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Yanks in the Falklands War?

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Yanks in the Falklands War?

Old 16th May 2008, 16:05
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LookingNorth.

Originally Posted by Double Zero

Stop ! "

Apparently the supporting pins/whatever on the pylons wouldn't stand even taxying over a bump...
Although the "lash up" Shrike pylons picked up the Skybolt pylon hard points on the main planes, they were not Skybolt pylons and it seems that only the attachment pins were the problem.

Woff1965. As I understand it, a longer range weapon wasn't needed because the aim was to push Johnny Gaucho to light up his RADAR and getting close achieved that. If only ALARM had been ready in time.
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Old 16th May 2008, 16:07
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and understood that any missing item in the entire RN inventory theoretically went down with the Sheffield.
No, no no.

That was the Atlantic Conveyor.
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Old 16th May 2008, 16:15
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GBZ

That ALARM comment is a bit of a red herring. The Govt didn't even select it until the following year
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Old 16th May 2008, 16:19
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The picture tells the story, the extra drag from the Shrike fitment pushed the Vulcans' fuel consumption up considerably so that it was requiring an all out effort from the Victors to get one down to the Falklands remembering that the Vulcan was refuelling several times to max weight on the outbound leg.
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Old 16th May 2008, 16:31
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The Vulcan pylon could also carry one Anti-Radar Martel missile, which made the Shrike look like a toothpick.

A Martel equipped Vulcan made it down as far as Ascension, but that is as far as the Martel went.
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Old 16th May 2008, 16:36
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That was the Atlantic Conveyor.
I believe conservative estimates have the Atlantic Conveyor carrying 4 times her maximum tonnage when she was sunk if all the write-off actions are to believed.
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Old 16th May 2008, 17:14
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IIRC, the reason given for not using Martel was that there was concern that prolonged exposure to the temps at the altitude the Vulcan would fly might cause difficulties and render the weapon u/s when by the time it came to launch it?
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Old 16th May 2008, 17:34
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An ex-Martel techie once told me that the reason the Shrike was used, was because the Martel had a limited flight carriage life of something like 24 hours, which the Shrike didn't. The TPS-43 was damaged in the first Vulcan anti radar attack (Two missiles tuned to the TPS-43), though the damage was repaired (the Argies did trash it before we got our mits on it, I've seen photos of the damage when it was at Henlow in 1983/4 before it was fixed and based at Wattisham). Second attack was with four Shrikes, two for the TPS-43 and the others tuned for the Skyguards. one Skyguard taken out by the two Shrikes fired at it, one of the TPS-43 missile fired off to clear the launcher on the trip to Rio after the Vulcan's probe broke on the return AAR, and the other which misfired, impounded at Rio. As regards the Atlantic Conveyor, I've heard of stuff being written off from being on that ship when I reached the operational Air Force three years later.

Last edited by MAINJAFAD; 16th May 2008 at 17:42. Reason: Spelling
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Old 16th May 2008, 17:36
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Atlantic Conveyor

JAFAD, thanks for the good gen' -sounds about right.

From what I've heard of Alarm, it might be better to chuck in the Red Devils using HALO trailing smoke from their ankles with backpacks full of C-4 ! At least I'm sure that's how the Hollywood film featuring 'Delta Force' will go...

Re. Atlantic Conveyor, I've noticed too that the load on this ship keeps creeping up, to the extent she was carrying more Chinooks than a Nimitz class could handle !

A very sad loss, I hope but have no real faith in the idea that the U.K. May have invested in the SCADS concept, at the very least as far as countermeasures go...here's to Captain Ian North & his crew.

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Old 16th May 2008, 20:18
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Originally Posted by Archimedes
IIRC, the reason given for not using Martel was that there was concern that prolonged exposure to the temps at the altitude the Vulcan would fly might cause difficulties and render the weapon u/s when by the time it came to launch it?
Or it is more likely that the Martel would do one of its famous 'lose lock' tricks and either going ballistic or choosing a different target - like a British Ship!

I hate Martel and its MASTS trolley: 180 and 181 to 1..... then four hours of switching various switches, then fixing the blooming MASTS trolley.
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Old 16th May 2008, 22:14
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The late Nish Bruce - SAS - who mysteriously fell 5000ft from a light aircraft without a parachute told me the story of the US/Argie troops that were captured. He also told me a the plan to invade Buenos Aires. The SAS were to HALO into various streets, chainsaw down telegraph and lamp posts so that C-130's could land........
The way I heard it, the SAS were going to fly in on James Bond rocket packs...
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Old 16th May 2008, 22:19
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The ultimate, by the same author Tom Clancy which I'd love to see a film of ( - it would have to be largely computer-generated ) is 'Red Storm Rising'
I believe it was required reading at Sandhurst at the time. Shame it made no mention of 1(BR) Corps, as it came straight through our area.
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Old 16th May 2008, 22:48
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Chris Gibson's book (British Secret Projects, Missiles and Hypersonics) does say that Martel was a bit of a pile of poo, now we know why.
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Old 17th May 2008, 01:35
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Post 119 - JammyD - This is all covered fairly comprehensively in Nish's autobiography 'Freefall', written under the pseudonym Tom Read. An excllent book, covering his time in the Paras as well as the Regiment, it also covers his descent into paranoid psychosis, from which it is derived there is little mystery about his parachute-less jump from the Cessna. It was almost certainly suicide.
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Old 17th May 2008, 15:38
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ATO parachuting into the Atlantic IN 1972

I can confirm that the ATO did get presented his Para wings and for the remainder of his career when quizzed as to when he completed P Coy took great delight in saying he hadn't attempted it! When quizzed as to why he wasn't wearing a 'light bulb' para badge then used to take evener greater delight in saying he hadn't completed a jumps course either - he'd just made an operational jump! The ATO eventually retired from regular service in the late '90s.

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Old 17th May 2008, 17:21
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Have just got as far as 1982 in Andrew Marr's excellent, though slightly flawed in matters military, "History of Modern Britain." He claims the Yanks provided AWACs cover for the task force.
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Old 17th May 2008, 17:43
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I had a creepy experience with "Freefall".
I was reading the book on vacation in Kenya a few years back.
As part of the holiday I was doing some diving with a sub-aqua club, run by an ex-Rhodie SAS guy who was also a sky diver.
He told me one day about having just been informed on the 'phone that his old buddy had stepped out of a Cessna over the Channel-without a 'chute.
Because of the nom de plume the penny didn't drop until I got back home here and picked up the obit in the ex-pat Daily telegraph.....

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Old 17th May 2008, 18:03
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'Yanks' overhead

Having been very slightly invoved at the time, and more importantly spoken to Test & Operational pilots before & after, I understand they had little or no Intel' from American forces in later stages, apart from the earlier debacle of trying to knock out the Argie recce' 707 on the way down.


The 'U.S.' were actually great friends to us in various ways ...
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Old 17th May 2008, 20:02
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DD
Have just got as far as 1982 in Andrew Marr's excellent, though slightly flawed in matters military, "History of Modern Britain." He claims the Yanks provided AWACs cover for the task force.
Does Andrew also explain 'When, with what, where from?'
Not having a pop at yourself here - we're all hostage to what we are told or read after all, but having flown surface surveillance for the TF (put bluntly - fly as far SE as you can, see what's out there') I think I'd have noticed an E3 sitting on the pan alongside as we did the preflights. Where did they fly from? It wasn't Wideawake, so where did the US AWACS operate from, that they could perform these sorties for the TF at any point between Ascension and the Falklands?

Sorry to rant, Nimrods flew sorties in excess of 10 hrs unrefuelled in the early days, prior to AAR, and following the intro of AAR they pottered along the S American coastline playing 'you can't see me, roight? (Think Harry Enfield show...think that was the one <g>)' for a while. Look at Google maps - compare the distance between Florida and Argentina to the distance between Ascension and Argentina. Make life easy for the US - measure from a part of South America that might conceivably allow US sorties in covert support of the Brits to be flown.

Then write and tell Andrew Marr he's got no idea about how far things are apart in the southern hemisphere, and he's full of **** <g>


I am sure Sandy Woodward would have been overjoyed to have AWACS support, I am equally sure he'd have gladly swapped our efforts (Nimrod) for a double pink gin - the US provided intel and satellite info, they did not fly operational sorties in the S Atlantic.

Dave
Dave
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Old 17th May 2008, 20:14
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Why assume an E-3? How about an E-2 off the boat?
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