its intersting reading english versions of the events of the falkands war. All the British capital ships that had been sunk in the conflict were just hit, then out of misfortune,  sunk . People have trouble accepting the reailties of this war on both sides. But lets get this clear British war ship were sunk by Argentine  forces , 7 in total, there no doubt bout it,  this reality has to be accepted. As with HMS Invicible I dunno surely the british ministry of defence has still yet to prove the where abouts of this ship after the claimed attack . I hear alot of people on the net say oh that funnny i just srang my dadto my dad he died on the invincible. Common this is the  Internet. if you can please ask daddy for pictures so we can all see them .

Cheers

Sizzle

6 warships and one LCU.

Pictures can be found on the first page of the topic

hehe

like i said the realities hard to accept. i would rather see proof and constructive arguments rather than insults.

manythanks

 

Invincible was in campaign for 166 days, thats 58 more days  than the rest of the Task Force. Why?

 

Afternoon All,  Not been on the board for a long time, but thought i'd have a look again.  A few familiar names though, Yimmy, Herald, Bluewings.  Are Darth and French Stratage still at loggerheads?

 

Anyway, back to the point.  I was a warfare office in the RN, joining in 96 and leaving in 2004 and I have never heard of this rumour before.  I would add a few points to the point of "sailors gossip? all thrown down as I think of them.

 

1. The RN in particular is exceptional about learning from its mistakes and after the Falklands became possibly the best practitioners of NBCD in NATO, I?m not sure about the rest of the world as we didn?t train them!
2. I?ve met and even served with one or two Falklands Vets and all of them lost friends down south. They take the war very seriously. Too seriously to keep quiet about a ship being hit just for the sake of some D*mn ideological political reason. The argument that RN personnel would keep this secret so as not to look bad is said by somebody who hasn?t a clue about how the British Military think. We delight in talking about where we cocked up in the past, especially when we come out on top in the end. You average sailor doesn?t vote (too complicated to set up a proxy J ) and couldn?t give a monkey?s about the brass?s need to hush things up.
3. Every ship has pictures and various damage control scenarios, including all the hits from the war. No mention of Invincible.
4. Sharkey Ward?s book ?Sea Harrier over Falklands? does not mention it. Sharkey hates the establishment as he sees himself screwed by the MOD.   If it had happened he would have mentioned it.
5. I was on ENDURANCE when it became one of the first RN ships to dock in BA for an official visit. Apart from having a cracking run ashore and meeting many of the Argentinean military in both sober and not so sober states, there was plenty of talk of the Malvinas. Before docking there were plenty of comedy briefs about ?don?t mention the war?, but it was all they wanted to talk about. No conspiracy theory was mentioned despite the amount of alcohol consumed. The general conclusion to that visit is that the war was a) a long time ago, b) fought by brave people on both sides c) fought for political reasons not because we hated each other d) we hoped it would never happen again and that the whole question would be sorted out above our pay scale and e) that was never a goal in Mexico 86, yes it was, no it wasn?t yes it was etc.

 

A few other points. Countermeasures sometimes work, sometimes don?t. Much depends on the course the ship is on (ASMD Course) in relation to the wind and direction of threat. Sheffield?s lack of radar was due to the satcom as has been discussed, but the exocet was a leading missile and  who knows if it would have been splashed by Dart or anthing else thrown at it (Rumour had it the chefs were on the bridge rood hurling spuds during in San Carlos).

 

4.5 guns used to be used against air targets and used to be radar guided but that was before I joined. Doctrine changes and officially it is now only used as NGS and anti surface. The chances of it hitting a missile coming in are tiny. But as previously reported flukes do happen and if I was under missile attack I?d be joining the chefs getting every bit of ordinance into the air that I could. (Also, the galley is amidships at just on the waterline??where do missiles aim for again? who would be a chef) .

 

One more point for all you missile fans. A missile wouldn?t necessarily hit amidships. A ships Radar Cross Section is shaped a little like an 4 pointed star of the points of a compass rose. The biggest signatures are indeed directly from abeam. The second biggest are from the hangar door and the bridge super structure from either directly astern or head on.

 

Hope I?m not teaching people to suck eggs!

 

 

That?s about all for now. 

 

When it happen for real we were leaving the carrier group heading off to the gun line when the fighter planes were detected inbound we were between the carrier group and the fighters. Exocet radars were detected, from that point on the captain counted down the impact over the broadcast system just as cooly as he did in the exercise. then the Mk8 opened fire only getting off 4 rounds before it stopped with a fault. also there was small arms fire from the bridge roof and wings. chaff had also been deployed. There was no impact and the incoming had disappeared from the radar only leaving two A4s that over flew us and dropped bombs that splashed approx 300 yards off our stern. There was also one A4 that ditched into the sea either from our firing or as one eyewitness said it flew to low and hit a wave. I was laying in the middle of the flight deck during all this and looked up when the captain warned of possible bomb impact from the A4s so I saw the A4s fly past and the splashes off our stern. We went to inspect the wreckage of the A4 before carrying on to the gun line.

There were reports that there were two Exocets fired at us one was shot down and the other passed down the ships side. If this was the case then there was no possibility of  the rouge missile reaching any of the other ships as the Supers had fired from close to their max range before turning for home and leaving the A4s to follow up the attack and we were faraway from the Carrier group.

Hi everyone,

just browsing and saw this topic and thought I would add my little 2pence worth!!!

I was the EW operator on board HMS Exeter during the Falklands and would like to shed a little light on what happened that day, 30th May 1982.

The  2 Exocet missiles were fired by the Super Etendard aircraft, and I gave the alert to the task force that the missiles had been fired in the Search mode.... both Avenger and Exeter were in close proximity to each other during this attack. The missile then locked onto Exeter and we deployed Chaff in the hope of decoying the missile away from us which we successfully achieved. The Exocet flew thru the chaff cloud and, unfortunately began its search mode again. The Atlantic Conveyor was the largest target in its view and therefore locked onto her. A very unfortunate and sad event which could not have been predicted.

The next item has caused some controversy for many years... with Avenger claiming to have shot down the 2nd Exocet with her 4.5 inch gun, however, Exeter fired her Seadart in the surface mode having locked onto the missile using her 909 radar. At the time that I heard the radar head cease on the ESM equipment, the SeaDart Controller assessed the missile as "Hit"... although the official report states that Avenger was credited with the kill.

At no point during the war was any of the carriers hit by either bombs or missiles... most of the time the carriers spent their time outside the Total Exclusion Zone (TEZ), which would have meant the Argentine pilots would have been on a suicide mission as they would not have had enough fuel to return to mainland Argentina!

Hope this helps clear up some of the queries you may have chaps!!