4Greens
Have to disagree about the role that the AEW Gannet would have played in reducing the losses encountered by the aircraft actually in the Task Force in 82 or even Bucc/F4's.
The Low level runs that enabled the AAA/SAM to score kills and the weather/birdstrike losses of the British A/C would not have been reduced by the Gannets presence. The reduction in losses would have been to the surface combatants as HMS Sheffield would not have had to have been used as a WWII style "AD picket".
The Coventry/Antelope/Ardent losses I'm not sure about as the Gannet's suffered from very poor overland coverage, but with a Gannet Barrier and F4 CAP then the Raids may have been Broken up/Killed before they could engage.
The same could also be said of the LSL's Sir Tristram/Galahad as they were attacked from overland.
The Unknown loss of the 2 Shars which were sent to investigate a surface contact might have been prevented but even that is not 100% sure.
Yes if the Gannets had been with the Air Group then CAP placement and detection would have had been hundreds of percent better and I suspect oversea kills would have been higher, because of those two factors. But reduction in the A/C losses, not I'm convinced that the Gannets or even Nimrod AEW/AWACS would not have reduced the losses suffered to the AAA/SAM/Weather factors.
Also the Argentines are not stupid, if Gannets had been present then they would have been taken into account in the planning process, after all the Argentines Neptunes had exactly the same radar although with different mod states.
Last edited by trap one; 26th Dec 2008 at 17:03.