Argentina Reasserts Claims To Falklands (again)

[Colin Parkinson]

It's making a crater and denying the abilty to fill in that crater is the problem for Cruise missiles, bombs come from near vertical, so can go deep, make a crater and destroy the stabilty of the nearby soil, making it harder to support weight, also it's best to drop anti-personal devices to hamper repairs.

 

[aesop081]

It's making a crater and denying the abilty to fill in that crater is the problem for Cruise missiles, bombs come from near vertical, so can go deep, make a crater and destroy the stabilty of the nearby soil, making it harder to support weight, also it's best to drop anti-personal devices to hamper repairs.

I know. I have some understanding of air weapons effects.

While it may be less than ideal, "good enough" is better than "nothing at all".

A cruise missle can be programed to have a flight path and attitude to attack a target from different angles (i.e. from above or a more "bomb-like" profile if you wish) as seen here:

Now, i do not know off hand what version of the Tomahawk equips RN submarines but, versions do exist that carry submunitions, as can been seen here:

Now, mix both in a single strike......voila ! Cratered and mined runway.

That being said, if attacking airfields on the Argentinian mainland, this would have to be part of an overall strike, not its entirety. Hangars, dispersal areas and other facilities, along with know locations for the aircraft themselves would ahve to be struck to have long-term effects. Cratering the runways, not matter to what extent, is simply a short-term situation.

 

[aesop081]

The SSN/Tomahawk combination is not the UK's only option WRT to degrading Argentina's air capability.

Tornado GR4 (and later, the Typhoon) flying from the Mount Pleasant airfield, can carry and employ the Storm Shadow missile equiped with the BROACH warhead ( while designed as a bunker-buster, it could potentialy be used for cratering runways).

The UK is not in the same situation it found itself in in 1982. The lack of carriers does not have the same operational impact.

 

[daftandbarmy]

This is the weapon that did them in last time:

 

[aesop081]

This is the weapon that did them in last time:

And using that weapon was only possible because the right conditions were set by other weapons.

;D

 

[vonGarvin]

[tangent]
I recall seeing Vulcan bombers en route to CFB Trenton for air shows there when I was a wee kid in Belleville.  For a ~5 year old kid, it was pretty cool
[/tangent]

The fact that the UK was able to fly a plane halfway around the world and drop a bomb on them sent a very strong message, IMHO.  I remember (again, as a kid) coming home from a weekend away with cadets to learn that the UK had bombed the airfield in the Falklands. Of course, I was imagining a Bomber Command raid on the Ruhr in intensity.  Perhaps so too did the Argentinians.  That's the point, no?

 

[aesop081]

[tangent]
  That's the point, no?

One only has to look at OP ELAMY for examples of how the UK can still launch long-range strikes. 3000 miles from RAF Marham to launch Storm Shadow missiles at targets in Libya. Not near the same distance as Ascension to the FI and Argentinian mailand but, the RAF still knows how to do it.

 

[Danjanou]

This is the weapon that did them in last time:

The SA80?  If the Paras and Booties had been carrying those the sheep may be speaking Spanish now.  8)

I think you meant this

With one of these on the end

 

[ModlrMike]

I've just watched BBC4's presentation of The Falklands Most Daring Raid. Well worth watching. Easily available on-line if you know where to look.

 

[aesop081]

I've just watched BBC4's presentation of The Falklands Most Daring Raid. Well worth watching. Easily available on-line if you know where to look.

You mean the one linked in reply 81 of this thread  ;D

 

[jollyjacktar]

Video of the near run Vulcan bomber strike on Port Stanley's airport. An 8,000 mile run that required 13 tankers to get one Vulcan bomber on target and it was a brilliant move that enabled the British task force to operate closer to shore.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=9b0_1332196120

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=c41_1332197703

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=d37_1332198290

Thanks T6, watched it this morning.  Very interesting program and one I did not know the full details of.

 

[ModlrMike]

Yes, actually. But I've got the single file that I've now burnt to DVD for my collection, rather than the internet quality file.

 

[larry Strong]

And using that weapon was only possible because the right conditions were set by other weapons.

;D

;D

 

[aesop081]

;D

Even that one depended on conditions set by other weapons like Vulcan, Sea Harrier and HMS Conqueror.

 

[TangoTwoBravo]

The other arms and services indeed all played their part, but twas the Scorpians and Scimitars that made possible the liberation of those fair isles.

:tank:

 

[daftandbarmy]

The other arms and services indeed all played their part, but twas the Scorpians and Scimitars that made possible the liberation of those fair isles.

:tank:

You mean both of them?  ;D

 

[Grimey]

My dad being ex 7 Para RHA, we where glued to the evening news watching every night it was on.
From memory it was 4 Scorpion, 4 Scimitar and a recovery version (Blues and Royals?)

Funny what useless and trivial info stays with you over the years 

The damage control schools in Esquimalt and Halifax still have the "lessons learned" posters from the loss of Sheffield an Coventry etc.

 

[daftandbarmy]

The secret Falklands 'suicide mission'

The story of the Falklands soldiers who refused to carry out a dangerous raid on an Argentine fighter base.

Five in the morning, May 21 1982, seven weeks into the Falklands conflict. The Argentine radar operator at Rio Grande airbase, on the island of Tierra del Fuego, is looking forward to his bed. Outside, rain is blowing across the deserted airfield.

The blip appears out of nowhere, 25 miles out to sea, coming in fast and low. Suddenly alert, the operator calls over his duty officer, but the blip has already faded.

Out over the South Atlantic, two C130 Hercules transports of 47 Squadron Royal Air Force battle through the night. Buffeted by strong headwinds, they skim the waves at 50 feet to evade detection. The co-pilots peer through night‑vision goggles, guiding the pilots towards the coast, one lapse enough to cause disaster. Night vision is in its infancy, the devices a secret gift from the Americans. Tension mounts as landfall over Argentina approaches, the conclusion of a 13‑hour flight from Ascension Island involving two mid-air rendezvous with Victor tankers.

Behind the crews, in the cavernous holds of the Hercules, some 60 men of B Squadron, 22nd SAS Regiment, ready their weapons and vehicles, Land Rovers bristling with machine guns. This is a one‑way mission, the best outcomes being escape to neutral Chile, or capture. The worst outcome is all too obvious.

Minutes later, the C130s slam down on the runway at Rio Grande. The rear doors are already open, the lowered ramps scraping the ground. In an instant, the Land Rovers are charging straight for the apron where four French-built Super Etendard fighters of the Argentine navy stand. Some of the SAS fling charges into the engine intakes while others search for the Etendard pilots, who are to be shot on sight. Another group search for the weapon that above all others threatens Britain with defeat in the South Atlantic: the Exocet. Moments later, the first charges explode. Gunfire erupts. The world dissolves into chaos.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/falklandislands/9158097/The-secret-Falklands-suicide-mission.html

 

[daftandbarmy]

Return to the Falklands, ITV1: ''The Paras had killed with bayonet as well as bullet''

Exactly 30 years ago, at the end of a very bloody conflict, I left the Falklands never expecting to go back. Returning to a war zone is the oddest mix of excitement and sadness. But nostalgia can be a very assorted package and in the Falklands it is especially so.

All the other wars I have covered have been other people’s wars. But in 1982, in those 10 weeks and 8,000 miles away in the South Atlantic, I was reporting a war among my own people, alongside British soldiers fighting on behalf of a few thousand islanders who were defiantly British.

I returned just before Christmas 2011, to make ITV’s forthcoming film Return to the Falklands, and travelled again the 50 miles from Port Stanley to San Carlos Bay, a name that entered the annals of British military history in that first week of our invasion. Then, we called it “Bomb Alley”, after Argentinian aircraft attacked our ships during the British landings.

I had been on one of our warships, HMS Fearless, on May 21, the first day of the land battle. The ships around us began firing together and I followed the line of black explosions in the sky. Then, from nowhere, on our port bow, two Skyhawks attacked. Then four Mirages. The leaders hit HMS Argonaut first then went for HMS Antrim. I could see their shells cutting the water and splintering her bows. Two bombs opened up Antrim’s aft deck and she went out of control at 18 knots. Our ship shuddered with the shock. We were helpless, sitting ducks, nowhere to hide.

During that battle four ships were sunk in as many days; three others holed. We came close to losing a war that had hardly begun.

My next stop last Christmas was the sheep farming settlement of Goose Green, about 13 miles south of San Carlos Bay. It was here, on May 28, that the Paras won in the first British offensive – and I had my first sight of British dead in the aftermath of a British victory. I remember too the Argentinian dead still lying out in the gloom a day later, half-submerged in the mud and water of their trenches. The Paras had killed with bayonet as well as bullet. And they’d used phosphorous grenades which burn a man alive. Nothing I had seen since Vietnam compared to the horror on those small dead faces.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/9134921/Return-to-the-Falklands-ITV1-The-Paras-had-killed-with-bayonet-as-well-as-bullet.html

 

[jeffb]

The secret Falklands 'suicide mission'

The story of the Falklands soldiers who refused to carry out a dangerous raid on an Argentine fighter base.

Interesting story but very misleading title. If the article is accurate, then the SAS were ready to go and it was Thatcher that didn't authorize it.