Black Buck Alternatives
 

I'd appreciate input from those who have knowledge of the considerations made for possible solutions to the RAF being "caught short" in the Falklands crisis. Black Buck using the Vulcan evolved as the solution, but what other possibilities were there if the Vulcan had been rendered irretrievable for example? Was the Victor ever considered in the bombing role? How unfeasable a prospect was this? Had the Victors' bomb bays been rendered thoroughly unusable for example? I believe the Buccaneer was rapidly discounted as it would run short on engine oil. But what if that had not been the case? What would have been the next limiting factor? Could it have been fuelled up enough given its bomb bay tanking capacity? And what would/could it have carried?

Bit leftfield I admit but its a daydream query which refuses to disappear.

You really need a Victor man to answer this question. I have several thoughts but will only cover ne for the moment.

The Victor 2 was never a bomber after 1968 :). It is unlikely that they ever made bomb carriers or installed the wiring for the bomber role. While the Victor 1 was a bomber and its carriers might have fitted it is unlikely that there would have been any available.

Makes sense. It was a missile man. Thankyou.

Pontius Navigator,

"The Victor 2 was never a bomber."

Really? So just what were 100 and 139 Sqns doing with the Victor B2 at Wittering between February 1962 and December 1968? Who was the Bomber Training Flight training crews for after the OCU wound up and the B1A squadrons disbanded or went tanker?

I know they went on to Blue Steel but not straight away.

By 1982 the only Victors flying were the K2s. I was on 214, the last K1/K1a squadron, which was disbanded in 1977, with all the aircraft being withdrawn in that year.

The bomb bays of the K2 were totally occupied with two very large fuel tanks. In the case of the K1 these held around 25,000 lb of fuel and I assume the figure was around the same for the K2. Removing these in some sort of retro-fit to the bombing role would not only have been a massive undertaking requiring an extensive redesign of the fuel system, but would have also have reduced the aircraft's unrefuelled range by around 25%. All in all I reckon a non-starter.

P-N I'll introduce you to a few ex Victor 2 bomber guys at Newark - they may wish to have words with you ;)

Much appreciated. Begs another question too. How far stretched was the Victor force at that time in getting the Vulcan within reach? 19 aircraft wasnt it? I know the story of the in-flight ballet dance whilst they debated how much to transfer during Black Buck 1. And the emergency relaunch towards missions end. But how many surplus Victor aircraft would have been available had the bomber aircraft's reach not been so far? (given normal servicability expectations at the time). Would there have been extra Victors available to get a Bucc there for example? Tough one admittedly.

How about a modified Nimrod? That might be an interesting thing to speculate on...

I suppose we could have emulated the Argentines and started chucking bombs out of the back of a Hercules by hand
What was the name of the tanker they hit - was it Hercules? Bomb didn't go off, but the ship got scuttled as too dangerous to defuse

Thats the kind if idea I'm talking about. Might sound crazy but I wouldnt have wanted to be the Air Officer who had to tell the PM the RAF was impotent. So all sorts of scenarios must have been considered, however fleetingly. Every jet jockey must have got their slide rule out, guessed at the tanking available, and exhaled rapidly. So would they for example have considered commandeering a BA 747, ex-RAF crew included, and bombed it up? Extreme I admit, but it must have been promptly rejected and other scenarios brought to the fore. But which? Like what weapon load might Nimrod have delivered? Would it have been worth the effort? And survivability?

Looks like there was a plan B after all...

LJ :ok:

Coochy - hitting the airfield wasn't seen as a necessity.

The Chief of the Air Staff, Sir Michael Beetham, told the war cabinet that the RAF could mount a Vulcan raid on Stanley, but, that all things considered, he would only guarantee shutting the airfield with a minumum of 25 sorties, and preferably 50. He didn't think this necessarily the most practical approach, but if it was thought to be of help, then the RAF would crack on and do this.

The RN leadership, however, thought that a raid might very well persuade the Argentines to divert some of their Mirage IIIs to a defence of the homeland role, further weakening the ability of 8 Grupo to contest control of the air against the Sea Harriers. They therefore told Sir Michael that the raid could be of help, and would he mind awfully....?

There is, of course, a certain irony in this - for 30 years, we've had the joys of reading an array of comment - not all of it by Sharkey Ward - explaining that the RAF feared that without the Vulcan raid, they'd not play a part in the war (utter nonsense if you look at what the AT, AAR, MPA fleets got up to, and there were others, of course), and this would represent an existential threat to the service, etc, etc. Yet the most enthusaistic proponents of the idea of launching a series of Vulcan raids in a bid to achieve some sort of strategic/operational level effect wore dark, not light blue...

The net effect of this is that had the Vulcan not been available, there wouldn't have been an Op Blackbuck. The Argentines wouldn't have increased 8 Grupo's AD of Argentina tasking and more fighter sweeps - albeit limited in duration for want of AAR - would've occurred. Whether this would've simply offered the SHARs more targets, or whether it'd have made Corporate more difficult either through more air-air combat, or simply the presence of Argentine fighters more often prior to about 18 May (when the Mirage IIIs began to increase the number of fighter sweeps over the islands, albeit never managing to get their limited duration sorties to coincide with the SHARs' slightly less-limited duration sorties) is open to bar room speculation and nothing more.

Despite the Nimrod being fitted for 1,000lb bombs and CBU, I can't help thinking that the apparent lack of a strategic imperative to bomb Stanley at the time the decision to launch Blackbuck was taken would probably have seen any bombing of the airfield conducted by SHARs and the GR3s (as actually happened) with perhaps a greater weight of attack there had it become clear that the Argentines had taken steps to forward based A-4s/Daggers/SuE there.

The Argie Herc 'bomber' back in 1982 didn't chuck bombs out the back, but dropped them off a MER fitted to a modified starboard wing tank plyon.

Photos Here

Having flown the Victor K2, it think reverting it back to a freefall bomber would have been too problematic. There was nothing of the original bombing kit left, except for the NBS navigation system.

Th Black Buck missions required 11 victors on the outbound leg (two as reserve) and five for the return. Of course, some of these aircraft flew twice each mission. The Victor fleet at the time numbered 24, so this was a pretty impressive aircraft generation for such a long range operation.

The value of the Black Buck missions has been questioned frequently - particualrly by a certain vociferous SHAR pilot. A lot of this criticism is based considering the success of the raids in tactical terms. The strategic value of the missions is incalcuable - they sent a clear message to the Argentinians that they were in range. The effect on morale and redistribution of assets is hard to measure.

The Buccaneer was considered for the role and I gather there was a proposed modification to extend it's range. However, the Vulcan was the obvious choice and although the generation of airframes for conventional freefall missions wasn't easy, it was rapidly acheivable. The Nimrod was easily converted to carry freefall bombs - it had been one of it's design parameters. I gather it had dropped PGMs in later times.

And of course, the RN had Polaris. But I expect the use of that systems was considered a little extreme!

The 1000lb bombs and CBUs were intended for anti-shipping use only, there was no intention to employ them in any other way. However, the Nimrod bomb bay was measured to assess the feasibility of carrying LGBs but it got no further than that.

I have never heard of that before. I can understand that it may have been mooted but would be very interested to hear more detail of any actual events.

YS

was any thought given to equipping Vulcan with the Laser Guidence system welded onto the GR3's in the closing stages of the war (and absolutely not borrowed off the septics, oh no sirree)? surely a vulcan with 3 x 1000lb LGB's is going to use a much smaller proportion of the tanker fleet than a Vulcan with 21 x 1000lb...

once it became obvious that Vulcan was the only land-based aircraft that could/would be used for strike, were other weapons considered (i know Shrike ARM was fitted) like Harpoon, Martel, CBU ?

and, to be a pain, does anyone know why Nimrod was discounted from the land strike role when it had the capability to get that far and the kit to use relatively sophisticated weapons?

If the Vulcan carried say 14,000lbs then it could also have carried a drum tank or 2 if the load was 7,000lbs. I don't know if it could have loaded 4 lgb and 2 drum tanks.

Also, IIRC the Victor did not have the Calc 3 ballistics computer?

pp00ne no.4: PN said "after 1968". No Yellow Sun Mk.2s were allocated to Wittering. The Sqdns were nominally formed 1/5/62 (100) and 1/2/62 (139) and were effective on Blue Steel early-1964 (100) and 24/10/63 (that's all as per Wynn's Official History. B.2s available to Wittering 1962-63 before those Blue Steel dates were rolled back into HP Radlett to be brought up to (then described as "Autoland mod") standard.

Tornadoken, thank you for that. I made the stupid mistake of believeing pr00ne without further checking. Had I thought for a moment I would have realised it was b0ll0cks as I recall one generation for a Mickey Finn where it took 3 days for the Wittering wing to reach its generation target so the Vulcans were stuck on their dispersals until the Thursday when 3 Gp came out to play.

Now, what about the Tornado? It entered service in Jan 82. As Archmedies pointed out, the aim was a force of force for deterrence. The very latest operational nuclear bomber being employed only 4 months after entering service would have sent an unmistakable message. To counter such a modern, high-speed, and more accurate aircraft would have needed even more aircraft held back at base. It would have been a real ball-buster of a sortie and possibly too high a risk for such an unproven aircraft.

Imagine having to do a couple of 18 hour sorties around the UK to see how many piddle packs were required.

Archimedes.

Well done mate...a coherent, intelligent and knowledagable post on the Falklands War. Something of a rarity on pprune. Note how it has been studiously ignored. Wouldn't want facts to get in the way of a good thread.

OP

No Vulcan, no black buck, no big deal. World would have been short of one very good book. Great effort by the crews/support teams for a job well done in any event.

A navigator was provided with the sortie parameters and a set of Tornado ODMs/performance data. He then retired to a quiet secluded room to contemplate and cogitate. When he emerged he is quoted as saying:

"Not really the Tornado's sort of war"

....and that was the last heard about it.

YS

Re: Tornado

You would have to mod the RB199s oil tanks as it would have run out of oil on the bomb run! That said, the F3 had bigger oil tanks and I once did 10hrs15min accross Alaska and Canada - yes, you're right it would be a real ball-buster even if the jet could be modded.

LJ

I hope this isn't too much of a thread drift but IF the RAF had had F-111's,
could they have been used ?

TOFO, I didn't !

Same sort of answer to the Tornado I would guess.

The Vulcan OTOH had already proven an ability to fly that distance and with only 3 prods, well half as far again as it happens albeit a Mk 1. That it only needed 3 prods would have been down to better sfc and the availability of diversions along much of the route.

The oil consumption rate of RB199s varies quite a lot. The maximum rate allowed before the engine is rejected is about 1 litre per hour, and it was this rate upon which the broad guidance of 8hrs max was written (10hrs with the slightly bigger tanks of the F3 engines corresponds to the rough same guidance). However a nice, tight, newly overhauled engine might only burn oil at a third of that rate - meaning a 24-hour sortie could be possible with careful selection of engines (not to mention selection of aircrew for arse padding and bladder size!). I would have liked a gauge to show the oil contents, rather than a caption to tell me I'd run out - and a sail for dinghy, to try and sail my way to safety if it all went wrong!

1 Herc then into the oggin
 

I was always curious about this when I flew Hercs.
My assumption was that with no more than one refuel, the Herc could get overhead, drop, turn back and hope to find a tanker again.
Couldn't be the hardest thing in the world to get reasonable accuracy with dumb bombs, and not beyond the ingenuity of the boffins to hook up navigation for the ordinance to ensure a DH.

If no tanker available, then descend to a reasonable altitude, drop a boat and some rafts out the back of Albert, then parachute the crew out into the oggin.
One aircraft lost, but crew safe, and bombs on target

Expensive, but far less logistics than is required to get a fuel-hungry jet bomber backwards and forwards to the Falklands.

Enormous fun, as well!

GA,

The airbridge involved two tankers and one refuelling out of ASI but no prod on the return flight.

Before there was an airstrip on the FI the herc used to fly non-stop from ASI; I don't know but I imagine in would have needed at least a second prod on the way home.

And of course you overlook the shortage of speed and the need to fit ECM for flight in the MEZ, but back to Archimedes point; who would have been afraid of that fat albert might overfly down town BA with a tactical nuke.

Don't lose sight of the message.

The point you are missing PN is that on the airbridge although the C130 did not need a prod on the way home, it took off with max fuel from Stanley so , in the scenario suggested, of course it would need AAR on the way home. The other point is that the lack of common speed with the Victor made the planning a bit more difficult. How many prods did the Herc make on its long-range drops during the conflict?

Bone question but what provision would there be in a Herc to accurately (Stanley is uncomfortably close to the aerodrome for any impact errors) bomb visually or on H2S equivalent? Also, I imagine that a low ingress and climb to release height would have been a bit interesting.

Regarding Nimrods, I expect JEZ' could have given a reasonable RADAR picture but with little provision for visual aiming; not forgetting no immediate equivalent to NBS. Additionally, I find it difficult to see how an AAR equiped Nimrod could perform as efficiently as a built for purpose Vulcan. I also remember that we we were still involved in a hide and seek game with Uncle Ivan at the time. That didn't seem to leave many gash MR/ASW assets to mod/retrain for mud moving, particularly as ASW FFs and SSNs were pulled from NATO task to go South.

The Calc 3s were removed from the K1s around 1973, and were removed from the B2s as they were converted to K2s

Vasco, perhaps you would care to point out where I missed the point?

as this left open the option for a 3rd or even 4th?

True but they managed with the Victor refuelling the long Herc and also on the long-range drops, a difficulty therefore recognised and dealt with.

Time and distance which was a backup technique on the Vulcan.

I think you meant Searchwater. Good ranging if no automatic steering and again a time and distance solution.

As the Nimrods were modified for AAR, crews trained, cleared for bombing, and were deployed south you statement is clearly inaccurate - see above.

I thought the alternative to the Black Buck Missions was Sharkey Ward on his own....least it is if you read his book.

Mgd

Naughty naughty!!:D

...without a Sea Harrier as well. Just one man, a pistol and some dem charges!:ok:

Pontious Navigator,

"stupid mistake of believing ppr00ne?"

You said the B2 was NEVER a bomber, which was untrue. It WAS a bomber, it was introduced as a bomber but appears to have been left in permanent Blue Steel fit post 1964. So it WAS a bomber, fitted with the Calc 3 ballistics computer and serving as a bomber until retirement in December 1968.

I think what you meant to say was that it was never in free fall fit after 1964, therefore would not have been a candidate for free fall bomber use in 1982, a statement with which I would agree.

Alertken,

I responded to the post by Pontious Navigator that the "B2 was never a bomber" which is clearly not true. Even a Victor B2 in Blue Steel fit is still a strategic bomber. His point about the free fall fit however is totally valid in terms of potential use in 1982.

pr00ne, agreed. It was still my stupid mistake, I didn't say you were stupid. I also meant bomber in the pure sense rather than missile carrier.

The B47 carried a missile and was also a free-fall aircraft. The B52 was also a bomber and missile carrier at the same time. In the case of the Blue Steel aircraft they were of course pure missile carriers unless extensively reconverted to FF.

I know some Vulcans were converted to carry BS and presumably Command had the foresight to store the original conventional bomb doors. Where the Victor bomb doors also left in storage or were the Mk 2s earmarked as tankers once the BS was taken out of service?

PS

As I recall the Mk 2s were not worked up in the conventional role until 1964. The Victor 1s had the Far East and The Vulcan 1s had the Near East (the Valiants before that). The Coningsby Mk 2s were the first to work up for the Far East in 1964. Prior to that both Victor 2 and Vulcan 2 were worked up in their primary role. It is possible therefore that the Victor 2 never had the 90-way kit installed.

C Met O STC was in a very early huddle on day one, and phoned me [P Met O 1 Group Bawtry, me looking after the Vulcans and Victors] when he emerged and told me "the bastards have done it", which I understood, and then "not that anyone thinks your lot are going to be involved".

Crappy forecast, boss.

Where I was . . .
 

Is this moving into a where I was thread?

I was sitting behind Ewen Southby-Tailyour.

Couldn't one of those UAV things do the job?