the Argentines go home unmolested and besides every little helps. The pair of Phantoms on CAP for the carrier group were to be detached and despatched further westwards to guard against any aircraft approaching from the west.
It was decided that the pair of Phantoms originally on CAP that had been despatched south to try and claim a few Argentines on their return run would remain on task. With the attention of the various controllers now focused on fending off a possible Exocet attack these Phantoms would be largely left to their own devices within their assigned area much to the joy of the crews.
Providing inner CAP for the carriers the two pairs of Sea Harriers remained in the air forming the second line of defence.
The Gannets were still in play as well but it was apparent that they would be of little use. The Super Etendards flew too low for the ancient AN/APS-20 air search radar to be able to pick them out from the radar returns generated by the water. Theoretically the observers in the back of the aircraft would be able to identify an aircraft flying just above the horizon but the Gannets normal operating altitude and thus angle relative to the horizon meant that the contact would be beyond the range of the radar anyway.
As they continued towards their planned hunting grounds Frigate Captain Colombo twice more brought his Super Etendard up to a few thousand feet to scan for potential targets. While he was not expecting to find anything just yet he was keen to avoid blundering into the firing line of a British SAM system like then unfortunate Skyhawks to the SW had. When Frigate Captain Bedacarratz had been debriefed after his successful sortie which had resulted in the sinking of the British destroyer GLASGOW, he had recounted how despite his Exocet having a 100nm range he had only become aware of his target at a range of 20nm when he had decided to perform a radar sweep. Had he not done this he would probably have carried on until he ran right into the ship and great danger. Therefore, it had been decided that future sorties should include more frequent radar sweeps. The extra situational awareness however came at the price of more radio emissions advertising their presence to anyone who cared to listen. Ultimately it was a combination of these factors that led to the failure of the mission.
The three Super Etendards (Frigate Lieutenant Mayora having turned for home after launching his missile) were now NW of the islands heading eastwards. They were keeping an extremely close eye on their fuel gauges. Rather than returning to the naval airfield at Tierra Del Fuego the plan was for them to make for the closer airfield at Puerto San Julian where most of the other aircraft flying today would be recovering too. The issue was their orders were to bring the Exocets back with them if for whatever reason they were not launched. The extra weight limited the time and range they had in which to search for targets. Mindful that the needle on his fuel gauge was slowly creeping towards the point where he would have to make a decision the flight leader decided to once again climb and scan for targets. At an altitude of 3000ft he allowed his radar to conduct 3 sweeps with no returns detected. Deciding that it was worth the risk rather than increase the possibility of returning home empty handed he increased his altitude to 4000ft and scanned again.
A radars effective range is only really half the distance of its full range. Radio emissions need to travel the same distance twice to make it from their source to a contact and back. If they do not hit anything the radio waves will continue to travel on beyond the limits of what the operator will be able to see on screen. Even if they do then bounce back off an object, they will not have the strength to get back to the receiver before dissipating. Electronic warfare specialists play this effect to their advantage.
Although again he still could not see anything on his screen that didn’t mean that Colombo’s Agave radar wasn’t making contact with something.
Miles to the east aboard HMS SHEFFIELD the ESM equipment operators called over the Ops room manager. He was pretty certain that he had for a brief moment detected a faint radio wave with characteristics similar to an Agave type radar. The reason he hadn’t blown his whistle and begun a full investigate procedure was because even he was not sure whether or not he had imagined it. Even if he had not, he hadn’t had time to spot the exact bearing and was only able to say roughly west. The ORM passed this information over to the PWO. In normal times such a thing would have been most likely disregarded as a spurious radio wave but these were most certainly not normal times.
The pair of Phantoms guarding the SW approach were vectored SSE and began scanning with their radars to see if they could find anything. Furthermore, one of the pairs of Sea Harriers on CAP was ordered to overfly SHEFFIELD and head down the rough bearing that the emissions were supposed to have originated from, like the Phantoms scanning with their radars.
In the cockpits of the Super Etendards the pilots were horrified to see their ESM warning equipment suddenly come to life indicating that they were being painted by radar. The crews of the Phantoms whose radars were the source of the Argentine pilot’s worries were unaware of their presence at first as the returns from the ultra-low flying Super Etendards were at this point impossible to distinguish from the sea clutter. Deciding that his odds of success had just plummeted and that discretion was probably the better part of valour Captain Colombo gave the signal to abort and turn westwards. Afterall his fuel was running low and he had probably destroyed a British escort meaning that his mission most certainly wasn’t a failure. Unfortunately for the Argentines the manoeuvre of executing a 180-degree turn meant that they had to raise their altitude ever so slightly and rolled over to one side massively increasing their radar cross section. This created a radar return that was clearly identifiable as something other than sea returns. Having spotted this the Phantoms quickly increased speed and tried to close the distance with this probable aircraft while lowering their altitude to change their angle relative to the target in the hopes of putting it above the horizon relative to them to give the radars a better chance of reacquiring them.
The Super Etendards resorted to the defence of trying to hug the water as closely as possible. While this certainly helped that Phantoms were still able to close with them and get just enough of a radar paint to make them willing to try their luck. Being to far away and travelling to fast to have much of a chance with an IR guided Sidewinder both Phantoms each launched a single longer ranged Skyflash radar guided missile.
While neither missile actually achieved a hit, they still had the desired effect. Alerted to the fact that there was now a missile coming towards him one of the Super Etendards through a combination of the pilot being distracted at the wrong moment and trying to get slightly lower to the water struck a wave with his starboard wingtip causing his aircraft to cartwheel spectacularly into the sea killing him instantly.
While this had been going on the Phantoms and Sea Harriers sent to intercept the Argentine aircraft returning home after attacking San Carlos had been having what could be described as a hell of a time (The same could be said of the Argentinian pilots but with a rather different meaning). Pitched against now unarmed and fuel limited Skyhawks and Daggers they had accounted for another nine aircraft bringing the final score up to 54 destroyed out of 78 aircraft that had sortied out from Argentina that day. For the first time in history a naval fleet had not only defeated but also practically destroyed an air force.
Puerto San Julian Airfield
Not long after the final jets had left the runway at Rio Gallegos AFB Brigadier Crespo and the majority of his staff had boarded an aircraft and flown north to Puerto San Julian. Being the airfield closest to the Malvinas and with fuel a concern the airfield here had been designated as the landing field for a large number of the jets sortieing today as well as the primary alternate landing strip for emergencies. Therefore, Crespo and his officers had relocated here in order to meet the returning aircraft.
As the sun finally slipped below the horizon Crespo looked at his watch and saw that the final cut off time had finally passed. Any aircraft that had still been in the air would by now have definitely run out of fuel. He turned to look at the officers manning the bank of phones. Without even having to say anything they knew what he wanted to know, it was a question he had already asked many times. They simply shook their heads. None of the other airfields had reported anymore aircraft returning.
In the back of his mind Crespo still hoped that perhaps some had landed at civilian airfields or even perhaps made a forced landing in a field somewhere. Deep down however he knew that this hope would be in vain.
He just couldn’t believe how this could have happened. He had been expecting losses but this an utter catastrophe! Out of nearly 80 aircraft which meant 80 of his pilots that he had despatched a mere 24 of them had returned with their aircraft.
Barely had most of these men’s feet touched solid ground again than Crespo’s officers had stopped them and demanded to know what had happened out there.
Having been in a transport aircraft for most of the actual mission Crespo and his staff had been unable to keep track of the missions’ progress as well as they could of on the ground.
The pilots were now in debriefing while various other officers examined gun camera footage, attempted to ascertain the status of downed pilots in the hopes of finding survivors and otherwise attempted to salvage something from this debacle.
All the time Crespo was having to fend of questions both from his superiors in Buenos Aries and elsewhere including the Malvinas garrison as to the missions’ outcome. Until the debriefing was completed whereupon he would have a more complete picture of what had happened he was deliberately stalling rather than drip feeding pieces of information at a time which could very easily adversely affect the various decision making processes.
In debriefings that often veered towards interrogations pilots were asked to recount their bombing runs second by second and were shown photographs of the British ships known to be in the British fleet and told to point out the ones they had attacked.
many of the pilots were unsure as to exactly what type of ship they had attacked but when asked to point to the photographs of the ships that it could have been nearly all pointed to frigates or destroyers. When questioned as to the other ships that they had seen they nearly all pointed to the picture of the large white coloured liner SS CANBERRA though annoyingly none of them seemed to have attacked it.
As the gun camera footage was developed and analysed the picture started to become clearer. Analysing one frame at a time it became possible to identify individual ships both in the crosshairs and background. A satisfying number of ships seemed to have been subjected to strafing and Crespo was particularly fond of a clip that showed a strafing run against a small landing craft that was visibly in distress when the clip ended. Furthermore, it was possible to confirm the reported sightings from the pilots of flames and smoke plumes.
Through bringing these various sources together Crespo’s staff were confident that they had destroyed at least three warships with others likely sustaining damage.
Rather than make the calls himself Crespo had delegated the task of disseminating this information to members of his staff while he went to check on a more pressing matter.
Making contact with Port Stanley via radio he asked for a status update on the efforts to recover at least some of his men. A total of 2 pilots had thus far been identified as having successfully ejected from their aircraft and parachuted down onto the island of West Falkland where they had made radio contact with local forces on their handheld emergency radios. Efforts were being made to recover these men but with neither party knowing their exact position there was a lot of potential ground to search and the darkness of the night wasn’t helping. Crespo muttered a silent prayer for these men to be found before they succumbed to exposure. He also prayed for any of his men who had been unlucky enough to eject and land in the sea where they faced a cold, lonely and agonizing death at the hands of the South Atlantic rather than dying quickly in their cockpits. With the navy now unable and unwilling to even attempt to put anything to sea Crespo had been trying to convince the Malvinas garrison to mount a helicopter search at first light. Brigadier Castellano while desperate to do something to save these men (many of whom he knew personally as is the close knit nature of aircrew communities) was wary of risking more pilots and aircraft. The British now effectively controlled both the air and the channel of water between East and West Falklands. Sending helicopters to search for men adrift at sea may just end up adding to their number. Especially as there was no way of telling whether or not the British Sea Dart destroyers that had surprised them west of the Malvinas were still in the area waiting for anymore targets of opportunity.
Neither man wanted to say it but they knew that the best hope for any of these men to survive was probably the British destroyer captains feeling merciful.
Shutting himself in his commandeered office Brigadier Crespo took a few moments to think about the outcome of the day. His pilots while he was extremely proud of their bravery had somehow managed to expend all their efforts and sacrifice themselves by attacking the British escorts rather than the landing ships. It would take a while to figure out how that had happened. While they had certainly given the British a bloody nose and showed them that the Argentine armed forces were not about to go out quietly into the night, they had payed for it in blood and treasure and the British were most likely still exactly where they had left them. It was a pyrrhic victory if at all.
While he was certain the media of both sides would try to claim victory and skip over their own losses, he thought that future historians would probably describe this battle as a modern day Jutland.
Of all the thoughts going around in his head one kept repeating itself and he even began to mutter it and ended up saying it out loud over and over. But at what cost? BUT AT WHAT COST?!
HMS EAGLE
With the light fading and the air threat warning now relaxed the final remaining airborne aircraft withdrew from their CAP duties and began to recover to the deck.
Within the ships island Admiral Woodward was holding a meeting of his staff in order to discuss the days events. While they had successfully beaten off the air attack and inflicted significant losses upon the Argentinian’s they hadn’t by any stretch of the imagination gotten away with it cleanly.
Since Operation Corporate began the Task Force had lost a total of six ships. HMS GLASGOW, HMS ARDENT and HMS ARGONAUT had been sunk. HMS ALACRICTY had been damaged during an air attack on the 6th and was still limping back to the UK for repairs. HMS ANTRIM had sustained heavy damage and was now slowly making her way to rendezvous with the requisitioned oil rig support ship MV STENA INSPECTOR which was acting as a repair ship. She would help make ANTRIM sea worthy enough to make the trip back home for serious repairs (assuming they were judged to be economical). The Royal Navy’s dedicated heavy repair ship HMS TRIUMPH had been decommissioned and scrapped a few years before along with a number of other ships that would be of considerable help right now. TRIUMPH, ALBION, BULWARK, ARK ROYAL, BLAKE and TIGER. Some wondered whether the Argentine invasion and subsequent conflict was some sort of karma for ministers so willingly disposing of these ships.
The conversation turned to HMS ANTELOPE. The ship now lay at anchor abandoned and far away from anyone else just outside of San Carlos water. There was a total of four unexploded 1000ib bombs onboard. Two of these had been defused but would probably still go up if the others detonated. One of the bombs was in the most dangerous state that a bomb could be in. The bomb disposal team that had examined it had concluded that the detonator had already functioned and the slightest knock could be enough to help the explosives the rest of the way to an explosion. The Warrant Officer leading the team was of the opinion that even the rocking of the ship if the sea state got up might well be enough to cause an explosion. The final bomb was inaccessible due to its being covered with debris. The bomb disposal team fearing that it would be in a similar state to the other one hadn’t even wanted to go near it let alone risk moving it by trying to remove wreckage. The risk of a detonation was too great.
With the ship effectively terminally sick the Senior Warfare Officer had volunteered to go back aboard by himself where he had recovered the ships logs and secret documents making sure to destroy anything that he could not bring back with him. He would certainly be getting some sort of medal for that.
He had been ordered not to attempt to remove the ships crest or ensign as the RN wasn’t quite ready to give up on the young ship just yet.
Woodward was unsure how to proceed regarding her and so had sent a signal to Northwood to request guidance on this very unusual situation. He had also ordered that the bomb disposal experts be given anything and anyone they might need if they had to go back aboard and attempt to defuse the unexploded ordinance. This included the use of satellite communications equipment to contact their counterparts in the UK for advice. The bombs had turned out to be British made so there must be someone somewhere who would have some idea of how to proceed beyond “get as far away as you can as fast as you can”.
The topic of discussion now turned to EAGLE’s own ordinance. The large number of combat sorties flown throughout this campaign so far had depleted the air weapons magazines on EAGLE and INVINCIBLE which had to be repeatedly replenished by the RFA’s. Now that the ground campaign had begun, they would be able to start getting an idea of how well the Argentines would fight. The big fear was them turning out to be determined and dug in opponents who would have to be dug out (bombed and shelled out) of every single position. Woodward’s staff were doubtful as to if there would be enough ordinance within the Task Force to finish the job if this turned out to be the case. The plan to begin rerolling the Phantoms to ground attack and air support now that there was potentially less need for CAP would only exacerbate this problem. Woodward asked one of his officers to reappraise them of the RAF’s proposed Operation Black Buck as it might be a way of potentially relieving pressure on the Task Forces air weapons stocks. Just as the officer was about to start however disaster struck.
Within the ships island the sounds of aircraft launching and recovering and generally moving around the deck were quite audible. Those who spent most of their time in this part of the ship or anywhere near the flight or weather decks after a while barely paid any attention to it. Throughout the meeting Woodward and his staff had heard the sounds of aircraft landing on deck without it really registering in their brains. Anyone in the compartment who cared to actually listen would normally have heard a dull thud and screech as the aircraft’s undercarriage made contact with the flight deck followed by the sounds of the arrestor gear functioning finished off by the loud and no very close roar of the engines still on full power for approximately a second before the pilot was able to power them down and begin to taxi.
this time however there was a loud bang as opposed to a thud followed by a much louder and longer screeching than usual and then a second loud bang that the men felt just as much as heard.
Before anyone even had a chance to say anything the general alarm sounded and a voice that Captain Slater recognised as the officer of the watch shouted CRASH ON DECK CRASH ON DECK.