The Falklands

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Int-er-esting.
Did you know that british intelligence was that the exocets were not operational?
Which is why the Sheffield attack was so surprising. U saying the Frenchies had nothing to do operationally with the exocets?

Hey CB...why weren't the Etendards used on normal missions? Exocet only if I recall.
 
Int-er-esting.
Did you know that british intelligence was that the exocets were not operational?
Which is why the Sheffield attack was so surprising. U saying the Frenchies had nothing to do operationally with the exocets?

Hey CB...why weren't the Etendards used on normal missions? Exocet only if I recall.

Barely, if I remember correctly the 2nd squadron pilots had only two classes with the frenchs before his departure and only theorical. When the delivering of SUEs and exocet was renewed in 1983 the french comission came again but evidently the 2nd squadron pilot and ground crew had master the AM39 missile techniques at that time.

There is an excellent documentary of 2008 on that, unfortunately not very useful if you dont understand spanish.

The SUEs were not used for air-to-air purposes because at that time the magic missiles were not available, neither for dropping dumb bombs because the less expensive A-4qs was felt as more practical, remember that the Navy had only 5 SUEs in april-june 1982 and one of them was grounded as spare parts source.
 
Eh? Didn't the Mirages use Magics?

The Navy high Command always likes to be independent to the air force relating weapons system, the only cooperation between the both forces in the War was the in flight refueling. The planification of targets and airstrikes was always independent between the 2 Forces.

Argentine Navy had sidewinders b/c/d and the Air Force had Magic 1, Sidewinder b,c, and the israeli missile Shafrir, pure crap compared with the Sidewinder Lima.
 
Inter service rivalry is always good for the people your fighting against.

I heard a few more tales so indulge me please. Did Israeli technicians help during the war?

Did Peru offer assistance and was it welcome? They offered Mirage V and even to fly combat missions.
 
Inter service rivalry is always good for the people your fighting against.

I agree.

heard a few more tales so indulge me please. Did Israeli technicians help during the war?

Did Peru offer assistance and was it welcome? They offered Mirage V and even to fly combat missions.

There was no israeli technician at the time of war. Peru sold 10 MVP with no hesitation, some of the pilots ferring those aircraft (big accent in the word some) offered themselves to strike missions wich obviously was turned dow by the AAF. the Mirages V were useful aircraft but since they arrived 10th or 12th june (sources varied) they didnt make any difference in the war.
 
I read that all Limas fired were tail chases and not the celebrated all aspect head on shots.

I wonder if the Golf would have been any worse.

We have our American friends for there gift of Limas and use of Wideawake.
 
We have our American friends for there gift of Limas and use of Wideawake.

Not only that, also for the Shrikes the Vulcan used to destroy Argentine radars on Stanley. Rumour has it that the Americans offered the Brits a carrier, too.
 
The Sidwinder L were not strictly a gift from the USA, they were taken from the RAF NATO war stocks but the replacements were shall we say rushed through by the USA. As for Widawake the Assension Islands are British and the agreement with the USA re the airfield always allowed for its use but there is no doubt that without the assistance of the USA it's use wouldn't have expanded as quickly as it did.

On the other side of the coin I seem to remember that there were a couple of US engineers who assisted the Argentine Navy with the support of the A4 Skyhawk. However I could be wrong on that.
 
Another read is the Israelis offering Argentina gear thru Peru.

Including longer range tanks for the Daggers.


If the Americans didn't want UK to use Wideawake then that is that.

Bizarre that the runway was modern because it was an emergency landing sight for the Space Shuttle!

Wars are won and lost on such coincidence.
 
Unfortunately I lost the document but there was an interview with the Captain of HMS Coventry that was sunk during the conflict. He made an interesting statement saying that he knew when the A4's took off, the payload they were carrying and even the names of the pilots. He also knew that he was too close inshore and this made him vulnerable and had said this in no uncertain terms to Admiral Woodward who insisted that he maintained station.

The bit that I found of interest was the knowledge of the attacking aircraft.
 
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Argentinian British sympathizers feeding sensative information or intercepted communications perhaps?
 

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