BLACK BUCK ALTERNATIVE

Steve- I think if the Sea Harrier had the range,two crew to keep an eye on threats,speed and the load carrying ability he wouldn’t have. But he had the ability to make a comparison having flown both and I guess if it’s a choice between a Cadillac and a Cortina the Cadillac will win.

David Burke

I wonder, if the Sea Harriers avionics and weapons fit had been equal to the Phantoms, would he have said that?

Steve – I remember a television interview when Sharkey said that he would have prefered to have the Phantom. Certainly if that was feasible it would have been possible to send the CAP’s out further with the view of hitting the Argentine aircraft before they posed a serious threat.
The other option of course would have been to fly some kind of offensive operations from bases in Chile. Certainly the PR.9’s were busy flying out of there!

adrian gray

I think the Black Buck missions were a very impressive achievement and political statement, but militarily extravagant and unesscessary. Can’t deny it helped with reducing the air threat though.

As for torpedos, on a recent TV documentry he said that he used the 40’s torpedo because he hadn’t heard a Tigerfish go BANG yet!

Anyone recall those cartoon books – “Carry on Yomping”, I think?

There was a cartoon of two argentine soldiers sat in a foxhole at Stanley airport saying “if that’s the size of the plane, however big is their carrier?”

I know that I, for one, would have been first in the queue for the laundry if a Vulcan had come over low (was this high altitude bombing, just out of interest, or morale-and-underwear-damaging low level?) – BEFORE it laid any little eggs on me. 😮

I can’t help feeling that there was an element of “We can do this better than you, sunshine!” involved.

Speaking of 1940s technology, I’ve read an interview with the submarine captain that sunk the Belgrano who said something like “I could have used a new high-tech Tigerfish torpedo, but I figured that 1940s torpedoes were made to sink 1940s ships so I used one.” Not in the air, I know, but vaguely (very vaguely relevant)

Firebird

I think Ward said that the weather conditions would have severely limited conventional carrier operations. I would imagine this would be due to low visibility and a pitching flight deck.
Also the Sea Harrier didn’t have to keep reserve fuel for landing in case of missing the arrestor wires, so it could stay in the fight longer.

Sharkey Ward’s comments in his excellent book are all valid, he’s RN remember.. 😉 but as has been said, the use of the Vulcan was as much psycological as tactical, and of course the later Black Buck missions involved the use of Shrike’s, which IIRC could not have been released by the Navy or RAF Harriers. Were the shrike missions neccessasry though is another question…. :rolleyes:

It was a long time ago that I read his book, but didn’t Sharkey Ward also poo-poo the idea that the task force would have been more capable had the Ark Royal still been in service with the Gannets, Bucc’s and F4’s….. :confused:

The Falklands, the last time Britain will ever fight a colonial war…… :rolleyes:

OK, so the Victor tanker conversion was a permanant role change I take it?

What do you think of ‘Sharkey’ Ward’s comment that Port Stanley airport could have just as effectively been closed to the Argentines by toss bombing it with a single 1000lb bomb from each Sea Harrier at the start of their CAP.

Incidentally is it “nick piccies from Damien’s website” week? :D[/QUOTE]

Apologies to Damien, Great website!
http://www.thunder-and-lightnings.co.uk/contents.html

If you could ever forgive the shortsightedness of the ruling British government at the time, the best tool for the Falklands missions would have been the awesome Buccaneer, operating from Carriers based in the South Atlantic, but apparently we did not need fixed wing capability, I seem to remember (although I am far too young to have witnessed) a certain Duncan Sandys WHITE PAPER of 57, which, again was very shortsighted, cancelling every major British fighter project, thank god the Lightning had gone too far to cancel, what ever happened to the SARO SR.177?? Please don’t answer that, cause I already know!!!!!

Arghhhhh!!!!, I’ve gone off topic, VICTOR, possibly a better bombing platform than the Vulcan, still again, politic’s played a major role in this too, if only Sir Freddy had sold out to BAC/BAe before he died, things could have been somewhat different!!!

Well there must have been a couple o’ big tanks sitting where the bombs would go, non operational bomb bay doors/sights lots of plumbing and very few racks. In short big & too long. The Vulcan attacks were more a case of morale boosting for us poor deprived brits and sending a message to Argentina that “We can reach you if we want” which meant they pulled back some stuff for air defence, so considerable effort for little return. Much like the Vulcan raids really. No disrespect to the Guys tho, as they worked B hard to do what they did. Essentially 40’s tech not unlike H2S!

How big a job would it have been to get them back to bombers?

No, they were all tankers. Could have doused them in fuel & struck a match though. 😉