my contribution, ill-conceived as it might appear to be, was intended to demonstrate the received wisdom on Day 1, nothing more, nothing less.

My recollection is that the Iron Lady was, however, a believer.

PN

Slightly misread your post. For the round trip missions the Herc needed more than one prod on the Southern leg in order to make an eventual RV going north again . The C130s used were fitted with internal tanks I believe. Clearly if the ac was going to carry any significant quantity weapons then the weight of the long range tanks(and their fuel) would have to be sacrificed in order to achieve the objective. Without the long range tanks then more prods would be needed further south from Victors which themselves would need extra brackets. As I said the different speed ranges would have made it all but impossible.

There was also a plan B forming for the later Black Buck raids. A Victor was fitted with an A/R Martel in place of one of the wing pods, with a view to setting up carriage and wiring.

As far as I know it did not fly, mainly because some Shrikes became available from an unknown but friendly source, but possibly because of the difficulties encountered wiring it in.

cokecan wrote

The Vulcan was trialled with Paveway.

http://www.pprune.org/military-aircr...ml#post4828182

http://www.pprune.org/military-aircr...ml#post4828336

From

http://www.pprune.org/military-aircr...lack-buck.html

And more Nimrod stuff in the PPruNe archives:

And

All on here http://www.pprune.org/military-aircr...-lgbs-etc.html

:ok:

This sounds very much like the CVBS. This grand-sounding piece of equipment was the Co-pilot's visual bombsight on the Vulcan. On the Vulcan it was actually calibrated using a form of collimation tube that was fitted into the nose some how. I watched one being done (in amazement). A vertical line could be used for tracking and horizontal lines for range.

The proper range line would vary with pitch which was proportional to speed and also depended on the 'standard' co-pilot adopting a standard seating position. Oddly it used to produce quite good results :)

I've seen video of a Nimrod attempting to drop sticks of retarded 1000lb bombs. Looks like nobody involved in the trials consulted a QWI, who might have educated them about the perils of 'stores capture':ugh:

Surely stores capture is a function of aerodynamics, weapon dynamics and release speeds, I doubt any QWI would be sufficiently competent to predict its onset accurately on release trials. On a system that that has been trialled tested and documented- yes, but on a virgin system? probably not.

If you accept the theory that the objective of the Black Bucks was to simply spread fear and confusion through an implied threat to the Argentine mainland, could one of the longer-range Canberra variants have been used as an alternative? For instance could you hang anything useful off the wings off the Navy's T22s or a PR7?

Don't think Canberra had the range (unless for a 1 way mission) or a fuel system suitable for AAR; anyone know of any Canberra variant so equipped by any operator?

Wondered how long before someone suggested a Canberra might, perhaps, possibly have been able to do something like it!

Or Shacklebomber :}

I guess you could have pretended with the Canberra - announce there were some at Ascension and then launch a raid from Chile.....
Doesn't matter where they fly from, what matters is where the other side THINK they fly from

Very interesting thread. Could the Phantom have been used against Stanley?

What has struck me before is the question of timing. Had Argentina invaded in the autumn of 1982 rather than the spring it could have made a big difference to Operation Corporate.

On their side, they would have had a bigger stock of SuEs and Exocets to use against the Task force and, as the army's conscription programme went from January to December, their squaddies would have had double the amount of training that they did have.

On our side, the last of the Vulcans was planned to be out of service in June 1982, the first Tornado squadron had only just reformed, while as for the carriers, Hermes would have been decommissioned by then and Invincible would have been on its way to Oz, leaving just Illustrious to head south.

So, would the better option have been to wait until the following spring to build up our forces, possibly returning Vulcan and Hermes to service and talking nicely to Australia, gambling that Argentina would not have built up a big force on the Falklands, extended Stanley's runway to operate Mirages etc, or to go with what was available at the time?

Martin the Martian wrote ''gambling that Argentina would not have built up a big force on the Falklands, extended Stanley's runway to operate Mirages etc, or to go with what was available at the time?''

'gambling'?

i cannot imagine what the odds that Argentina would not be extending the runway while we were running around the world buying up carriers would be, but i doubt they'd be very good.

in such a situation i can only imagine that we'd have had to go cap in hand to washington and litterally beg for help - possibly with the observation/threat that a British government that failed to re-take the FI would be out of office 15 minutes after a 'no confidence' vote was tabled, and that any incoming government would have a hard time explaining to the UK population why we were in NATO if NATO did nothing for us in our hour of need.

quite what the response would be i'm not sure.

Martin interesting point about their training. Regardless of our forces, their actual timing meant the invasion was in late autumn with winter fast approaching. Maybe they gambled that we could not have reacted as quickly as we did and would have been faced with action in the depths of winter.

Remember there were other factors in any delay. First we would have had at least some AEW capability - six months later both Gannet and Sea King would have been available, though how the single Gannet would have got there is anther question. One way trip to an improvised airstrip maybe?
There would have been time to get Bulwark ready for sea - don't forget there were plans to refit her and send her south as part of the "second fleet" along with Illustrious, though if the boilers were really as bad as I've been told then that would have been a desperation move.
Then there was the alleged US offer to lend (sell??) us Oriskany - which was supposedly rejected on grounds of manpower and timing. However IF we had borrowed Oriskany, was there still enough residual knowledge around to get the Buccs and Phantoms flying off her in a six-month intensive period?
Presumably more Sea Harriers would have been delivered, and also more Chinooks, while the Army Lynx would have had time to be fitted with deicing gear (which prevented them from being used).
In many ways a delay in going south would have given us a number of equipment advantages.

By 1982 the only air-to-ground that the RAF F4s could do was strafe. Also, it took about 9 hours to fly an F4 to Stanley from ASI (with at least 7 AAR brackets). I doubt the engines would have managed 18 hours there and back; most of the Speys would have run out of oil a long while before that.

With the benefit of hindsight (a luxury I know), knowing that often the weather over Stanley was clear enough, a C-130 modified to release LGBs could have self-designated using a Laser Target Marker. At 25,000 ft with CAP from the SHARs this could have provided very good results. Doubt if many people realised from the raw weather stats that there was a lot of similarity between Stanley and the north of Scotland - often gin clear but also 4 seasons most days.

"First we would have had at least some AEW capability - six months later both Gannet and Sea King would have been available."

Some interesting points, Milo, but the AEW Sea King only came about as a result of the Falklands war. So, still no AEW for the Task Force.