Harrier Falklands Conundrum

[dagenham]

So lockdown fever has lead to me to read the three tomes by Morgan, Ward and Pook. Enjoyed reading them all, all written from a very different perspective and would be interesting if they were all stitched together.

Some of the contradictory points and similarities raised has piqued my interest in further reading to understand more.

The key points seem to be

1. Views on Blue Fox seem to be massively divergent - was it that bad or was it the experience and set up that made the difference to Sharkey's team ?
2. Most view on the air leadership on Hermes seems to be that is a bit dire - is there any official after action review that reaches a view on this?

Do any of you know further reading or would be willing to share your views ?

[safetypee]

Consider 'Air War South Atlantic', Alfred Price, Jeffery Ethell.

[tucumseh]

In the late 1970s, the RN had put all its front line radar eggs in one basket. Sea Spray for Lynx, Sea Searcher for ASW Sea King, and Blue Fox. Sea Spray slightly ahead, Sea Searcher and Blue Fox more or less in parallel.

When the Falklands kicked off, we had 8 B Models. That is, the RN had none, MoD(PE) owned the B models. They were in pairs. B1 and B2 were little more than breadboards, and very immature. B7 and B8 were near production model. You couldn’t mix LRUs or even most modules between pairs. Sea Searcher was in a similar situation, but with fewer B models, as some of the old Lightweight Radar was retained. (What was in the RAF Mk3s. They didn’t want to upgrade).

Development of both Sea Searcher and Blue Fox was stopped dead, and production launched/ramped up. B3-B8 went South along with the first production batch. There could be no expectation of full functionality, and some intended features were missing altogether. There wasn’t much soak testing.

One outcome on Blue fox, a few years later, was a blob appeared on the display tube, and gradually got bigger and obscured it completely. All at the same time. The chemical filter didn’t last as long as expected, and had to be replaced by a Hoya coloured glass one.

In short, there were rafts of production permits and concessions, and a major programme to stabilize the build standards and bring them up to spec took place from 83-on. The Sea Searcher one was never finished. Blue Fox was allowed to continue, as ILIC/Anderwave was in many respects a technology demonstrator for the next gen radars. The programme only finished a month or so before the FRS1 started going in for conversion to FRS2.

One amazing fact. The MLU contract was for ‘all’ remaining 55 systems to be upgraded. 61 turned up. The B Models were still in use, and had never needed maintenance beyond 2nd line. This was their first time back at the factory in 8 years.

Summary. Blue Fox was the dog’s bollix, and when it was replaced by Vixen other countries were queuing up to buy the remaining 55 complete systems. First in line was the RAF. They wanted something to put in Tornado to replace the Buccaneer/Blue Parrot role, and handed me a spec. The Ferranti Chief Designer laughed, and said Blue Fox is way beyond this spec, but it would need a major mod to Tornado to fit it. RAF OR said great – then asked what on earth the RN were getting if they were chucking out something beyond the RAF’s biggest wet dream. In the end, most were scrapped. Manadon got one, and Ferranti were allowed to section one for display. But much of it was at least Secret, and not permitted to be sold to any other country. (India had Blue Fox, but weren’t allowed the MLU).

Health warning. Memory fades a little.

[just another jocky]

So lockdown fever has lead to me to read the three tomes by Morgan, Ward and Pook. Enjoyed reading them all, all written from a very different perspective and would be interesting if they were all stitched together.

Some of the contradictory points and similarities raised has piqued my interest in further reading to understand more.

The key points seem to be

1. Views on Blue Fox seem to be massively divergent - was it that bad or was it the experience and set up that made the difference to Sharkey's team ?
2. Most view on the air leadership on Hermes seems to be that is a bit dire - is there any official after action review that reaches a view on this?

Do any of you know further reading or would be willing to share your views ?

I'm part way through Pook's book and he certainly doesn't hold back on his disdain for navy senior officers.

[sandiego89]

Interesting stuff Tecumseh

So did 801 on Invincible have the better sets? Also seem to recall 801 had more recent work ups from the Alloy Express exercise, and was more tasked on the Air to Air side of things. Certain airframes seemed to be better than others with 004 in 801 being recalled as one of the more trouble free airframes.

[ivor toolbox]

Interesting stuff Tecumseh

So did 801 on Invincible have the better sets? Also seem to recall 801 had more recent work ups from the Alloy Express exercise, and was more tasked on the Air to Air side of things. Certain airframes seemed to be better than others with 004 in 801 being recalled as one of the more trouble free airframes.


Not necessarily 801 original tails; remember 809 got formed from a selection of airframes after the rest of the FAA Harrier contingent had departed.

Due to the fact that many bits from those tails had been used and taken south onboard ship, we had
many parts arrive " from trials" to be fitted to the 809 tails, to get them going.

The 809 tails flew to Ascension Island, then got loaded to Atlantic Conveyor for rest of trip south.
Once in theatre 809 got disbanded , and the tails redistributed between the 2 squadrons.

Ttfn

[ex-fast-jets]

JaJ - keep on reading.

JJP (that's Jerry Pook) has written - in my opinion - an entirely real account of what went on. His comments on senior RN officer conduct - on Hermes - are, again in my opinion, totally justified.

I feel confident that others will soon comment on what you are looking for in your Point 2.

But I will commit wholesale to an appalling understanding from the hierarchy on (in) HERMES of what we (the RAF Harriers) could do - and what we could not do.

The understanding of HERMES Command was dreadful, but the fear of those working for Command to tell them that they were wrong was even worse.

That was, now, some 38 years ago.

I really hope that it would not be repeated now.

As an aside, the arrival of and departure from HERMES of Chinook BN following the attack on Atlantic Conveyor should by itself create a whole book on how things should not be done. If the hierarchy of HERMES had had their way, BN would have been thrown overboard Vietnam-style into the sea. As it was, as we all know, BN went ashore with very little support, and became a serious war effort winner.

[WB627]

You would have thought that after the loss of HMS Glorious in 1940, the Navy would have learned how to use an aircraft carrier in war.

[India Four Two]

I have often wondered why a submariner was appointed as commander of the Task Force. How did that happen?

Was there a more "air minded" officer available who might have made a better commander?

[tucumseh]

Interesting stuff Tecumseh

So did 801 on Invincible have the better sets? Also seem to recall 801 had more recent work ups from the Alloy Express exercise, and was more tasked on the Air to Air side of things. Certain airframes seemed to be better than others with 004 in 801 being recalled as one of the more trouble free airframes.

Sorry, don't know that detail and I'll bow to people who were there. What I said would certainly explain different experiences and perceptions of Blue Fox in 1982. It is entirely possible a single squadron had four distinct build standards and performances, and it is also possible the maintainers didn't actually know this. It would not be in any pilot training. (Sea Spray in Lynx was the same - 3 distinct and non-interchangeable standards).

Development continued and upon return the kit was immediately upgraded with the 'jamming package' and the build standard settled down. This was related to performance under jamming, and was almost immediately the subject of an approved mid life upgrade (2 years into the service life!) termed ILIC/Anderwave. In Loop Interpretative (maybe Interactive) Control, and even better tracking in severe jamming.

The reason I recall this was the beancounters were all for suing Rank Brimar over the filters I mentioned, but I knew the history and adopted a more relaxed approach. Didn't want a p***** match that we would lose, when the aircraft were going to be without a radar in short order.

Reliability comes to mind. Blue Fox was WAY beyond any expectations. System MTBF was around five times that of Blue Parrot and the AWG series (Phantom). Different technologies of course, but indicative of the step changes that were happening at the time. But, I could never understand the RN approving a 15 year spares buy, after it started being withdrawn from service at 3 sets per month. That just used up the 'Sea Harrier radar' funding line, meaning Blue Vixen support was poor some some time.

I think the set that Ferranti kept may have been B8, as it was later used as the PDS rig. Never been to the factory since 93, so don't know if the new owners display it.

[tartare]

Genuine question - what was so good about Blue Fox?

[dagenham]

JaJ - keep on reading.

JJP (that's Jerry Pook) has written - in my opinion - an entirely real account of what went on. His comments on senior RN officer conduct - on Hermes - are, again in my opinion, totally justified.

I feel confident that others will soon comment on what you are looking for in your Point 2.

But I will commit wholesale to an appalling understanding from the hierarchy on (in) HERMES of what we (the RAF Harriers) could do - and what we could not do.

The understanding of HERMES Command was dreadful, but the fear of those working for Command to tell them that they were wrong was even worse.

That was, now, some 38 years ago.

I really hope that it would not be repeated now.

As an aside, the arrival of and departure from HERMES of Chinook BN following the attack on Atlantic Conveyor should by itself create a whole book on how things should not be done. If the hierarchy of HERMES had had their way, BN would have been thrown overboard Vietnam-style into the sea. As it was, as we all know, BN went ashore with very little support, and became a serious war effort winner.


yes it was an eye opener. Pook’s very short aside towards the end on the captain refusing to allow night qualification for Hermes newer SHAR pilots explained Sharkey’s complaints about illustrious carrying out so many night CAP and I guess the fatigue mentioned in Morgan’s book. The Hermes captain was South African ex Buccaneer ?

[tucumseh]

Genuine question - what was so good about Blue Fox?



In my experience, pilots/aircrew tend to accept what they’re given. They adapt and crack on. The decision as to what is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ manifests itself in the Constraints Document, which determines where money is spent. Aircrew have a direct input to that. Any Blue Fox Constraints or Limitations were leftovers from the early shutting down of development. After that, the Fire Control and Surveillance radar project team had very few problems. That’s how quality (fitness for purpose) was measured by a Service HQ.

Study each aspect of its specification, and it was beyond what would procurers call the ‘stretch’ target; defined as a target ‘which is currently out of reach, but not out of sight. Significantly more difficult than hard targets, they require breaking of previous boundaries and constraints’. (constraints with a small c). Blue Fox ate up stretch targets. There isn’t a term in the procurement handbook for what it achieved.

What do you want from kit? Availability, Reliability, Maintainability, at a fair and reasonable cost. Blue Fox had all of that. ILS is today an industry, but in a nutshell it is Ranging, Scaling, Documentation and Packaging. It's the first task you set, and everything else falls out of it. If you set up RSD&P correctly, you automatically establish through-life support correctly, right down to the safety case. Blue Fox got that right, but the HQ posts responsible for this were disbanded in 1988 without replacement. Explain a lot?

An anecdote. The Chief Designer was a wizard. When he took me round his lab in 1986, it was meant to be a sales pitch to upgrade Sea Spray. (360 degree scan, digital processor, etc, which was continually planned, agreed, and cancelled, throughout the 80s and 90s). But to him that (and Blue Fox) was old hat. I was shown Blue Vixen working, and how it should be adapted for (e.g.) AEW. (It later won the AEW Mk7 job hands down). Likewise, Blue Kestrel (Merlin) was ready for the 1989 ISD (!). ECR90 for EFA (Typhoon) was coming along nicely. But he asked me why ‘MoD’ had specified Blue Vixen to track (x) targets simultaneously, which he’d considered challenging but managed it; but later only asked for less than half that for EFA. Different Service, different expectation, never the two shall speak. Without saying anything, he’d set himself a target beyond Blue Vixen, and achieved it. The RAF came along later and asked if they could upgrade their EFA spec, and how much it would cost…..and still didn’t ask for what he’d designed until about the third change.

Blue Fox was only ever going to have a 10 year life, max. That made it unusual. Like I said, in many ways it was a technology demonstrator. There was a planned, funded and contracted upgrade path in the family of radars. That provided stability and encouraged innovation. Why was any Ferranti radar good? The design team. But also the superb radar scientists we had at RSRE Malvern, who contributed so much. Also worth mentioning is that in the 70s and early 80s many MoD(PE) project managers had been radar designers. The Fox & Vixen one was brilliant; so too the Kestrel one, who later did Apache. By end-90s, all that expertise was largely gone.

Am I a fan?

[ExRAFRadar]

More, much more than a fan. Excellent write ups.
Thank you.

[ACW599]

Fascinating -- very many thanks. How sad that all that expertise is gone.

[esscee]

That is the problem with beancounters and some managers though, agree that an designer/engineer may "lose track" of cost but keeping on top of that is the key.

[Trumpet trousers]

Squire had to contend with the opposition of the Hermes captain, Linley Middleton, to his receiving lengthy signals from Britain on how to use the technology.

The matter was urgent because Squire and his men, uncomfortably quartered in Hermes and flying by old-fashioned map-and-stopwatch navigation methods from her deck, were taking huge risks daily. Laser guidance would allow them to drop their bombs farther back from the target. In the event they operated without it until Squire’s raid on June 13. They lost four aircraft: three shot down and one damaged beyond repair.

Squire used all his habitual measured calmness to persuade the navy to let him have four replacement RAF Harriers flown directly to the Falklands from Ascension, using air-to-air refuelling. Middleton, a former naval aviator, whom the mild-mannered Squire considered “a bully”, had opposed this too, calling it “a publicity stunt by the RAF”.

The above is taken from the Times obituary for ACM Sir Peter Squire GCB DFC AFC, published 3 March 2018. Gives a flavour of what the GR3 team had to contend with.

[Pontius]

What do you want from kit? Availability, Reliability, Maintainability, at a fair and reasonable cost

As a pilot I want something that works well; I'm not particularly interested in how it gets there. I don't know where your love affair for the Blue Fox comes from but you certainly weren't an end-user or else you'd be a lot more cynical.

It was very good for surface search (given its pedigree is should have been) but it wasn't particularly good in the air to air environment. Sure, it had excellent integration with the weapons aiming computer and, after a lot of practice, could produce a semi-useful track-while-scan model but it was susceptible to weather and chaff and had really quite poor performance as far as pick-ups were concerned. Medium level you'd get a Harrier coming towards you at around 18nm but look at the SIZE of those intakes. Hawk etc, you'd be lucky to get outside of 8nm. Low level, just turn it off because all it would do is warn someone you were coming. There were some clever gizmos in it and enough to get the boffins excited but these didn't really add anything to pilots trying to defeat superior platforms in the air-to-air environment.

It was better than nothing but I have no idea where these reports of it being the dogs bollox come from. Now, Blue Vixen was a completely different kettle of fish :)

[Mogwi]

My dear Tuc, what a fascinating insight into the Blue Fox. I do not think any of us had an inkling of those facts; we just got on with using the kit as best we could.

The main drawback was the high workload looking down over land, where the ground returns could obliterate the target. This meant that we had to "dangle the lobe" just above ground at the desired range to have any chance of getting a discrete return. At medium and high level, the kit worked well but the lack of automation meant that the workload was still high.

The Falklands engagements (stand fast day one and a few other exceptions) were mainly fought at extremely low level (below 100') where the radar was of no use at all. There was definitely more expertise on 801 NAS and my personal training never did get completed and I am afraid that I used the radar as a mark 3 eyeball! I am sure that this is how the Blue Fox acquired its derogatory nick-name of Cloth C*ck - as in as much use as....

When Blue Vixen came along it was a complete game-changer. A JP was sent to act as Red air for a tornado AWI course and he wiped the floor against an attack package at low level. So embarrassed were they, that he was sent home before the debrief!

The boys used to jest that you could fire against 4 discrete targets and be back in the coffee bar before you heard the bangs. At its untimely demise, the FA2 was regarded as possibly the best weapons system in the air.

Mog

[tucumseh]

Experienced people like Engines will be able to give first hand thoughts, but I imagine the Hermes Captain had a lot on his plate, not least being uncertain how his mixed bag of immature aircraft were going to perform; and very aware that he had no AEW.

I’m not sure how long it went on, but there used to an annual ‘Exercise Hardy Crab’ whereby the RAF deployed on CVSs. One of the things we in RN HQ had to ensure was the RAF Harriers were loaned the radar enhancement transponders that were routinely fitted to FAA aircraft. For some reason, RAF HQ didn’t buy any, and we would never get them back! Probably flogged on the German black market. (The Army bought their own for Lx AH1).

The trouble was, shelf stock had to be exercised every 6 months, which used to be done at RNARW Copenacre until the Naval Air Radio Stores Integration in 1986, when AMSO took over. Also, first line had to check the frequency every 100 hours, using test equipment only the RN had, mostly at sea. None of this was carried out to the loaned kit, they fell into disrepair, and there was a constant stream of contracts to buy replacements. I would staff the Board Submissions for ‘Transponders’ and the MoD(PE) project manager would add ‘Sets’, boosting the value of the contract with feeders, looms, antennae, controllers we didn’t need. He always insisted he thought I’d just forgotten. For some extraordinary reason, he was offered a job by the company when he retired.

Operating from a CVS without them was a significant risk. Perhaps Middleton was thinking of little details like that?

[tucumseh]

Pontius/Mogwi

I of course accept what you say. My first job on Blue Fox was the ARM bit. At that point, you have to accept that the Service Customer (OR, who is at least 4 steps removed from pilots) had accepted that the radar met its spec (a progressive process, ideally witnessed by a pilot and maintainer on the development rigs); but in early 1982 would not have been expecting it fully in-service for another 18 months (?), by which time many ‘problems’ would be ironed out.

As I said, there was a planned development path, and the limitations you speak of were reasonably well understood. There was a cunning plan and it was executed well. The alternative would have been to skip Blue Fox and be without a radar in SHAR until 1987-88; and Blue Vixen would probably have had the limitations. Which would you want?

Also, it isn’t clear what aircrew were told to expect. If you saw the spec before 1982, I’ve explained why that wasn’t what turned up. I know the Sea King ASW guys were expecting a Track While Scan capability in Mk5 (Sea Searcher), and right in front of their nose was a big TWS button. For years they complained it didn’t seem to work. I went to Culdrose in 86, unscrewed a front panel, and showed them there was no wiring to the switch. Development was cut short so quickly in 82, there was no time to fit even a blanking plate, and it was way down the list when we were trying to catch up.

I appreciate we have different perceptions. I kind of knew yours, as they were aired at the annual Contraints Working Groups and Capability Asessment Groups. The process is relatively simple. 1. Aircrew and maintainers set out their problems, in priority order, for each aircraft Mark. 2. OR, but often delegated to FONAC, 'sentence' them at the CAG as Constraints or Limitations. The latter are then forgotten, as you can work around them.

Constraints are tagged Critical, Major or Minor; with a safety caveat if appropriate. This establishes OR's workload for the following 12 months. His primary role is to clear Criticals and Safetys; that is, start the process of persuading the Gods to give him money. In practice, he picks away at Majors in slow time, as they are unlikely to attract funding. Minors - forget about it, unless it can be subsumed in a Critical or Major a little cost. (Typically apllies to software patches). 18 months later, it would get back to Service HQ, who staff the Admiralty Board Submission. (The very first one I did, in August 1985, was the first major upgrade to AEW Searchwater LAST. INS and G8 autotrack. Main Building said that took priority over ANY other radar or sonics requirement). You'd maybe get the capability 2 or 3 years after that.

I can tell you exactly what each FAA CWG and CAG said, as I had to attend and answer questions. If your Sqn CO, AEO , SPLOT (and SOBS for ASW/AEW) complained about what you've said here, my answer HAD to be 'Blue Vixen fixes it'. It was up to the Customer (OR/FONAC) to then say if he wanted Blue Fox to be 'fixed', or if he was happy to wait for Blue Vixen.

In turn, he was bound by strict policy (as was I), which the Treasury lived by. The 'Five Year Rule'. Anything we sought money for had to have a 5 year 'useful life'. I did this in 85-87 as the DGA(N) HQ desk officer, and the 5 years was measured from the notional In-Service Date of any (Blue Fox) modification, to the STATED In Service Date of Blue Vixen. No-one present could say it would meet the criteria, when the next item on the agenda was confirmation that Blue Vixen was on schedule, and half the people there had seen it working and confirmed it cleared the Constraint. A year later, we'd be told the aircraft (FRS2) had slipped a year, but so too the clock started again on your five available years.

You can see that in this sense all of FRS1 support suffered because it was difficult to justify any mod, because the 5 year rule kicked in very quickly after the ISD. I recall one of the main Constraints in my next job, about 1989, was HUDWAC/MADGE integration. Approval was granted and I paid for the equipment mods, but the aircraft office then refused to mod HUDWAC as a higher priority arose, and you never got it. That is very common, and very frustrating.

Hope this helps.

[Union Jack]

Squire had to contend with the opposition of the Hermes captain, Linley Middleton, to his receiving lengthy signals from Britain on how to use the technology.

The matter was urgent because Squire and his men, uncomfortably quartered in Hermes and flying by old-fashioned map-and-stopwatch navigation methods from her deck, were taking huge risks daily. l@ser guidance would allow them to drop their bombs farther back from the target. In the event they operated without it until Squire’s raid on June 13. They lost four aircraft: three shot down and one damaged beyond repair.

Squire used all his habitual measured calmness to persuade the navy to let him have four replacement RAF Harriers flown directly to the Falklands from Ascension, using air-to-air refuelling. Middleton, a former naval aviator, whom the mild-mannered Squire considered “a bully”, had opposed this too, calling it “a publicity stunt by the RAF”.

The above is taken from the Times obituary for ACM Sir Peter Squire GCB DFC AFC, published 3 March 2018. Gives a flavour of what the GR3 team had to contend with.

Whilst it appears fairly clear that the later, and now late, Rear Admiral "Lovable" Linley Middleton was perhaps not everybody's light blue cup of tea, and appreciating that the wording above is that of an obituarist, it seems that describing someone whose last appointment for over two years immediately before taking command of HERMES was as Director of Naval Air Warfare as "a former naval aviator" is a trifle harsh. As Tecumseh rightly says, "he had a lot on his plate", and I wouldn't dream of describing Air Chief Marshal Squire, or any other former FJ VSO, as a "former aviator".

Jack

[alfred_the_great]

I have often wondered why a submariner was appointed as commander of the Task Force. How did that happen?

Was there a more "air minded" officer available who might have made a better commander?

because the "war role" for his Task Group was up-threat ASW north of North Norway.

And frankly whilst air attack was plentiful, a successful SSK attack by the Argentianians would have been far worse.

[dagenham]

Squire had to contend with the opposition of the Hermes captain, Linley Middleton, to his receiving lengthy signals from Britain on how to use the technology.

The matter was urgent because Squire and his men, uncomfortably quartered in Hermes and flying by old-fashioned map-and-stopwatch navigation methods from her deck, were taking huge risks daily. l@ser guidance would allow them to drop their bombs farther back from the target. In the event they operated without it until Squire’s raid on June 13. They lost four aircraft: three shot down and one damaged beyond repair.

Squire used all his habitual measured calmness to persuade the navy to let him have four replacement RAF Harriers flown directly to the Falklands from Ascension, using air-to-air refuelling. Middleton, a former naval aviator, whom the mild-mannered Squire considered “a bully”, had opposed this too, calling it “a publicity stunt by the RAF”.



Whilst it appears fairly clear that the later, and now late, Rear Admiral "Lovable" Linley Middleton was perhaps not everybody's light blue cup of tea, and appreciating that the wording above is that of an obituarist, it seems that describing someone whose last appointment for over two years immediately before taking command of HERMES was as Director of Naval Air Warfare as "a former naval aviator" is a trifle harsh. As Tecumseh rightly says, "he had a lot on his plate", and I wouldn't dream of describing Air Chief Marshal Squire, or any other former FJ VSO, as a "former aviator".

Jack


The common thread from all three books regarding leadership on Hermes, seems to be a mindset of aircrew planning jollies, seriously destructive interservice or inter ship rivalry, micromanagement or not understanding the capabilities or impact of deicision ( e.g. the photo interpretation example in Pook's book and the risk highlighted in Ward's book - regarding supposed fast jets on the Stanley runway )

Ultimately was this simply a stress reaction in the situation or a common leadership failure. I was surprised given the risk of so many lives that this was not picked up in after action review as the impact was pretty clear in the books, so must have been common knowledge?

[Union Jack]

I have often wondered why a submariner was appointed as commander of the Task Force. How did that happen?

Was there a more "air minded" officer available who might have made a better commander?

Thoroughly agree with Alfred - the First Sea Lord of the day appoints seagoing Flag Officers on the basis of their perceived overall ability to exercise command at sea, irrespective of their original branch, coupled with their suitability for further promotion. Of the some 14 officers who held the appointment of Flag Officer First Flotilla, Sandy Woodward's appointment at the time concerned, all but one went on to at least Vice Admiral, five went on to Admiral, and one to Admiral of the Fleet. Four, including Admiral Woodward, were submariners.

Jack

[Hot 'n' High]

....................... Health warning. Memory fades a little.

Blimey, tuc, if this is your level of recall after "memory fade" and some 40 years in amongst all your many Projects you've PM'd that is scary! I hardly remember what day it is let alone what was happening all them years ago! I had no idea Blue Fox was so immature when we went South - OK, as others went South - I was having too much fun building/installing a load of UORs for those down there at the time to go myself! But what a fascinating insight/reminder of just how difficult it was to get anything into Service - it's a bit like the pitfalls faced by a salmon getting back to it's spawning ground - only the lucky survive!! Pontius, I'm sure you'd agree the system was way off "just giving you something that worked" given some of the "interesting" decisions/characters involved along they way who often put a very different spin on requirements/tradeoffs which left normal RMs/Engineers going "WTF?????!!!!". Yep, them fish had one hell of a battle to get there! :\

As an aside, one thing I never did really grasp (having never been involved myself) were the advent of Software Support Cells so that some in-service development work (at lead Air Station level rather than the Malvern-type input you mention) could be carried out. I always wondered what this did to config control of such systems as I assume, if changes were made "in service", it would have to be via the SM route. I understood the desire was to do what Pontius wanted but I always wondered how effective they were/are.

As an end-note, even today, when I see some amazing bit of kit whizzing around, setting off car alarms and generally flying amazing routines, it's not the aerodynamics which amaze me ..... it's just the fact it ever managed to get built in the first place which is the truly awesome thing to realise! ;)

[Hot 'n' High]

The common thread from all three books regarding leadership on Hermes, seems to be a mindset of aircrew planning jollies, seriously destructive interservice or inter ship rivalry, micromanagement or not understanding the capabilities or impact of decision ( e.g. the photo interpretation example in Pook's book and the risk highlighted in Ward's book - regarding supposed fast jets on the Stanley runway )

Ultimately was this simply a stress reaction in the situation or a common leadership failure. I was surprised given the risk of so many lives that this was not picked up in after action review as the impact was pretty clear in the books, so must have been common knowledge?

Dags, the times the highlighted has screwed things up is quite depressing! It went on throughout my 30 odd years in the Services tho, for me, all my inter-service dealings were fine and I both worked for the other services at odd times (and had people from the other services working for me). It was at the higher "political" levels where it all seemed to go haywire. Risking starting a "WW3 - The Max!" blockbuster, the whole "SHAR >>> JFH >>> Harrier Canned" was predicted by many in the RN when the decision was first taken to form JFH. I'm sure there is probably a 1000 page Thread on just that one topic!

It really saddened me during my time in - but it's the same in all walks of life as I've now discovered (slow learner??!!) - humans are humans and, while most are decent/honourable, there are quite a large number who are the complete opposite. :ugh: :suspect: :hmm: :uhoh:

Opps, I think H 'n' H just got H 'n' H on his soapbox! I'll just hop back down!!!! :ok:

[AndySmith]

Interesting stuff Tecumseh

So did 801 on Invincible have the better sets? Also seem to recall 801 had more recent work ups from the Alloy Express exercise, and was more tasked on the Air to Air side of things. Certain airframes seemed to be better than others with 004 in 801 being recalled as one of the more trouble free airframes.

From Invincible, 04 flew 91 sorties, 03 - 90 and 06 - 84. Hermes' highest sortied aircraft was 718 with 69.

[tucumseh]

As an aside, one thing I never did really grasp (having never been involved myself) were the advent of Software Support Cells so that some in-service development work (at lead Air Station level rather than the Malvern-type input you mention) could be carried out. I always wondered what this did to config control of such systems as I assume, if changes were made "in service", it would have to be via the SM route.

Good point. You are right about CC. And don't bother raising requests for fault investigations, the Design Authority reply will be unprintable. It's like voiding a warranty. Nothing to stop a SSF proposing a change, but at the end of the day the DA has to prepare and sign the safety case update. The Services, especially, have people who are entirely capable, but appointers rarely respond well to a request for a triple tour. The only time I've known them to, it allowed one of your colleagues to develop a software spec when the company didn't know where to start. A rarity, rather forced on us by Min for Defence Procurement directing that a company in his constituency be awarded the contract, despite not bidding. Sometimes, needs must. I doubt if Fatty S. knows or cares that a young Lt RN saved his hide, and MoD countless millions.

[msbbarratt]

Blue Fox was only ever going to have a 10 year life, max. That made it unusual. Like I said, in many ways it was a technology demonstrator. There was a planned, funded and contracted upgrade path in the family of radars. That provided stability and encouraged innovation. Why was any Ferranti radar good? The design team. But also the superb radar scientists we had at RSRE Malvern, who contributed so much. Also worth mentioning is that in the 70s and early 80s many MoD(PE) project managers had been radar designers. The Fox & Vixen one was brilliant; so too the Kestrel one, who later did Apache. By end-90s, all that expertise was largely gone.

This nicely illustrates what has annoyed me intensely throughout my engineering career. Beancounters generally have absolutely no idea how to count the beans, or know how to go looking for where the beans are, or really care what it is the beans are supposed to be buying. Expertise is priceless - officially so - because no bean counter ever places a value on it. Yet we (engineers and end users) all know very well the true value of expertise, and the value of maintaining it regardless of anything else.

A good example of how radar developments can go wrong. Type 996 - an air surveillance radar for the RN - was a procurement to forget. No one had put in the spec that it had to be mounted on the top of the mast of ship that would actually go to sea. I mean, why would you?

The result was that the antenna motors kept failing - they weren't waterproof. And the first time a ship with one got struck by lightning the gold plated fibre glass waveguide they'd used blew up. The reason why older radars had had massive lumps of brass for the rotating joints and waveguide was because they made good lightning conductors. You couldn't make it up. The problems were all put right in due course, but they were pretty pathetic problems to have in the first place.

[AndySmith]

Squire had to contend with the opposition of the Hermes captain, Linley Middleton, to his receiving lengthy signals from Britain on how to use the technology.

The matter was urgent because Squire and his men, uncomfortably quartered in Hermes and flying by old-fashioned map-and-stopwatch navigation methods from her deck, were taking huge risks daily. l@ser guidance would allow them to drop their bombs farther back from the target. In the event they operated without it until Squire’s raid on June 13. They lost four aircraft: three shot down and one damaged beyond repair.

Squire used all his habitual measured calmness to persuade the navy to let him have four replacement RAF Harriers flown directly to the Falklands from Ascension, using air-to-air refuelling. Middleton, a former naval aviator, whom the mild-mannered Squire considered “a bully”, had opposed this too, calling it “a publicity stunt by the RAF”.



Whilst it appears fairly clear that the later, and now late, Rear Admiral "Lovable" Linley Middleton was perhaps not everybody's light blue cup of tea, and appreciating that the wording above is that of an obituarist, it seems that describing someone whose last appointment for over two years immediately before taking command of HERMES was as Director of Naval Air Warfare as "a former naval aviator" is a trifle harsh. As Tecumseh rightly says, "he had a lot on his plate", and I wouldn't dream of describing Air Chief Marshal Squire, or any other former FJ VSO, as a "former aviator".

Jack
It's worth taking a listen to Sharkey Ward's IWM recording where he states his view of the use of radar and the differences between the two embarked Sea Harrier squadrons and where he thought the problems lay. His view of Middleton isn't so negative. Someone's put these on Youtube, and you need to listen from 11:00 onwards.

https://youtu.be/bjpgSEPk1TY?t=658

[Engines]

Guys,

I've held off posting to this thread for a bit, as I wanted to wait until more issues were raised and useful points made, especially by people with operational experience like Mogwi. However, as a participant in 1982 (I was the Deputy Air Engineer Officer on 820 Squadron in Invincible) I think I can add a couple of observations that people might find mildly interesting.

It quickly became known that CO Hermes was not an easy person to serve under. By the way, that doesn't mean he was necessarily a bad operational CO. But, and it's important, ships work better when they're 'happy'. Anyone who has served in the RN at sea will know the difference between a 'happy' ship and an 'unhappy' one. It's complicated, but (in my view) it boils down to whether people do what's required because they want to (happy ship), or because they've been told to do it (unhappy ship). Hermes was, from what we were hearing on Invincible, an unhappy ship. Invincible was an extremely happy one. I'd caveat that remark by saying that inter ship rivalry was (and I'd bet still is) very common, and you often got rumours going round about 'what Captain X said' or similar. However, I did have first hand experience of how CO Hermes did his business, which I can now share here. I apologise for this 'dit' not being shorter.

It actually was a dark and stormy night (around 0200 I think) in May when a Sea King from 826 Squadron on Hermes suddenly arrived on our flight deck, requesting an AEO come out and look at a problem. I was on duty, and it didn't take long to establish that the aircraft (which was still rotors running) had serious issues with both engines, No.1 in particular showing no oil pressure. There was also a strong smell of burning oil in the cabin. My (easy) decision was that No. 1 engine was shot and the aircraft was U/S. Hermes was around 70 miles away and opening, and the night was absolutely foul, with winds of around 50 knots, rain and thick cloud, and heavy seas. I rapidly concluded that this aircraft was going nowhere. Within 5 minutes of my report to Flyco, the aircraft was folded, shut down, and sent down to the hangar. (We had run out of spare engines on board at that point). About two minutes later, I was called down to the Ops Room 'at the rush', and after the required sprint through and down the ship I was told to speak to 'Hermes'. Our CO (Captain J J Black) was listening in.

I was asked, somewhat testily, why I'd 'grounded' their aircraft. While I was explaining my decision, CO Hermes came on the line and ordered me to 'sign the aircraft off for one flight only, single engine' and get it back on the flight deck so it could 'immediately' launch for Hermes. ( I should explain that 'one flight only single engine' clearances were occasionally used to get Wessex 5s back home, but only on land, over short distances, at low weights and in good weather. ) This order from CO Hermes was 'barking', so I took a pause and refused.

CO Hermes went ballistic. He repeated his order to me in no uncertain terms, pointing out our relative ranks and my duty to carry out orders from a superior officer. At that point, Captain Black came into the conversation, and calmly told CO Hermes that the aircraft was staying down, Hermes needed to get an engine and a change team over here, and that the decision to strike the aircraft down had been made by 'an AEO that I trust absolutely'. He hung up, looked at me for a moment and then said that I was carrying out my duties to his entire satisfaction, and that I was to carry on doing so. That was definitely what some people call 'a life moment'.

I've bored you all with this to back up what Hot'n'High said. In all walks of life you get nice people and not nice people. If you are lucky, you get to work with nice people, like JJ Black and Peter Squire. Or you get people like CO Hermes. The more senior nice and not nice people get, the bigger the effect they have. You make the best of it the best way you can, and on a ship that means working as a team to take care of each other and get the job done. 1(F) did that on Hermes, and they deserve huge credit for it. As did every team and every person that took part in those strange days in 1982.

Best regards as ever to all those in all three services today who do the best they can with what they get, and the bosses they have. We all owe them so much.

Engines

[Nozzle Nudger]

To emphasise Engines' remarks above I thought I would add a little dit. I was a student on the jet in 2003 when the late Sir Peter was coming to the end of his tenure as CAS. I don't know why and I don't care but it was decided he would fly the jet again solo before he retired. He came to the OCU for a 3 week period to get worked up and have one last solo Harrier experience. He was given a private office next to the students crew room for his normal work but when free would just walk next door into the students office for a chat. His reasoning was he was no different to us, a student on a demanding course. He was totally engaging and a pure gentleman. He did finally achieve his solo in a GR7, the one and only time he ever flew it. When I asked him how it was he just smiled and said "You know and I now remember more vividly than ever, fantastic!". A wonderful leader and a humble gentleman to the end. RIP Sir.

[Engines]

Guys,

Following up another aspect raised in this thread, that of the issues arising when the GR3s arrived on Hermes - which wasn't until 18th May, by which time quite a bit of stuff had gone on.

It's my conclusion that the GR3 force was not ready to embark in a warship for ops in early April, when they were tasked. This despite the fact that they were declared in this role, and the annual 'Hardy Crab' exercises were supposed to prove that they were. In the event, they needed not only the I Band transponders Tuc mentions, but a rack of other mods. There was also a rapid effort to develop the 'Finrae' trolley to allow their nav platforms to be aligned on board. On top of that, it was decided that they should be able to carry out an air to air role, which required a rapid Sidewinder mod. The fact that they got to the ship by 18th May having done that lot is quite amazing. The inherent genius and flexibility of the Harrier was a major part of making it work at all.

But.....Tuc makes a good point with regard to the reception the GR3 team got when he says that CO Hermes had quite a few things on his plate. I'm guessing, but having had the GR3s embark to be told that they now needed to consume considerable radio traffic capacity to resolve issues with the LGB capability must have not been welcome. He would have expected that they wouldn't have been sent unless they were fully ready to do the job. (By the way, everybody had to work around very limited comms back then down there - we were under amazingly strict EMCON all the time, and we were required to make decisions with the data we had). I'm not having a go at 1(F) - I've made it clear many times that I had a great respect for them. But try looking at it from another viewpoint.

The extract from the obituary gives a hint of how some viewed the situation. Yes, 1(F) were 'uncomfortably quartered'. Everybody on that ship was. Get over it. I would take a bet that the CO in his tiny sea cabin was not much better 'quartered' than anyone else. My younger brother was a Sea Harrier pilot on 800 and was sleeping on a camp bed in the wardroom bar area. 1(F) were using 'old fashioned map and stopwatch navigation methods' only because nobody in the RAF had seriously considered how their aircraft's navigation systems might operate from a moving ship. They were declared in the role - why hadn't they done that?

Sadly, lessons weren't learned in some quarters. Fast forward to 2001. JFH was trying to 'do its thing' - one day I was told that Strike HQ was 'requiring' that the next GR7 detachment be supported by a 'portable' RAF satellite terminal to allow them to plug directly into the RAF air stores system and not to have to use the RN's ship's stores system interface. My RAF manned GR7 staff said it was a stupid idea, I agreed, but we were overridden by the HQ loggies. So... the 'portable' stores satcom station arrives at the jetty, and requires a crane to lift it on to the flight deck. It's about the size of a large American fridge. Much angst as to where it's going to be located as the RAF team realise that: (a) there's not much spare deck space anywhere, and: (b) there are one or two high power transmitting systems on the ship. The ship helps as much as it can, giving the RAF guys a full list of the ship's systems, and working out when the RAF system can transmit and receive. A location is selected, and power supplies are arranged.

The RAF system is switched on, and after a short time establishes a good link. Celebrations ensue. The ship then sails, and soon afterwards the link is lost. The reason is discovered - the RAF system is designed for land use, and the antenna is manually aligned and set up on fixed angles. As soon as the ship made its first turn, the system was f****d. It was switched off and landed at the first chance.

A few days later, I got an email from the Strike HQ logs staff deploring the fact that we hadn't told them that ships change course frequently (I honestly got this email) and requesting that in future the carriers commit to spending a minimum of 10 minutes per hour on an agreed course so that the system could be used. I didn't even bother responding. By that time, I had a quite excellent RAF Sqn Ldr on my team who had a strong logs background - he worked out how the GR7 detachments could use the RN onboard stores system (actually pretty much like the RN had been doing) , documented it, and briefed it out to the GR7 teams.

I understand that people don't get that operating aircraft from ships is a challenge. I understand that people still refer to aircraft carriers as 'floating airfields', when they are plainly not. I understand that for many aviators, this doesn't really matter. But what is essential now is that everyone involved in getting the nation's new strike capability to sea takes the time and effort to learn what naval aviation involves and to make sure we're properly ready next time. Encouragingly, it looks as if the new generation are doing a much better job than we ever did.

Best regards as ever to everyone, of all services, doing their best at to fly safely at sea today.

Engines

[Marcantilan]

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/693x183/sin_t_tulo_2962fff88a9015bd5ce0e837bf7ce5cc5d8a6e2c.jpg
May 10, 1982. Regards!

[Just This Once...]

Guys,

It's my conclusion that the GR3 force was not ready to embark in a warship for ops in early April, when they were tasked. This despite the fact that they were declared in this role, and the annual 'Hardy Crab' exercises were supposed to prove that they were.

Engines

Great conclusion Engines. Trouble is, just what made you thing the GR3 had been declared in this role or that a GR3 had ever been launched from a ship?

Best I can recall is that a single development Harrier GR1 took part in a ship trial, pre-ski jump, as part of the nascent SHAR programme in the early '70s.

[Engines]

JTO,

Good question, well put. I suppose the reasons that I thought that the GR3s were declared and required to operate from ships were:

1. The fact that they had been running detachments to the CVS every year since about 1979 (these were called 'Hardy Crab'), and involved landing on and taking off from the ship. Quite a lot of them, actually.
2. The fact that the crews embarking in 'Hardy Crab' told us that they were required to be able to embark in the CVS for ops.
3. The fact that there was a substantial series of mods to the aircraft specifically designed to enable embarked ops, including not only I band transponders, as Tuc describes, but also extra tie down points, and modifications to the landing gear.

And so on.

My point was that, clearly, 'Hardy Crab' had not been sufficient to make the GR3 force fully operationally capable, hence the need for 'FINRAE' development (important because navigation over the sea is always a bit of a challenge) and the difficulties in getting the LGB capability full on line. However, I think I was careful to give credit to 1(F) and specifically their CO, Peter Squire. I only ever met him twice. Once in Port Stanley in 1982, when he took the time to ask me whether there was anything else his team could do to help me recover a U/S Sea King parked not far from their base. The second time was in 2001 at HQ Strike Command at the Battle of Britain Reception, when I was asked to come over and speak to CAS. I didn't recognise him, but he recognised me. He then lowered his voice and said how sad he was that my late brother (who served with him in Hermes in 1982) wasn't able to be there and how much he missed him. He was, in the view of this retired Naval officer, a true gentleman and a fine officer.

I have only the highest respect for anyone who strapped a Harrier on their a**e and went to war. But with that goes an expectation that all the Services need to work together and deliver the best effect for the nation. It hasn't always happened, sometimes for the worst of reasons. When they don't (and I care not a whit which one drops the ball) lessons need to be learned and the issues fixed.

Again, I am filled with optimism when I talk to the next generation (RAF and RN) who are getting the F-35B force ready to go to sea. A bright future beckons.

Best Regards as ever to all those young people showing us old f***s how it's done,

Engines

[ex-fast-jets]

Engines

I think that your last offering might just be a decade out.

I returned from a 3-year exchange with the USN in 1981, and along with Bob Iveson was, I think, the only involved 1(F) Sqn guy to have previously landed on a boat. My previous experience with the USN was cat and trap rather than Harrier, but Bob had, I think, done some AV-8A stuff.

But anyway - unless my memory has completely gone - all of the GR3 folk involved - including the 4 who did those remarkable Ascension to HERMES flights - apart from Bob & I - had never before landed on a boat.

I think that the "Hardy Crab" events that you refer to came much later, and most certainly after 82.

Certainly FINRAE was a HERMES/82 event that had its moments, despite some sterling efforts from those involved.

Thank you for your previous comment about the difficulties you had over an unserviceable Sea King reflecting some of the difficulties we had on HERMES. I am not at all surprised by your story, but also not at all surprised by the support you received from your Captain.

Just to finish - Tecumseh - we had the necessary transponders on our GR3s which we used in proximity to the carrier - so I doubt that the Captain was concerned about that aspect of our operations.

As an old f***wit, I feel the need to correct misunderstandings!!

[Gooey]

Greetings.

My apologies for a small FI thread drift. Like others, I have done some enforced reading and greatly enjoyed "The RN and the Falklands War" David Brown (sic 1987-sorry don't have the book on me at this moment). It reminded me of numerous air and Joint things from my time. It also made me aware for the first time of the positively huge logistics challenges. As has already been mention, leadership traits come in many forms and I have seen this personally on operational and training flight decks. Mostly from excellent types but a few others.

What was interesting in the book was a claim that late in the war the Type 42/Canberra shoot-down may have been associated with a new ASM using another aircrafts targeting (the book speculated that it was an Israeli Gabriel ASM (possibly EO and not radar guided) using a Canberra as the launch platform and a Mirage III radar for targeting) against HMS Penelope (all recall here is subject to old age and G&T illusions). The Argentine Air Force and Navy, whilst limited in some respects had also shown adaptability in other areas such as Strategic Recce (707s), Long Range Anti-ship (C130 bombers), Land Anti-ship (navy Exocets at Stanley), Decoy and diversion missions (Learjets using the Stanley radar for SHAR warnings), Air Mobility into the FI (C130s in particular) etc.

Has anyone any additional details on this Gabriel ASM speculation?

Finally, I had the privilege as a rather drunk FLTLT to hear CAS Sir Peter at a Dining-In Night mid 90's. God knows how our truckie base got him as the guest speaker but he came across as a true gent.

Happy ANZAC Day!

[Engines]

JTO,

I think you are right and I was wrong. My sincere and unreserved apologies. This getting old is a right swine. By the way, my abbreviation was for 'old farts', not 'old f***wits' - that's not a term I'd use for aircrew, unless I was severely provoked (come to think of it, I did use it once on an RN Shar pilot who cost us four days of technical investigations before admitting that his drop tank hadn't 'just fallen off' but had been mistakenly jettisoned.)

I'd just repeat my professional admiration for the way 1(F) got things together and got down south when they did. In Invincible, the RAF aircrew with 801 were similarly excellent.

Best regards as ever to the very, very many people whose memories are better than mine.

Engines

[BossEyed]

Engines, bar the odd blip (it comes to us all) I suspect your memory is better than most.

You should know that, were you ever to publish your memoirs, I bet I am not the only one to have already pre-ordered them from Amazon. :O

[Engines]

Boss, It's kind of you to say that, but I was way off base and JTO was right - I should have checked more and typed less. My bad, and I'm sincerely sorry.

Best Regards as ever to everybody

Engines

[AndySmith]

Greetings.

My apologies for a small FI thread drift. Like others, I have done some enforced reading and greatly enjoyed "The RN and the Falklands War" David Brown (sic 1987-sorry don't have the book on me at this moment). It reminded me of numerous air and Joint things from my time. It also made me aware for the first time of the positively huge logistics challenges. As has already been mention, leadership traits come in many forms and I have seen this personally on operational and training flight decks. Mostly from excellent types but a few others.

What was interesting in the book was a claim that late in the war the Type 42/Canberra shoot-down may have been associated with a new ASM using another aircrafts targeting (the book speculated that it was an Israeli Gabriel ASM (possibly EO and not radar guided) using a Canberra as the launch platform and a Mirage III radar for targeting) against HMS Penelope (all recall here is subject to old age and G&T illusions). The Argentine Air Force and Navy, whilst limited in some respects had also shown adaptability in other areas such as Strategic Recce (707s), Long Range Anti-ship (C130 bombers), Land Anti-ship (navy Exocets at Stanley), Decoy and diversion missions (Learjets using the Stanley radar for SHAR warnings), Air Mobility into the FI (C130s in particular) etc.

Has anyone any additional details on this Gabriel ASM speculation?

Finally, I had the privilege as a rather drunk FLTLT to hear CAS Sir Peter at a Dining-In Night mid 90's. God knows how our truckie base got him as the guest speaker but he came across as a true gent.

Happy ANZAC Day!
Hi

Having spent some time researching the Penelope incident, I don’t think there is any certain conclusion as to what they thought they saw that night. I have even listened to a recording made on board of the incident, including captains commentary and gunfire. However, the Gábriel missile speculation is just that and is not a weapon that was in the possession of the FAA (Argentine Air Force).

Penelope and Cardiff were both operating in reasonably close proximity to the north of the islands at the time, and the incident was around the time that Cardiff engaged the Canberra. I think maybe it has something to do with the misperception of the objects in the sky at the time including a night time missile launch and an aircraft making its final journey to earth. Having spoken to a member of Cardiff’s crew, and heard his description of how the crew members on deck of Cardiff opened fire with small arms and AA guns at the Sea Darts being launched by Exeter several miles away during the Exocet attack, mistaking them for an Exocet heading their way, in daylight on the 30th May in the confusion of the developing attack and the perception of being in danger, I am inclined to agree with him that probably something similar occurred on Penelope. Whilst he has said as much to some members of Penelope’s crew and been poo-pooed by them as they are convinced they were under attack, I am sure that is somewhere close to the truth. However, I guess we will never know for sure, other than it wasn’t a missile from a Canberra. I believe my sources in Argentina when they say that this was absolutely not a missile of theirs.

Cheers

[Whinging Tinny]

Engines - I have to disagree with you about the Hermes at lower deck level at least.
She was known as the Happy H for a very good reason and any social media site on her will bear this out.
Yes, there were some unsavoury characters on her down South, before and after, but all ships have them.
'Screaming Leeming' was one, but people still spin dits about him.
As for 1F they integrated well at squadron level in my books with the obligatory inter service banter not withstanding.
Their pilots across the board were more than willing to explain their sorties and exploits to the maintainers and the same can be said for the 800/899 pilots.
Some of the 800 (899) maintainers were seconded to support 1F, all these guys had been on 700A IFTU and had been at Wittering with the RAF and GR3s prior.
With reference to Lin Middleton his IWM audio memoirs give an insight to his views on 1F and their role.
Also you can pick up the friction between him and the Flag staff and how he wanted to do things from an aviator's perspective and what they wanted with regard to air ops (reels 7&8).
For anyone interested in the conflict the IMW audio tapes provide invaluable information, views and opinions from many of the key players and the various problems they faced at times.
Jeremy Moore's is a treasure trove worth listening to.

[Tim00]

Several years ago, Jeremy Moore was a guest speaker & gave a very interesting talk at our (non-military) organisation. His main topic was how to be a good leader and motivator, and he cited situations and examples from his career, including from his time as commandant of the RM school of music. After 45 minutes or so of speaking, he took questions from the audience, & one of these was “how did you deal with the bad leaders”?

All of JM’s other answers were interesting and insightful, but I remember he seemed to fumble about over this one, & he eventually asked the questioner whether he’d answered his question satisfactorily. “Sorry, not really”, was the response, “perhaps I wasn’t clear - I meant how did you deal with leaders who weren’t very good?”.

There was a short pause, & then the penny dropped, & JM responded: “Oh, sorry. I thought you said BAND leaders!”. There were maybe two hundred of us in the audience, & it brought the house down.

[POBJOY]

As with most 'accounts' of any campaign a book from a active participant will always convey the writers perspective of events, and will be in the main read by those who have no active knowledge of the situation. To that end Wards book does convey a comprehensive view of both the lead up and eventual conflict 'from the Hot seat'.
He gives good credit to the RAF for the RN Harrier training, and equally is rather scornful of the 'political' side of the Vulcan operation, which he was no fan of. Together with other articles and programs gleaned over the years I can only marvel at the way all the Harrier input was carried out with such skill and determination in such a weather hostile environment that precluded the normal SAR and safety considerations, and indeed the 'Rotary' back up seems to have been second to none. Without getting into arguments re the Black Buck operation viability, again the fact that the RAF managed to assemble a huge tanker based strike with quite old equipment in totally unforeseen circumstances is a great credit to both the tech and flying crews involved, and proves that when required our forces just get on with the job and get it done. The rather sad element that is common to all accounts is that inter service 'issues' still seem to prevail but despite this all the crews at the coal face are still great at Getting the job done despite the enemy fire and the 'bean counters'. Its the people that make the difference and we still have them in all our services.

[Whinging Tinny]

I mentioned Jeremy Moore's IWM aural history which is good.
An even more insightful one is Julian Thompon's.
If you look for it, he has two, chose the longer one (64 reels) which goes into the land campaign in great details, frustration with his commander, London, inter service rivalry etc.
The Falklands starts around reel 40 and goes on for over 20 reels of approximately 30 minutes each.
I don't think I can post a direct link but in a search put in Julian Thompson IWM 80030363.

[dagenham]

Dear all,

thank you for your thoughts far more explanation that I hoped for when i put pixel to screen

It will be really useful as i think through and digest the three books.

The Ethell and Price book is winding it's way down the river as we speak

Regards

Dags

[Whinging Tinny]

Dagenham for further reading try:
Falklands: The Air War (ISBN-10: 0853688427) and Wings of the Malvinas (ISBN-10: 1902109228).

[Gooey]

Hi AndySmith

I greatly appreciate your reply. IMHO, this is a great example of the fog of war.

The David Brown book also mentioned disbelief from the Task Force about this missile attack (including Cardiff). He published at some length the perspective from Penelope that a ('highly unique' sic) Mirage III RACKET was associated with this incident and implied disbelief with the shot-down Canberra pilots account that he was attacking Mt Kent; however, as you mentioned any super Argentina OPSEC over this incident must be offset by their lack of any public acknowledgement now, decades later.

Again many thanks for your reply.

I have vivid memories of reading about FI many years ago and have hugely enjoyed your and the others peps posts here.

[Slow Biker]

I first came across Peter Squire on 20(AC) Sqn back in the 70s; he was known among us ground crew as one of the good ones, he always had a cheerful word and would even apologize for snagging his ac. Many years later I had the privilege of receiving my Warrant Officer's Parchment from him; he gave me a close look then said "we've served together before, haven't we". I think that was the mark of the man.

[Davef68]

I think the set that Ferranti kept may have been B8, as it was later used as the PDS rig. Never been to the factory since 93, so don't know if the new owners display it.

Ferranti (or at least their decendant) had Blue Fox and Blue Vixen sets that they displayed at events, airshows etc aloog with many other heritage radars. Pics of their BF taken at Leuchars in 2012. For a long time the scanner of BF was classified and there were no images of it in the public domain

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/2000x1333/dsc_6837_5208dbf2b3c5ced2d669745b104ca4663d749f23.jpg
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/2000x1333/dsc_6850_c4f7280e93a7d8d3d27f88367731a5363494d402.jpg

[Davef68]

Great conclusion Engines. Trouble is, just what made you thing the GR3 had been declared in this role or that a GR3 had ever been launched from a ship?

Best I can recall is that a single development Harrier GR1 took part in a ship trial, pre-ski jump, as part of the nascent SHAR programme in the early '70s.

There were early trials on Eagle and Ark Royal, with development aircraft and GR1s (If I recall, No 1 took aircraft onto Ark Royal as a squadron) and later there were a couple of trials on Hermes, on e in 1977 involving both single and twin seat aircraft (A DB aircraft, a GR3, a T4 and G-VTOL embarked).

https://flic.kr/p/a3fKXX

[Navaleye]

There were early trials on Eagle and Ark Royal, with development aircraft and GR1s (If I recall, No 1 took aircraft onto Ark Royal as a squadron) and later there were a couple of trials on Hermes, on e in 1977 involving both single and twin seat aircraft (A DB aircraft, a GR3, a T4 and G-VTOL embarked).

https://flic.kr/p/a3fKXX
Eagle embarked 2 GR1s in March 1970 which made 58 sorties.

[AnglianAV8R]

At that point, Captain Black came into the conversation, and calmly told CO Hermes that the aircraft was staying down, Hermes needed to get an engine and a change team over here, and that the decision to strike the aircraft down had been made by 'an AEO that I trust absolutely'. He hung up, looked at me for a moment and then said that I was carrying out my duties to his entire satisfaction, and that I was to carry on doing so. That was definitely what some people call 'a life moment'.
Engines

And that "life moment" is what some of us call leadership. Nothing would be too much to undertake for a leader of that calibre.

[aljonat]

Hi, long time 'lurker' here.

I have just retired in April after 47 years with Ferranti and the too many subsequent names to remember. Started as an apprentice, worked on Blue Fox and Seaspray in the seventies and ended up as Programme Manager for Tornado support (ATTAC, RSAF etc). Anyway, the point of this post is to confirm that Leonardo do indeed have Blue Fox and Vixen radars on display at Crewe Toll. No idea of variants, serial numbers etc, but they are complete. To digress, there are a lot of interesting radars on display there, TNR, Foxhunter, AWG Seaspray etc. They also have, a development set from the TSR2 on display and a blue Parrrot tucked away somewhere. For me though, the restored example of an AI23 is the jewel - it looks like the inside of an Omega watch!

Regards

Aljonat

[Union Jack]

Welcome on board, Aljonat - I would say that it was well worth the long wait.

Jack

[aljonat]

Thank you sir.

Aljonat

[medod]

In my Why was any Ferranti radar good? The design team. But also the superb radar scientists we had at RSRE Malvern, who contributed so much. Also worth mentioning is that in the 70s and early 80s many MoD(PE) project managers had been radar designers. The Fox & Vixen one was brilliant; so too the Kestrel one, who later did Apache. By end-90s, all that expertise was largely gone.

Am I a fan?

I’m just wondering about the “largely gone” bit. As Aljonat points out, Ferranti’s radar design office in Edinburgh is still with us. It’s now part of Leonardo, currently developing a new AESA radar for the Eurofighter.

[Bengo]

I’m just wondering about the “largely gone” bit. As Aljonat points out, Ferranti’s radar design office in Edinburgh is still with us. It’s now part of Leonardo, currently developing a new AESA radar for the Eurofighter.


It is not the manufacturer design expertise that is missing. It is a complete lack of SQEP in MoD, as Project Managers and to act as an intelligent client.

N

[tucumseh]

I’m just wondering about the “largely gone” bit. As Aljonat points out, Ferranti’s radar design office in Edinburgh is still with us. It’s now part of Leonardo, currently developing a new AESA radar for the Eurofighter.

Of the 3 groups I mentioned, RSRE/RRE was the largest. Long gone, which is what lay behind my comment. Ferranti next, and gradually overtook MoD as R&D was decimated - as you say, it survives, but in a much smaller form. Lastly, a good percentage of project managers in the 70s and 80s were ex-RSRE/RRE. My first boss in MoD(PE) designed the front end of Searchwater (Nimrod) when a young scientist in the 50s. The company (Thorn) would still invite him to private venture design reviews, long after he moved onwards and upwards. He and I were at one the day Maggie resigned.

Blue Fox was ARI 5982. (Airborne Radio Installation). At the time, 4 digits beginning with 5 meant Intellectual Property Rights resided mostly with MoD. Malvern and Farnborough would often do the initial R&D, develop and prove concepts, and prepare the specification. Industry would take these and apply (and often improve) the science for a specific requirement, e.g. a radar for Sea Harrier. As our R&D was run down, this applied more to designs funded by MoD, but wholly carried out by industry. MoD had very few UK-sourced radars whose IPR sat with industry.

This manifests itself in ‘Commercial Exploitation Rates’, whereby the Treasury (not MoD) gets a percentage of any non-MoD sales. As the Design Authority develops modifications or enhancements under private funding, the CER is updated (reduced). So, the Treasury probably got a wedge when Blue Fox was sold to India.

The demise of RRE/RSRE/DRA/DERA and creation of QinetiQ was probably the single biggest stealth defence budget cut ever. But that's another subject.

[Asturias56]

I thought I'd read all there was t op be read on the Falklands Air War but this thread has been a goldmine of new information

Well done & thanks!!

[India Four Two]

I mentioned Jeremy Moore's IWM aural history which is good.
An even more insightful one is Julian Thompon's.

Whinging Tinny,

Thanks for the pointer to Thompson's recordings. Absolutely fascinating stuff - his complete RM history with lots of insights into campaigns that he was involved in prior to the Falklands - Cyprus, Aden, Borneo, Hong Kong, Northern Ireland, etc. as well as comments about his various staff and training postings.

I'm binge listening! I'm about half-way through (~15 hours!) and am now hearing his reminiscences about his time in Bandit Country in South Armagh. I particularly liked his anecdote about his marines who were tasked to patrol the railway. They were known as "the Railway Children"!

Here's the link: https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/80030363

If you scroll down the page, you will see an unformatted summary of the contents of each tape. The Northern Ireland section begins at Reel 30 and the Falklands at Reel 40.

The tapes are unedited and there is a good deal of unexplained military jargon, so brush up on your TLAs.

[Holer Moler]

Sharky Ward was locked up by a 909 radar coming back from a raid when I was airborne on a sortie, he called in clear on the ASW A frequency to "turn the bloody thing off, I authenticate Sharky".

[pr00ne]

India Four Two,

Many thanks for the link, fascinating stuff!

[SLXOwft]

Thoroughly agree with Alfred - the First Sea Lord of the day appoints seagoing Flag Officers on the basis of their perceived overall ability to exercise command at sea, irrespective of their original branch, coupled with their suitability for further promotion. Of the some 14 officers who held the appointment of Flag Officer First Flotilla, Sandy Woodward's appointment at the time concerned, all but one went on to at least Vice Admiral, five went on to Admiral, and one to Admiral of the Fleet. Four, including Admiral Woodward, were submariners.

Jack

Similar to an all arms command in the Army, it is the commander's ability to use all the specialisms available to achieve the objective irrespective of his/her own.

There was to use India Four Two's phrase 'a more "air minded" officer available' in Vice Admiral Derek Reffell who was FOF3 (responsible for CVs and LPDs), and both a former “Commando Carrier” Captain and a former Commodore Amphibious Warfare (probably more relevant)' he was seen as the obvious choice by some (especially his subordinates). However, as (submariner) Rear Admiral John (Sandy) Woodward (FOF1) was at Gibraltar for Exercise Springtrain ’82 he could get down south with a task group, which he was already commanding, much more quickly. More importantly, he clearly had the confidence of CINCFLEET (and overall Task Force Commander) Admiral Sir John Fieldhouse who was observing the exercise. Before returning to the UK he gave Woodward the order, face to face, that he was to set sail south on 1 April (the day before the Argentine invasion). According to Woodward’s book Fieldhouse later told him he was determined he should command.

Thanks to Whinging Tinny, I have been listening to Linley Middleton's IWM tapes(.../collections/item/object/80032610 tapes 7 and 8). To expand on what WT said, he is complimentary about the effectiveness of 1(F) Squadron's contribution (though he thought they were late to the party and that Jerry Pook should have accepted that the sh1tty end of the stick was their lot in life). It's also clear his relationship with Woodward was dysfunctional, he expected Hermes to receive orders by written signal and not verbally through the 'old boys' network' as he says happened. He thought Woodward struggled to understand aviation, what it could and couldn't do and how best to ensure aircraft availability. Conversely, he (LM) seems to have had a real problem with the usefulness submarines and senior submariners. He also pointed out Hermes had effectively been at sea for a year by the end of the war and had a long defects list, something I was previously unaware of. I'm sure the stress resulting from these and other factors must have contributed to atmosphere BomberH and his squadron mates experienced. The negotiations he reports with RAF staff over 3rd line maintenance to allow the purchase of SHARs can't have helped his attitude to the light blue.

This thread prompted me to buy Chris Parry's Down South which I am in the process of reading and enjoying. He says that there was friction between Antrim's captain Brian Young (another aviator) and Sandy Woodward and his staff but that Woodward he got on well with those he knew like Glamorgan's captain Mike Barrow to whose ship the staff transferred. As langleybaston says in the RAF intelligence thread he was clearly a marmite personality.

In all this I think a phrase quoted by Chris Parry is particularly apposite 'On the actual day of battle, naked truths may be had for the asking; by the following morning they have already begun to get into their uniforms.'

Written with my historian's cap on - no criticism of those with direct experience or knowledge intended. Assuming State 2 Condition Yankee.

[ex-fast-jets]

I have said this before in various publications/media, but I feel the need to say it again............

I was airborne in a GR3 from HERMES with two Laser Guided Bombs on a mission on 14 June 82.

I was just about to run in to deliver them on a target on Sapper Hill when I was told by the FAC to abort because the white flags were up and the ground forces were retreating into Stanley, and they did not want a couple of bombs dropped onto them that might make them change their minds and turn around.

The Laser guidance kits for the bombs I was carrying had been air-dropped into the sea to us by Herc from Ascension, so some serious effort had been made to get the kits to us. So I decided that jettisoning them into the sea was not the right thing to do, not knowing if this really was the end, or if it might start again the next day. I worked out that with minimum fuel I could do a vertical landing onto the boat with the bombs still on.

So I did.

Before I got out of the cockpit after landing, an over-excited two and a half stripe staff officer arrived to tell me that the Captain wanted to see me now - so off I meandered to the Bridge, where I was shouted at by LM asking me what I thought I was doing landing on his boat with bombs still aboard. I explained that I considered them to be valuable items, and that I had been told that the white flags were up over Stanley, so that was why I had made my decision, not knowing if they might be needed again tomorrow. He stopped bo**ocking me, and told me to stay there, while he went to get Woodward. I then became the carrier pigeon who told Woodward that the land war was effectively over - and I was then allowed to get back to my Squadron and tell them.

Middleton's style of leadership is not one I enjoyed or would advocate.

Woodward seemed fairly relaxed about the information - but it must have been what he had dreamed of!!

[Union Jack]

I have said this before in various publications/media, but I feel the need to say it again............

I was airborne in a GR3 from HERMES with two Laser Guided Bombs on a mission on 14 June 82.

I was just about to run in to deliver them on a target on Sapper Hill when I was told by the FAC to abort because the white flags were up and the ground forces were retreating into Stanley, and they did not want a couple of bombs dropped onto them that might make them change their minds and turn around.

The Laser guidance kits for the bombs I was carrying had been air-dropped into the sea to us by Herc from Ascension, so some serious effort had been made to get the kits to us. So I decided that jettisoning them into the sea was not the right thing to do, not knowing if this really was the end, or if it might start again the next day. I worked out that with minimum fuel I could do a vertical landing onto the boat with the bombs still on.

So I did.




Well, to be fair, the laser guidance kits had been dropped in the oggin once already....:ok:


Before I got out of the cockpit after landing, an over-excited two and a half stripe staff officer arrived to tell me that the Captain wanted to see me now - so off I meandered to the Bridge, where I was shouted at by LM asking me what I thought I was doing landing on his boat with bombs still aboard. I explained that I considered them to be valuable items, and that I had been told that the white flags were up over Stanley, so that was why I had made my decision, not knowing if they might be needed again tomorrow. He stopped bo**ocking me, and told me to stay there, while he went to get Woodward. I then became the carrier pigeon who told Woodward that the land war was effectively over - and I was then allowed to get back to my Squadron and tell them.

Middleton's style of leadership is not one I enjoyed or would advocate.

Woodward seemed fairly relaxed about the information - but it must have been what he had dreamed of!!

You are in good company since Admiral Nick Hunt once told me that he, as a Rear Admiral, also received a "borderline bollocking" from Captain LM. NH as FOF2 was returning from a ship visit in a Lynx and passing ahead of HERMES which, with her very pronounced ski-jump, was anchored in Plymouth Sound. Always one for wind-up, NH instructed the Lynx pilot to stop and hover ahead of the bows and passed a message to HERMES saying, "Request permission to pick your rather bulbous nose" to which came the reply came, "Certainly not - my nose is always clean"......:eek:

Jack

[Marcantilan]

Holer Moler Hello Holer, are you in the ASW screen?

[Whinging Tinny]

It had certainly become a stupid situation when, during an air attack men armed themselves and went on upper desk to shoot at the A/C in preference to being down below, where they could only wait, not fire back and might well suffer shrapnel damage from the cone of the blast on detonation.

I hasten to say I do not feel in any way guilty or cowardly in recommending this - I do feel that the Group must complement each others systems and not have the first threat to the Argentinean Air force to be close range weapons systems - this to me is a singular admission of failure and total lack of grip of the Aim to provide adequate air defence to the Amphibious Forces. Coventry today by simply turning her fire control radar on the Mirage raids made them turn away and indeed go home for they do not have much fuel to manoeuvre so far from home.

Despite the appalling and unnecessary losses and damage to our frigates we have made a major inroad into the Argentinean Air force capability. They still have a lot of Skyhawk A/C and so there is certainly a need for us to do more yet but, with the logic of "taking the war to the Enemy" we can easily do this. It does require T42's and the Cap A/C to be more up threat however.

There is one major advantage to the separation of Captain Black (Invincible) and the Admiral (Hermes) for they have to talk on covered voice communications and we can all "listen in". Black is a most sensible man and I have agreed with everything he has said and proposed. In my view, it is a pity he is not commanding the forces here. One can certainly sense his frustration as he repeatedly tries to get his v. good ideas through to this "submarine idiot" whose prize remarks about, "Were learning all the time" is certainly getting though to me - He should already have known - I attribute the loss of Sheffield to him for stupid and unnecessary stationing and force positioning within known Etendard / Exocet range.

The frigate losses are also his by his paranoia of defending the Carriers with T42's which should be up-threat defending the AOA! He really can't have it both ways, he either keeps the Carriers well out of range or brings them closer to better use his A/C with good defence in depth by T42 escorts - he can't (with conviction!?) be both out of range and keep all the T42's!!

Written on the 24th May 1982 by Laon Holme - XO HMS Brilliant

[Union Jack]

Written on the 24th May 1982 by Laon Holme - XO HMS Brilliant
It may be helpful to indicate that this is an extract from one of the then Lieutenant Commander Hulme's entries in https://www.hmsbrilliant.com/content/dsection6.html. It would have been particularly interesting to know what his own Captain's views on the the allocation of resources were, not least recalling that, like Admiral Woodward, he too was a very highly regarded submariner and certainly not in my view a "submarine idiot".

Jack

[NutLoose]

Atlantic Conveyor. Our weapon systems locked onto both the missiles and tracked them all the way in but they were unable to engage them because they were out of range. She was on fire within minutes of being hit and it was getting dark we were told to get in as close as we could and pick up people in liferafts. We picked up a life raft with about 24 in while we were doing this about five floated past, they looked dead a couple had put there survival suits on wrong and were floating feet up.

Hmmmm..... When my mates arrived back off the Conveyor they told me that they had been told / briefed when boarding to put their survival suits over their lifevests and they thought this was wrong and decided to put the vest over the suit, I do now wonder reading that, if that is what happened to those poor souls, my mates all made it back..

[Union Jack]

Hmmmm..... When my mates arrived back off the Conveyor they told me that they had been told / briefed when boarding to put their survival suits over their lifevests and they thought this was wrong and decided to put the vest over the suit, I do now wonder reading that, if that is what happened to those poor souls, my mates all made it back..

The best person to provide a comment on this would almost certainly be Bast0n, if only he were still active on this forum.

Jack

[SLXOwft]

It would have been particularly interesting to know what his own Captain's views on the the allocation of resources were, not least recalling that, like Admiral Woodward, he too was a very highly regarded submariner and certainly not in my view a "submarine idiot".

JackWouldn’t it just, Jack. He seems to have been a very popular captain who took an active and practical interest in his crews.

Just been ‘dipping’ in One Hundred Days and confirmed a suspicion the date of Vice-Admiral Coward’s first command raised. He was a student on Sandy Woodward’s first Perisher as Teacher. He (JFC) is mentioned frequently in the book. Woodward couldn’t recall ’a more canny submariner among all those who followed him’. He calls him ‘pretty sound’ and states ‘I knew Coward well, his courage and his competence’. Woodward himself may give us the answer as he wrote that during the planning for the landings:

Coward was inclined to station the two Type 42s Glasgow and Coventry well forward (west of West Falkland!) with combat air patrols flying forward of them … the carriers … should bring up the rear some fifty miles back.

Although he rejected the suggestion Woodward said he wrote in his diary “Coward could be right”.

The Skipper page on the Brilliant site is interesting in itself. Among other things he throws a light on the limitations of Seawolf, especially early on. Its shooting down of the Mirages on May 12 was outside the expected performance as, at that time, it was only supposed to target missiles, aircraft should have been rejected as producing too large returns.

He also draws attention to Laon Hulme’s application of his training as a fighter controller and ‘D’ in San Carlos/Falkland Sound, which earned him an MID, when there were no AAW ships in range.

[Union Jack]

Well said SLXOwft - quod erat demonstrandum.:ok:

Jack

[Asturias56]

"Coward was inclined to station the two Type 42s Glasgow and Coventry well forward (west of West Falkland!) with combat air patrols flying forward of them … the carriers … should bring up the rear some fifty miles back."

I'd have thought it was more logical to put the T42's forward so they could fire away at anything without worrying about the CAP - put the CAP in between the T42's and the carriers to clean up anyone coming through?

I seem to remember reading that the forward positioning of the T42's was thought about but the stats on what happened to USN radar pickets in WW2 showed that for it to work you needed a lot more ships than the RN could provide in the Falklands. Casualties would have been high

[Marcantilan]

Well, the Type 64s (Type 42 + Type 22 combo) were stationed up threat in order to provide radar early warning (and a MEZ) several times. Coventry was sunk in that kind of mission.

[Union Jack]

"Coward was inclined to station the two Type 42s Glasgow and Coventry well forward (west of West Falkland!) with combat air patrols flying forward of them … the carriers … should bring up the rear some fifty miles back."

I'd have thought it was more logical to put the T42's forward so they could fire away at anything without worrying about the CAP - put the CAP in between the T42's and the carriers to clean up anyone coming through?

I seem to remember reading that the forward positioning of the T42's was thought about but the stats on what happened to USN radar pickets in WW2 showed that for it to work you needed a lot more ships than the RN could provide in the Falklands. Casualties would have been high
I should be most grateful for confirmation of the informed logic on which this is based, especially in view of the contrary views expressed by those on the spot.

Jack

[Union Jack]

Regret to report the sad loss of Vice Admiral Sir John Coward KCB DSO
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2020/06/10/vice-admiral-sir-john-coward-naval-officer-awarded-dso-services/

Jack

[SLXOwft]

Sad news..

Fair winds and following seas, Sir!

[Union Jack]

Light blue Harrier pilots should probably not look at
https://www.navy-net.co.uk/community/threads/shar-flight-suits-falklands-war.193725/#post-1508693..... :uhoh:

Jack