Interesting thread

What were the Learjets up to?

Weren't they simulating strike aircraft looking to attack the fleet,
trying to draw the Harriers away ?

They were targets for HMS Exeter's Sea Dart system. Well done Hugh Balfour and his ops room team. Its a shame the first bird went rogue or they would have nailed two of them.

Navaleye

What is the story behind the rogue missile.

What happened for it to go rogue and did
they find out why it went so ?

Sea Dart is a two stage weapon. it is launched by a solid rocket booster which accelerates the missile to a point where its Odin ramjet functions. in the first launch the ramjet failed to ignite and it went for a swim. The second worked perfectly. I spoke the AWO after the action and we could have got two out of four.

Guided missiles do it all the time, 500N. Going "rogue" probably isn't the right term, it's more a case that any given firing solution for a given missile has a certain "probability of kill" (Pk). There are dozens of ways that a missile's guidance, the geometry of the shot, missile systems (rocket motor, batteries, circuits and such), target manoeuvre, conditions, ECM, etc, can affect the missile and cause it to fail to acheive an intercept and even if it does, it still has to fuze and detonate successfully and in the right place.

Failures happen and in the heat of battle it's very hard to determine what went wrong; mostly they wouldn't even try to work out why, just move on and take the next shot. Sea Dart was quite an old system even then so its Pk may not have been that good.

I'm talking generally here, not about this specific firing. Others may know more about this one...

Courtney

(EDIT) Thank you Navaleye. I was posting as you did. I should have known you would know. :ok:

Thank you Naval eye and Courtney :ok:

Actually Sea Dart was pretty new at the time and worked very well. On HMS Newcastle we used Sea Slug missiles fired by HMS Kent as targets and got a good tally.

Pk for Sea Dart post conflict was 52%.

Argie Learjet v Sea Dart
 

http:// an article about the Learjet which covers the Falklands conflict with photos of the encounter with a Sea Dart.

Heimdall

Old Fat One
 

Check your PM's

I was flying out of ASI with 42 but it was after the main event. Can't remember exactly when as my log books went missing from the Sqn.
Concertina city was there and the VC10 guys next door to us were constantly moaning about our noisy parties.....
Anyway, I distinctly remember a Soviet Foxtrot to the east of the Falklands on the surface (probably the best place for him!) He stooged around for a week or two and then bailed out.

Hello Pingdit,

Very interesting info about the Foxtrot near the islands. Do you remember if you were there on late 1982?

Finally, as you mention that you flew from ASI, I have info that a Victor-III (K-513) operated near Ascension Island on November 1982. Before that the boat was on West Africa (and went to Luanda)

Here is the picture of the happy crew crossing the equator, on November 3, 1982.

http://navy.webservis.ru/history/sub...671/k513-3.jpg

Did you notice this one?

Regards!

Hi Marcantilan,

yes - we were aware of your presence but weren't terribly bothered as you were kind enough to stay to the north of our operating area!

Ping:E

Hello Ping,

Oh no, I was not there. I have limited experience in submarines, mostly at Disneyworld´s "20.000 leagues under the sea"

But I am following the Soviet involvment in the 1982 South Atlantic War, and I am somewhat puzzled about the lack of official "knowledge" about soviet submarines in the area.

For example, declass CIA´s "Soviet Naval Deployment Outside Home Waters 1982" does not mentions K-513 or the F-class down south.

http://img861.imageshack.us/img861/2870/ciareport1.jpg

http://img864.imageshack.us/img864/7292/ciareport2.jpg

Other sources claims that a Soviet sub was "probably" there, but no further info was released. Soviet sources are also vague.

Regards!

Hi,
Your document makes mention of the Foxtrot in bullet point 1 in the subtitle 'West African Waters' though....

Regards,
Ping

Hello Ping,

But, according the CIA, she kept patrolling West African waters (in fact, was there to protect soviet supply ships from South African "interference")

Also, I didn´t scan first page of the report, where the CIA analyst informed that no soviet vessel was detected down south.

Well, CIA is not antisubmarine-minded after all...

Long life to MPA!

Regards!

Hello Pingdit and other members of the MPA community.

Just come across this in the 1982 declass papers:

http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/8838/prem1906272.jpg

And the interesting thing is this reply:

http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/8676/prem1906271.jpg

Anyone have details of that flight? Were pics taken?

Mistaken identity or a rogue carrier in South Atlantic waters?

Regards!

Well, it is look like as a 206 Sqn flight. Regards,

I have seen that there are crew members who were witnesses of the flight of May 12 (XV227 - 6K3F).

This flight has been disqualified can we comment on it?