Originally Posted by
Marcantilan
I strongly recommend to read "Exocet Falklands" by Ewen Southby Tailyour, about SF ops to destroy the SuE / Exocet.
There was three DA missions ordered:
Plum Duff, a DA / Recce mission against Rio Grande. It was aborted early.
Mikado, a DA mission against Rio Grande. Plum Duff was prerequisite of Mikado, so Mikado never started.
Kettledrum, a DA mission against Puerto Deseado.
Also, a recce mission, called Shutter was executed. The idea is boots on the ground to report departures from Comodoro Rivadavia, Rio Gallegos and Rio Grande.
I´ve never heard about a strike from the carriers to the mainland. It was a risky mission, putting in jeopardy the entire operation (lost a carrier and Corporate was off). However, recently desclassified files shows Vulcan missions against the mainland were analyzed and prepared.
Regards!
You might be interested to read "Kisses from Nimbus" by Peter Red Riley, who was Hereford 8 Flight commander at the time. He describes an operation parallel to Plum Duff to probe the air defences of Rio Grande. A four man team flew down to a nearby Chilean base in a King Air 350 provided by the Chilean Intelligence Service, then used a borrowed Chilean Huey to fly a test run to Rio Grande from the west.