Argentine fast jet weapons choice - Falklands
 

I am sure most of us will remember the Argentine attacks on the Navy in San Carlos. Quite a number of ships were hit by bombs that didn't have time to arm.

I always wondered why did their QWI's not select rockets for the job in the first place?

Less explosive power but much more chance of getting a useful hit - who cares if you sink it - just need it to limp away for the reminder of the conflict and job done.

Heavily damaging a few more destroyers or frigates might have been the margin between losing and winning for them.

If I remember right Buccs used to carry SNEBs for similar circumstances off Norway but they seemed to not get a mention in the last few years of ops?

TR

TR, you really raise 2 points:

Why didn't the ARG use SNEB?

Why did the Bucc stop using SNEB?

Last first, probably because there were better ways of attacking in the face of more effective CIWS.

Of course that doesn't answer the first question. Ask Marcantilian.

First attack on San Carlos on the morning of 21st May 82 was against HMS Argonaut by an Aermacchi using Cannons and Zuni Rockets. I suspect most of the Zuni's the Argentinians had were on the Islands for the Pucara's and Aermacchis to use and that the only Fast Jet attack aircraft they had that could use them was the Skyhawk. One of the Argentinian forum members like Marcantilan or CAW may know what the reasons were.

FIRST CONTACT: HMS ARGONAUT OFF FANNING HEAD - Maritime Prints

PN is quite correct. The Soviet CIWS mount was fitted to almost all soviet warships from small missile boats to the Kirov and Keiv class. The Kirov class had 8 of them per ship alone on top of all the SAM they carried.

RAF Buccs never planned to attack ships with SNEB. For the ASuW role TV Martel was the weapon of choice in the 70s and early 80s. This was replaced by the fire-and-forget Sea Eagle missile in 1986, which had a longer stand-off range and clever ECCM capabilities to penetrate Ships' defences and CIWS. The weapon of last resort was the 1000 LB bomb, which was tossed unguided from 3.5 miles until 208 Sqn were equipped with Pavespike and Paveway 2s in the late 80s, when laser designation improved the pK from a 6 ship attack.

Darvan, the SNEB was in its arsenal in the early days and possibly before BL755 and possibly anti-tank rather than ASuW.

SNEB
 

SNEB was not that accurate - fine against tanks but not ships - The match of Martel and Sea Eagle on the Bucc made it the perfect aircraft -weapon fit for the role - says he with 6 hrs total on Buccs ...

What was the accuracy of a toss attack? Sounds like a lottery and within a mile would be good.

I think the CEP for Medium Toss was about 500 feet; about 1000 feet for Long Toss; and about 1500 feet for 9 Second Varitoss. However, crews regularly achieved better accuracy, particularly with Medium Toss. Long Toss was a fully automatic attack and release (yes, even in a Bucc) that was originally conceived for attacking the Sverdlov class destroyer with a WE 177. Medium Toss was used for tossing 4 x 1000 LB slick bombs from the bomb bay when the Martel missiles had all been expended. And 9 Second Varitoss was used for.......well the less said about that the better!

I remember seeing something about Buccs using SNEBs in the Norwegian Fjords where a Martel would have been unusable due to the proximity of land returns. Mainly intended against soviet amphibious forces. Although google does not back me up with any reference.


I would have thought rockets would have been accurate enough against ships- just a couple of hits would most likely put a frigate or destroyer out of the fight - tanks are far small and harder to see!


Rockets give you a little bit of stand off and certainly more chance of living than trying to do a lay down with 1000 Lbs!!


I remember Pucaras had SNEBS at Goose Green but never heard of any of their fast jets.

I'm sort of scratching my head about why Martel would be confused by land returns, what variant are thinking of?

ER, as a standoff weapon maybe terrain masking?

Though I remember an Avro sales book for the Trykon (sic?) which could be launched down a river and guided around bends until it reached its target bridge. May be a fjord would block data links.

Although I am sure my friends Mariano or Christian might pop up here at any moment with an answer, I have just sent an email to one of the A4 pilots that I have contact with, one of the 4 pilots to attack Argonaut on the 21st, to see if he can shed any light on the subject.

Terrain masking will cause SNEB an issue as well

ER, oh come on, remember 633 Sqn with an in-off?

Seriously, SNEB is a short range LOS weapon whereas Martel was supposed to be BVR and theoretically, like the Trykon I mentioned, steerable around a river.

Some years ago I went to an Aero. Soc. lecture given by Graham Pitchfork describing his long working relationship with the Buccaneer. He started with a description of the early days with the RN and the anticipated means of attacking the Sverdlov class vessels. I can't remember his exact words but they were along the lines of " We were not planning to blast a few holes in them with iron bombs, we were going to vaporise the buggers"

Walbut

Would the Buccaneer not be destroyed by the bomb?

Nuclear ordnance for a mere destroyer? Take out the enemy's ASW?

An earlier point - SNEB not that accurate, so good for tanks but less so for ships. Isn't a ship a hell of a lot bigger, less mobile target than a tank? Granted the tank isn't firing back at attacking aircraft, but is a much smaller, more nimble target. How does relative inaccuracy make tanks preferable to ships for SNEB?

ZeBedie, why would you think that?

Now a good tactic would have been to sling one about 5-10 miles short then approach through GZ after the plume had fallen and deliver the coup de grace.

Darvan made a slip there, Sverdlov was a heavy cruiser, 4inch armour belt, 2 inch deck armour and very much an improved WW2 rather than a modern tin or aluminium can.

In contrast the Belgrano had a 5.5 inch armoured belt and 2 inch deck armour.

SNEB operational use sounds like Operation Certain Death. TV data link would be stuffed and the AR blind I suppose, damn those laws of physics.

I recall being told that a near miss to a ship with a 1000lb would be good enough as the compression wave would burst bulkheads. No idea if that is true though.

The Nimrod was originally designed to carry Martel but only carried the AS12. Now that was fun.

Plan Bluebell required the Nimrod to overfly a suspected FPB at about 5000 feet and illuminate with a stick of 5 inch flares. Having identified the target it would swoop down to low level under the flares and the copilot would fire the missile and fly it to the target.

We only ever practiced in the SIM which was as well because the Sovs unsportingly fitted twin 30 mm CIWS even on OSAs and the flares were never reliable.

Sounds like an IS suicide mission..................

Did those who came up with plans like this Procreate ?
Kind of scary to see genes like that passed on.

http://i1197.photobucket.com/albums/...1/IMG_0016.jpg

http://i1197.photobucket.com/albums/...1/IMG_0017.jpg

Depends on "how near" and the depth of the explosive at time of detonation.

If it blew up underwater it could approximate the explosion of a torpedo warhead. On a small to middle sized warship it could do some serious damage. (What is the weight of explosives in a 1000 pound bomb? How much is iron and how much is explosive charge?)

If it blew up "just right" in terms of where getting more or less underneath the ship as it explodes, it might create that bubble under the keel that submariner's torpedoes can achieve, which could cause severe structural damage to the main strengthening member of the ship's structure.

So "it depends" is the answer.

LW, charge weight is about 33%.

Thx. That makes such an explosion about half as strong as a Mk-48 ADCAP. (US Sub wired guided torpedo). Trouble for a frigate or bigger trouble for any corvette or smaller, depending upon where it goes off.

Getting back to the original question, perhaps it was you use what you have. Iron bombs were perhaps the best available weapon for ship strike by the Mirages/daggers, Canberras and A-4's. More punch that rockets or cannon, and an effective weapon against a thinner skinned ship.

The problem was delivery profile. Too low and the bomb does not have time to arm, too high and you are much more vulnerable to AAA and missiles.

SNEB rockets were not used aboard carriers because of R/F problems with the fuse. The 2" rockets used by the RN were not as stable aerodynamically as SNEB and carried a smaller warhead. They were developed as an A2A weapon but could do damage to upper-works and aerials in the anti-ship rôle.

In '82, we designed an attack against the Arg T42 destroyers using rockets and bombs, which worked very well against our own ships but was never tried against the Arg Navy. It relied on a well choreographed attack with 6 aircraft, exploiting the ZD notch and scanning system of the 909 radars.

First weapons on target were LOFT VT fused 1klb bombs, followed swiftly by 2"rockets, with the coup de grace being lay-down 1klb retard bombs.

Post 82, we got the Sea Eagle which allowed one to be back in the crew-room by the time the enemy went bang - great improvement. And what a war-head!!

Swing the lamp!

Mogwi,

Can you expand on that?

Not convinced that near misses will do anything to a warship. Warships are built strong.

Mines and torpedos that do the under the keel, break the back trick are rather different.

Using the words notch and Radar in the same sentence implies some filtering, I imagine this is clutter with Zero Doppler.

Given they were our Radars I imagine we knew where they performed the worst.

There are some pictures in Ian Inskip's excellent book about Glamorgan's war down south that has photos of the indentations left by the presumed explosion of bombs dropped on the 1st May by the Daggers of the Torno flight. However, I believe these bombs were 500 lb Spanish BRP bombs. Unfortunately, I cannot find that photo on the web.

I had a reply from the A4 driver. He will send me a "long" explanation of their choice of weapons. I will post it when I get it, and have translated it.

It is doubtful that Argentine Type 42s received the fix that solved the problem of hot diesel exhaust venting on the the aft 909 causing it to fail. In that case I would recommend a low level run in from port and starboard quarters. Although not at the same time!

Well near-misses is pretty much what we aimed at achieving with the first package of aircraft, if only 1000lb GP bombs are available for the attack. Lofted airburst 1000lb bombs have a frag pattern that radars, sensors, antennas exposed weapons, soft structure, cooling systems and exposed people do not appreciate.

The shockwave effects are impossibly complex on a warship as some parts of the structure are incredibly tough, whilst others are not. The shockwave propagation does wacky things when funnelled between hardened surfaces. Hard structure has a bit of a habit of transmitting the shockwave into unintended places on the ship. In equal regard otherwise exposed parts of the ship can suffer relatively little damage.

In the hope that either the systems or the fleshy things are degraded by the airburst effects the next package of aircraft would execute a more accurate delivery profile, with bombs impact-fused at a suitable selection of delays to cause carnage at multiple deck levels. Given the level of ship-saving techniques taught to many navies you may also choose to leave the odd bomb aboard that is fused to go off a little while after the attack. No point leaving anything to chance.

Wrecking warships with 1000lb bombs is easy. Getting to the point of weapon delivery is the challenging bit.

:ok:

Hello,

According to early planning, to attack warships the FAS (Fuerza Aérea Sur - South Air Force Command) recommended Zuni (127mm) rockets and 500lb (and heavier) bombs. To attack landing craft, the recommendation is to employ up to 250lb bombs and FFAR (70mm)rockets.

However, just before ops starting, the FAS realized the bombs gives more bang for the buck, so all antiship missions were armed with bombs (from 500lb and up to 1000lb).

The MB339 Macchi which attacked Argonaut on May 21st, 1982, was configured for armed recon (with rockets and gun pods). In fact, when landed the pilot (Lt. Crippa) asked for a bomb load for a re-run, but the higher echelon rejected another sortie (because the attack waves were en route from the mainland).

Regards!

I42,

PM sent

Really?

How many have you wrecked?

Or are you just making assumptions....?

Don't worry, I have plenty of experience when it comes to weapon effects and targeting. Like quite a few on this forum I also got reasonably good at chucking practice bombs at ships by day and by night. So no, no assumptions needed.

Returning back to the thread, the Argentineans did a pretty good job of getting dumb bombs into RN ships, despite rather rustic systems and the RN shooting back. If the 13 bombs that hit but failed to go bang had fused correctly then the outcome of the RN to continue to operate would have been challenged. I'm struggling to think of an occasion where a ship has survived a correctly functioning 1000lb bomb. I guess it must have happened but it would be a pretty rare event.

http://www.naval-history.net/F62-Fal...ships_lost.htm

JTO, indeed things certainly improved after Torey Canyon.

I remember watching FA2s practically riding 28lb PB into the target. The trick would have been to avoid being there when they went bang.

I wonder had those dud bombs exploded, would the aircraft have survived?