"The Great Falkland Gamble"... [Archive]

Milo Minderbinder

13th Mar 2012, 21:43

500N
In a nutshell - from the programme's point of view
Unequipped, untrained for the conditions, and unfit.
No supply chain, no engineers, no artillery and no knowledge of what they were expected to do.
In fact no plan from on high of what to do with them when they arrived.

PS -its available online at 5 on demand at
The Great Falklands Gamble: Revealed | Revealed | Channel 5 (http://www.channel5.com/shows/revealed/episodes/the-great-falklands-war-gamble-revealed)
Can you access that in Oz?

500N

13th Mar 2012, 21:55

Milo

No, can't see it from here.

I like this
"among them Major-General Julian Thompson, reveal how appalling weather, overstretched British air defences, poor communications and even incompetence sometimes stacked the odds heavily against the British. Veterans of some of the bloodiest battles talk us through the fighting. Their personal accounts reveal how professionalism and sheer courage overcame these problems."

Another eample of the British overcoming against the odds.

"500N
In a nutshell - from the programme's point of view
Unequipped, untrained for the conditions, and unfit.
No supply chain, no engineers, no artillery and no knowledge of what they were expected to do.
In fact no plan from on high of what to do with them when they arrived."

Funny how I was just watching a video on youtube of the events leading up to the Falklands surrender and a fair bit of footage of British artillery being fired.'

"no plan from on high of what to do with them when they arrived"
Are we talking Gov't / HQ back in the UK or the Commander of the taskforce ? Seems strange that they say this considering they landed at San Carlos and walked all the way to Stanley.

"Unequipped" - well doesn't every war start with the troops being Unequipped ?

We all know that a fair bit of equipment was lost when the Atlantic conveyor was sunk. Here is a couple of questions for all.

Q1. If the Atlantic Conveyor was NOT sunk, how much of an effect would the extra helicopters and stores have made to the British campaign and

Q2. How much shorter do you think the war would have been IF the ability to lift troops forward by helo had been available ?

Q3. The extra Harriers would have enabled far more sorties to be flown and more CAP. Would this have possibly stopped some of the ships from being sunk ?

Milo Minderbinder

13th Mar 2012, 21:58

500N - I'm not arguing the case, simply reporting what they said
Watch it and then ask the questions again (see below)
Essentially they were differentiating between the trained and equipped 3Bde and the ad-hoc hastily lashed p 5Bde - who were totally unprepared for Arctic warfare - and who didn't yomp - they went to Bluff Cove on ships and we know what happened there...
As you say - Atlantic Conveyor is the great imponderable

If you use this little toy you should be able to emulate a UK IP address and download it
Expat Shield (http://expatshield.com/)

draken55

13th Mar 2012, 22:13

PN

Re "Air War South Atlantic" by Price and Ethell this might only be a re-print of the book published not that long after the War. As an American, Jeff Ethell had used his contacts in Argentina to add to what Alfred Price came up with from the British standpoint. However, Jeff Ethell was killed in the crash of a P-38 in 1997.

Courtney Mil

13th Mar 2012, 22:14

500N,

Part of your Atlantic Coveyor question. If it hadn't been sunk, the Paras wouldn't have had to yomp a million miles to get to Stanley. Their transport (and a lot more of their supplies) were on the AC. Just made their acheivement even more remarkable.

To your other questions, probably YES to both. If you see what I mean.

Milo Minderbinder

13th Mar 2012, 22:18

500N
Just noticed the last part of your question
No Harriers were lost on the Atlantic Conveyor - just helicopters
3 Chinook, a few stripped out Mk2 Sea Kings and the best part of a squadron of Wessex 5's which had been hurriedly de-mothballed

What nay have made a difference would have been sending Atlantic Causeway earlier with extra Harriers - it was held back for more extensive deck conversion to give better shelter than was on the Conveyor, and arrived too late

cokecan

13th Mar 2012, 22:31

500N,

the criticism of 5X from 3X and the amphibious group within the RN was based on two issues - that the Bn's of 5X were unfit for operations, they were untrained in amphibious warfare and both the Bn's and the Bde HQ never got their heads around either the concepts or the threats, and that they were ill-equipped (vs those in 3X including the two PARA Bn's) for the conditions - and that whereas 3X was, from day one, a fighting, all-arms brigade with an established, coherant concept of operations, 5X was, in effect, an administrative formation with no all-arms or logistic 'heart' and no plan of what the hell it was going to do when it got there.

it was described at the time - perhaps harshly - as 1200 posh blokes who couldn't carry their kit and who didn't have any artillery, logistics, engineers, helicopters, or reece.

MAINJAFAD

13th Mar 2012, 22:33

Atlantic Causeway didn't take any Harriers down south. Did bring some more Chinooks though. Only extra Harriers that got down there after 18 May, were RAF GR3s flown directly to the CVBG from ASI with a lot of AAR support (and only after somebody stood on Middleton, the Captain of Hermes who tried to stop what he thought was a Crab stunt).

500N

13th Mar 2012, 22:35

Cokecan

Thanks, very interesting.

Tourist

13th Mar 2012, 22:59

Lightweight bollocks for the most part.

Milo Minderbinder

13th Mar 2012, 23:15

now on Youtube (legally)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kFffpgOioI&feature=plcp&context=C44d8a49VDvjVQa1PpcFPNBMh1hscg3udT7IA8QQB1phbADkt0gY 0%3D

Coochycool

14th Mar 2012, 00:01

Milo
Thanks for the heads up, caught it with 10 minutes to spare!

Agree, bit lightweight but there will undoubtedly be a lot more in the coming weeks.
Major point as has already been intimated, the Welshies were called to be a bit lacking, but then you can only be good at what your trained for.

Begs the query though, after the Helos were lost, was there no consideration made for land transport or a total re-embarkation as per the Welshies? What would a Benny have done? Couldnt a few dodgy land Rovers to carry kit have made all the difference in saving what could have turned into a debilitating force depleter? After all, we heard that the course of the main yomp was an "established logistical route"?

Never been there, so dont know how accurate that is :confused:

Coochycool

14th Mar 2012, 00:05

Oi, not as typed. Who's raining on my parade?

Bl@@dy Bennies

racedo

14th Mar 2012, 00:19

In any war there is always an element of luck but what is clear was that a reliance on a long logistics chain could have been the weakest link in the chain.

As everybody knows that sometimes you get all the green lights, some days its red all the way.

vascodegama

14th Mar 2012, 08:05

500N-which extra Harriers?

Main-I must have been imagining things when I saw the pictures of Harriers on the deck of the Atlantic! Luckily they were flown off before the Exocet attack.

Postman Plod

14th Mar 2012, 12:44

Not seeing things:

http://www.btinternet.com/~philipbparker/CONVEYOR-FALKLANDS_1982-1.jpg

they were loaded at Ascension and cross-decked to Hermes from 18th May.

It was a lightweight fast moving programme, although I did pick up on a few things.

The one outstanding question was around the Argentine bombs. I'd always been under the impression they were dropped too low to properly fuse, however the bomb disposal chap on the programme last night suggested that the bomb dropped on RFA Sir Galahad in San Carlos that failed to explode was properly fused, and would have gone off if knocked. So if fused, why didn't it go off, and was this also the case with the other bombs? In other words, was the low level fusing more complex than perhaps previously presented?

Not_a_boffin

14th Mar 2012, 13:06

Interesting prog, but definitely a bit lightweight.

The point about 3Cdo vs 5Bde was that from long experience in Norway and elsewhere, 3Cdo Bde included the Cdo Logs Regt as a dedicated integral asset. They were already overstretched in SouthLant, particularly when asked to look after the two Para Bn augmenting 3Cdo, which is why the OC had a sense of humour failure when asked to support 5Bde as well.

I may be wrong, but I seem to remember that as a direct result of this experience, what was 5 Airborne subsequently got some sort of integral Logs formation (not Compo-rats!) in the post Op lessons-learned flurry.

Funny that the prog didn't mention lack of AEW as a factor (or if it did, I missed it).

barnstormer1968

14th Mar 2012, 13:16

I did not hear any mention of lack of AEW, but did here that the UK went to 'war' with Argentina in the very first sentence of the show!
I don't seem to remember us declaring war, which is why it was called a conflict.

Courtney Mil

14th Mar 2012, 13:32

Postman Plod,

I thought the same as you so I wonder if it's a terminology issue. Perhaps due to the low release altitude, the bombs didn't have time to ARM, whilst the fusing mechanism was fully functional.

orca

14th Mar 2012, 13:48

Courtney.

The weapon would have two mechanisms within the fuse, the rotary one being an interlock for the second - both required for detonation. What the chap was saying was that the rotary one had done its job (i.e. had been dropped at sufficient speed for the vane to rotate the correct amount of times at the correct rate).

The other section of the fuse would have a timing delay, triggered at release, after which it would need to sense the deceleration of a hit. Drop from too low and weapon hits, then arms, no deceleration, no explosion.

So he was right. It was sat there waiting to hit something, unaware that it already had. (Not that I suspect bombs can muse to themselves!)

Navaleye

14th Mar 2012, 14:17

I seem to remember it was 16 1/2 turns on a UK 1000lb bomb.

AR1

14th Mar 2012, 16:40

I was left at the end wondering what ''the gamble' actually was. All wars are inherantly a gamble, in that theres no guarantee that the opposition will take things on your terms and lose.

Couiple of things came up for me. The number of bombs that actually struck home was higher than I was aware.

Capt Salt was directly apportioned blame for the loss of Sheffeild. Any coincidence that he's departed hence they could say what they like?

Courtney Mil

14th Mar 2012, 17:04

Orca, Naval, yes. I haven't seen it yet, but that was basically what I was thinking.

dagama

14th Mar 2012, 20:30

The clue re 5 Bde was in the name. 5 Airborne Brigade and they were trained to be inserted by air. As a Herc man, we trained with the Bde for their initial insertion followed by a resupply drop within 24 hours and other resupply flights as required. In other words 5 ABN Bde was a light-weight mobile force which relied on re-supply. The Falklands did not present this scenario. As an infantry Bde, it did its best, like all British forces end up doing when the chips are down.

I saw the whole prog and thought that it was a party political broadcast on behalf of 3 Cdo Bde. I don't think rehearsing inter-service rivalry by senior officers on TV is a good way to behave. As for moaning about the lack of a carrier now, the man needs to understand that there is an airfield there. He should have highlighted the need to defend that and the forces on the islands now rather than harping on about the carrier.

Can anybody throw any light on what effort it took to protect the carrier force in 1982 and what would have happened if a carrier had been badly damaged or, heaven forbid, sunk. The prog avoided this; perhaps this was the biggest gamble!

The RAF did not get a mention - just a cursory reference to the one Chinook that got away from the Atlantic Conveyor. That Chinook did sterling work in transporting troops and equipment but why let the facts get in the way of the truth.

Just as an aside, my longest flight during Op Corporate was 26 hrs and 5 mins.

Alberto2

15th Mar 2012, 11:31

hi Milos, did you upload the video?
'cause it's unavailable outside the UK. COuld anybody re-post it without that restriction?

Thanks a lot!!

cosmiccomet

15th Mar 2012, 12:01

About the Argentine Bombs fusing, the 1000 lbs Mk17 british made bombs were used by the English Electric Canberra for mid and high level bombing.

So the biggest problem for the armorers was to fuse those bombs for extreme low level bombing.

The Argentine Navy had at that time two Type 42 Destroyers, ARA Hercules and ARA Santisima Trinidad.
We had also knowledge of the Sea Cat capabilities, the ARA General Belgrano was equipped with Sea Cat launchers and the Argentine Marines had the Tiger Cat for air defence.
The Navy and the Air Force knew what was capabilities of the UK radars and the understanding of having to fly very low to avoid the radar detection.

The Argentine Navy Aviation was using American 500 lbs bombs Mk82 Snakeye.
Those were used by the MD Skyhawk A-4Q and the sinking of the HMS Ardent is a proved of properly launch height of around 200 ft/60 mts was needed for exploding inside the ship.

Pilots had the selfdefence tendecy of extreme low flying not giving the proper launching parameters.

Anyway...it wasn't a Picnic at all for anyone...

John Farley

15th Mar 2012, 12:19

the man needs to understand that there is an airfield there.

Certainly there is now a good modern airfield which is defended by a variety of very smart bullets (on the ground and in the air) each one of which can be expected to do its job.

However a limited supply of very smart ammo can only deal with a limited amout of incoming. It's called the numbers game. After those bullets are used it is game over and you are no longer defending but trying to work out how to retake.

Not_a_boffin

15th Mar 2012, 12:22

About the Argentine Bombs fusing, the 1000 lbs Mk17 british made bombs were used by the English Electric Canberra for mid and high level bombing.

So the biggest problem for the armorers was to fuse those bombs for extreme low level bombing.

The Argentine Navy had at that time two Type 42 Destroyers, ARA Hercules and ARA Santisima Trinidad.
We had also knowledge of the Sea Cat capabilities, the ARA General Belgrano was equipped with Sea Cat lunchers and the Argentine Marines had the Tiger Cat for air defence.
The Navy and the Air Force knew what was capabilities of the UK radars and the understanding of having to fly very low to avoid the radar detection.

The Argentine Navy Aviation was using American 500 lbs bombs Mk82 Snakeye.
Those were used by the MD Skyhawk A-4Q and the sinking of the HMS Ardent is a proved of properly lunch height of around 200 ft/60 mts was needed for exploding inside the ship.

Pilots had the selfdefence tendecy of extreme low flying not giving the proper lunching parameters.

Anyway...it wasn't a Picnic at all for anyone...

You are having a laugh, right?

Gravelbelly

15th Mar 2012, 12:59

You are having a laugh, right?

I rather suspect that CosmicComet is not a native English speaker :rolleyes:

Tell you what, why don't you write a lucid, grammatically correct, and relevant article in Spanish, and we'll get a native Spanish speaker to pick you up on all your spelling errors?

Not_a_boffin

15th Mar 2012, 13:26

Really? You think?

My Spanish is far too rusty to even try for grammatical correctness. However, that particular turn of phrase was too hard to pass by. I didn't even mention the Kipper fleet.

Some people have no sense of humour.......

cosmiccomet

15th Mar 2012, 13:37

Yes, I am not an English native speaker and sorry for the bad spelling.

Thanks for the correction...I could find my mistake and corrected it.

About the bombs, the Argentine Air Force used the Spanish 500 lbs BR250 bombs.

Two BR250 were loaded in the IAI Dagger A (Israeli copy of the Mirage V).
The fuses were,
*Super Super Quick, detonating on impact.
*Kappa E 2,8 sec fuse delay.

The HMS Plymouth was attacked by 5 IA Dagger A on June 8th and hitted by 4 BR250 bombs and any of them exploded.
She was really lucky that day.

TEEEJ

15th Mar 2012, 15:29

cosmiccomet wrote

IA Dagger A (Israeli copy of the Mirage V)

The Israeli's weren't copying the Nesher (Mirage), but simply assembling them from knockdown kits supplied by France according to Gene Salvay. Gene Salvay an engineer with Rockwell and involved in the Kfir design revealed the details in Wings magazine during 2000.

Salvay revealed that he was the Chief designer of the Kfir (Mirage variant fitted with J79 engine). The embargo on the Mirage 5Js that ended up being absorbed by the French Air Force was just a show. The Mirage 5 in kit form were being supplied by the French through the back door as fast as US transports could deliver them.

IAI Nesher 501 on display in Israel has French manufacture plates.

Photos: Dassault Mirage 5J (Nesher) Aircraft Pictures | Airliners.net (http://www.airliners.net/photo/Israel---Air/Dassault-Mirage-5J/0798878/L/)

David Lednicer inspected the ID plate. Link to image.

File:M5Jplate.jpg - Scramble (http://wiki.scramble.nl/index.php/File:M5Jplate.jpg)

Despite the official story that this is an IAI Nesher, a check of the aircraft ID plates in the wheel wells reveals that this is really the first production Mirage 5J. On display in the Israel Air Force Museum.

David Lednicer who took the image also knew Gene Salvay and spoke to him in a telephone conversation to confirm the French supplied kit story.

MiG-21 combat record? - rec.aviation.military | Google Groups (http://groups.google.com/group/rec.aviation.military/browse_thread/thread/d9086a710a9f51f4/f9d0a855bd192852?hl=en&lnk=gst&q=David+Lednicer+nesher&pli=1)

Falklands/Argentine Aircraft - rec.aviation.military | Google Groups (http://groups.google.com/group/rec.aviation.military/browse_thread/thread/5712e96936287fbe/c55389cd785f1f2e?hl=en&lnk=gst&q=David+Lednicer+nesher#c55389cd785f1f2e)

Key Publishing Ltd Aviation Forums - View Single Post - Nesher (http://forum.keypublishing.com/showpost.php?p=1583341&postcount=8)

They story generates a fair bit of controversy. It would be interesting to see the construction plates of the Argentine Daggers?

Pontius Navigator

15th Mar 2012, 17:21

The other section of the fuse would have a timing delay, triggered at release, after which it would need to sense the deceleration of a hit. Drop from too low and weapon hits, then arms, no deceleration, no explosion.

Drop from too low implies insufficient time for the SAFU - Safe Arming and Fusing Unit, ie the vaned cap, to unscrew. That was not the case.

"Sense a deceleration" implies a sophisticated fusing system with possibly a mecury switch. More likely it was an impact pistol but because of the low trajectory had a graze impact which was an insufficiently strong impact to function. I grant you that not impacting would lead to a lack of decelaration so it is a bit of semantics.

MAINJAFAD

15th Mar 2012, 19:48

TEEJ

IAI ones on the wreck of Dagger C-403 on West Falkland when I got a close look at it back in 1989.

Milo Minderbinder

15th Mar 2012, 20:17

Alberto2

Channel 5 have withdrawn the program from Channel 5 - you can now only get it on their website at The Great Falklands Gamble: Revealed | Revealed | Channel 5 (http://www.channel5.com/shows/revealed/episodes/the-great-falklands-war-gamble-revealed)
It needs Flash and Adobe Air to play
It will also be copy protected to expire after a certain time, and the site is restricted to UK only

However if you install this software Expat Shield (http://expatshield.com/)
you will be able to set up a VPN which will make it seem that yo have a UK IP address and enable you to access the site