Gulf War Sea Skua Firings
 

Hi there, does anyone have any links to images of Lynx Sea Skua firings during the Gulf War. Including the results? Im after them for an assignment. Thanks for any assistance.

Is that Brittany or Basil.....another school project?

There are some images in the archives at the Fleet Air Arm Museum of the results, hope its dryer in Helston today than when I was there on Friday:)

Either or is fine.

Thanks very much. A great place to start.

You might want to buy a book called "Call for Fire" by Cdre Chris Craig. It has some pics of targets destroyed by Sea Skua in GW1.

or try

"Weapons free" by Dicky Boswell ISBN 0-947554-67-x

Sea Skua useage
 

I worked on the design of the release units fitted to Lynx for carriage of Sea Skua.
From info via our MOD contacts I would guess that the targets sunk by Sea Skua in the South Atlantic and the gulf were worth less than the missiles. No reflection on the missiles or the crews, but lack of suitable targets. The Argie navy was not generally in range of Lynx, and there was not much Iraqi military shipping about.

SAG tactics in the Falklands against a threat such as the Belgrano group would have commenced with a Sea Skua attack against the two Sunmner class escorts to disable them - if necessary by repeated attacks. Once achieved, the SAG would have closed on Belgrano and launched a strike of up to 12 Exocets on the Belgrano which would have sunk her. Any survivors would be finished off by gunfire. These were tactics planned in detail and practised. Thankfully for them our SSNs got to them first which saved a lot of lives.

Are we talking men in the water here?

No, of course not. We are talking hulls not people. We leave that to the Germans. :}

Navaleye

We leave that to the Germans

Not always I regret to say - according to http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/Camp/3166/

Jack

Isn't war strange.

There were many thousands of people in WW2 who repeatedly carpet bombed cities full of defenceless civilians. This was considered acceptable.

Shooting at defenceless enemy combatants was not considered acceptable.


I would also suggest that the Iraqis planting an IED who get a JDAM on the head are just as defenceless as a bloke in the water.

Rules and war are a silly mixture.

Tourist - It is indeed strange. The very idea that war is, or can be, rule based is a quaint notion. The number of Japanese POWs to come out of New Guinea can be counted on one hand (so to speak).