Originally Posted by
Marcantilan
Excellent and very informative post.
My two cents.
Argentine Air Force received a "tip" about a Vulcan with SEAD missiles on late May. The source identified the missile as a MARTEL ARM.
On 28 May, other (or the same?) source (most probably, the Russians) informed a MARTEL armed Vulcan departed from ASI, bound south. The source was right, but Black Buck 4 was cancelled five hours later.
From then, the Argentine forces in the islands and mainland were aware that a big echo incoming or loitering at long range could be an ARM armed Vulcan, so several measures were ordered (the first, shut down the radars...). Argentina also tried to buy a French made jam gear (French embargo?).
The interception (intersección, but surely is a typo for interceptación) is for Op PAMPERO, a plan to catch inbound Vulcan (or other big planes...) with Mirage / Dagger fighter jets.
Best!
Mariano
Mariano,
I am curious as to whether Argentinian air defences;
other than sites on the islands; either detected or gained tracking on any of the Ascension based aircraft? Making some basic assumptions about Argentine radar coverage and superimposing what is available regarding some of the operations, it would seem that there were possible detection opportunities. Do you know of any reliable data that these flights were detected at the time?
YS