XN923I wanted to be positive. Bucaneer was not proven in combat. The marking during Gulf War doesn’t count in my eyes. But it is as I said a reasonable design a little bit like the A-6 or A-7, which never really amazed the aircraft community.
The Buccaneer target-marked for Tornados in Operation Granby and also dropped bombs itself. Generally thought to be a far superior strike aircraft to the A-6, which was contemporary but a generation behind in terms of design (but I don’t want to get into one of those ludicrous ‘which is better’ arguments) – its design enabled it to fly at very fast subsonic speeds at zero feet with astounding stability. At these altitudes it could outrun most fighters (which had to throttle back due to turbulence) and was much better in this regime than the Tornado. It also had much better range than the Tornado. Pretty much unbeatable whenever it turned up at Red Flag.
A conventional carrier is at minimum 45000 to 55000 tons. Invincible is half the size. Costs rise with weight, its nomrally a pretty linear function.
I meant what did it cost us in terms of sunk ships and post Falklands upgrades?
The Harrier performed much better than expected. However, it was not designed for that mission. Sometimes aircraft can perform roles they were never intended to, normally due to lack of other capable aircraft. But never can you get rid of the inherent weaknesses.
The lack of any land-based aircraft made the Harriers the best around. The Argie’s were not able to deliver any consistent air power.
True, but the Harrier could do things no land based fighter could do. In exercises it has beaten far better material than Argentina managed to throw at it.
XN923… for today, then I am hitting the hay as it’s way past my zzzz-time 😮 (snip)
Nite all… 😉
And I was having such a bad morning until I read that.
All I can say to you is… if you think putting decals on plastic kits is hard, have you ever tried covering a balsa model in iron on heatshrink covering?!
(Besides, all these full sized aircraft are completely innaccurate, half of them don’t have engraved panel lines, the finish looks unrealistic and all those moving surfaces are just gimmicky, give me Airfix any day)
XN923It would also have helped if half the Sea Harrier pilots had bothered to get their radars to work.
The mixed results of Blue Fox are a matter of record and have not been satisfactorily explained in my view. While never blessed with a particularly long range, one squadron (801 I think) claimed to be able to get around 25 (nautical) miles out of it (which even surprised Ferranti) while the other (800) squadron failed to get more than about 12. This seemed to result in a change in tactics whereby visual reconnaissance was used (not very effective considering the amount of sea that had to be covered) and a belief that CAP wasn’t worth the spent fuel. Ferranti was called in to sort out the underperforming radars, which they may have, but the damage was done and habits had been formed.
I think there was potentially something more systemic going on in any case; the Royal Navy has traditionally been reluctant to rely on aircraft for air defence and preferred to consider that the natural protection of the ships themselves (AA weaponry and armour) should be sufficient. This thinking led to the loss of HMSs Glorious, Repulse and Prince of Wales among others in the Second World War, just about every ship that was lost in the Falklands and looks like it might have infiltrated again with idea of the Joint Harrier Force.
The lessons of the Falklands were learned for a while it seems but after a few more years things return to the default position.
XN923You may be biased, but so are many and the Bucaneer has never had the chance to earn a good reputation
Operation Granby and many Red Flags say otherwise
However, the decision to go for “flat deck” cruisers were surely of monetary nature.
No arguments there – how much did it cost us in the long run?
Argentinia chose like many other “rogue states” a strategy of little expansion, mainly as a phychologic strategy to the inside. The British did not accept the loss of this worthless piece of junk, but the Americans did not support the British. The Americans however had a close look at the situation, any escalation by any side would have triggered a rather political spanking.
Plus ca change… Interesting to compare to the recent invasion of a middle Eastern country which one might uncharitably suggest was a ‘psychologic strategy to the inside’ – with no-one to provide the spanking. But I am getting off topic.
The war did at least lead to the end of the Junta which was probably the most positive outcome for Argentina as well. The Falklands may be ‘worthless junk’ strategically but I understand the people who live there rather like it and it is the right of every moderately civilised people not to be invaded…
In my eyes due to the inability of the RN to deploy a really capable attack force and the even bigger inability of Argentinia to defend against this force (which operated 8000 miles of thei coast), the war was more bloody than one would expect. Sad for the loss of life. 🙁
Very. But think how much less capable Britain’s attack force would have been if Argentina had decided to invade two years later, after we had sold Invincible to Australia and scrapped Hermes? One of the few saving graces of this unfortunate, bloody little struggle was to prove beyond all doubt that the SHAR was far more capable than everyone (except possibly Sharkey Ward) could have imagined, and that ‘Harrier Carriers’ were a lot better than nothing.
XN923My guess is Argentina would have been deterred from invading the Falklands in the first place.
The Ark Royal surely had more punch and AEW – 12 Phantoms, 14 Buccaneers & 4 Gannets – but in adverse weather CTOL operations are more restricted than STOVL.
Cheers,
Sunho
I suspect if Argentina had the slightest idea GB was prepared to defend the Falklands at all they would have been deterred, but there you are.
Carrier based Buccaneers could have paid for themselves many times over since 1978 in my view in the Falklands, both Gulf Wars, Kosovo… With decent upgrades they could still be considered one of the best strike aircraft around. But then I’m biased (see my forum name and avatar for clues…)
Any reason you can’t mix CTOL and STOVL operations on the same carrier?
XN923There are various nicknames for the Tornado, a couple of which can even be mentioned without blushing in ordinary conversation
:rolleyes:
Wasn’t it suggested in some quarters that MRCA stood for ‘Must Replace Canberra Again’?
I suppose by ‘strange’ we must mean ‘out of place’ – after all, what would seem completely normal to the ground crew of an Albatros DIII would look rather odd on a jet – unless it’s an early de Havilland twin boom job…
It always amuses me that there are a good many modellers of small, free-flight jets who build their models of Bell X-1s and Douglas Skyrays using construction techniques more akin that of a Sopwith Tabloid.
XN923I suggested to them some time ago to use the portal http://www.justgiving.com . Its a lot easier and has a personal touch to it.
Even a PayPal option would help. No reason I could tell why the transaction should have been blocked, they even use the same bank as me! I imagine it would be easy to set up a JustGiving account and a PayPal one for that matter (they’ll have to have one when they auction the unfinished project on eBay… 😉 )
On the other hand, I could just put a cheque in the post (seems so difficult these days!)
XN923Presumably the Raptor canopy doesn’t have a minature detonating chord running through it (shatters the canopy on ejecting) or even ‘canopy cutters’ on the bang seat. Is there a good reason for this? (Nothing inferred by this, just curious)
(That said, even if it does have these features cutting the pilot out would still have been a better option than ejecting and writing off canopy, bang seat and possibly requiring the airframe to be reconditioned. Still surprised there is no manual option!)
XN923XN923 your dad an organiser then? Manston if she does go to the states I think DH still plan to operate her out there, the new owners appear pretty taken by her and would like to keep hold of her. Y11F, absolutely pal!!!!! I have to admire the VTTS boys but to be honest they are living in dream world if they are planning to run without any sponsership, the insurance alone is crippling nevermind the fuel bill. DH are still making a loss with foxy lady even with corporate sponsership. Unfortunately the airshow circuit in this country is running dry and very fast to through the health and safety spoilsports and the penpushers at gatwick.
No, but he’s the reason I missed Biggin Hill last year!
XN923Inspired to do something, I went straight to the VTTS website yesterday to make a donation, only to be told that my transaction had been blocked by the system’s ‘fraudshield’. Not making it easy for themselves are they?!
In fairness though, my email was answered promptly and they have promised to look at the issue.
XN923If the majority of the British fleet loses several ships against an enemy with a handful of modern ASM and generally a bunch of unsuitable aircraft, how well can the defence be called?
It showed again how vunerable ships are against air strikes and that only aircraft can actively control airspace and deny it to intruders. The RN concluded, that they need real aircraft carriers as replacement.
Define unsuitable. The Dassault Super Etendards and Mirage Vs were doing what they were designed for weren’t they? And the A-4 was considered to be so effective against fighters it was used as an Aggressor for years. OK, so it wasn’t the most up to date air force in the world but it still posed a considerable threat. As SteveO points out, it wasn’t so much the capabilities of the aircraft involved as the lack of them and the paucity of decent AEW.
XN923The Mirage had neither any radar warning nor had they any fuel for air2air engagement. Their tactic was to be in and out in shortest possible time. Under these favorable conditions and with plenty of radar information the complete British fleet was unable to defend against conventional bomb attacks. I think everybody in the RN was afterwards sobered by the inadequacy of the air defence. The FA.2 was the minimum one could request after such a disaster.
The Russian tactics only worked under some cirsumstances. Target needed to be detected and a Harrier with external fuel can loiter for some time 150nm away from the carrier. However, normally support of American Tomcats would have been very helpful.
Air defence during the Falklands is a moot point; early warning was potentially a greater issue. The first two ships sunk were on radar ‘picket’ duty. Mirage IIIs had long range fuel tanks but ditched them at the first sign of trouble rather than tangle with the SHARs. They soon ran out of drop tanks and lost the option.
Tactics were also an issue. 801 squadron claimed they could make the Ferranti radar work. 800 squadron said they couldn’t so they didn’t use it. There is also a suggestion that the Flag had limited commitment to Combat Air Patrol.
Many Argentinian bombs failed to explode because the aircraft were unable to fly high enough to release them with time to arm without being shot out of the sky – the fleet was hardly ‘unable to defend itself’ although improvements were clearly needed. Sadly we have no SHARs at all now so we had better hope Dubya’s Super Hornets aren’t busy the next time we want to go to war.
XN923So how much trouble would I be in if I moved this thread to the Historic forum? :diablo:
Does an aircraft that went out of service a few weeks ago count as ‘historic’ then? :confused:
In that case I suggest you move all threads relating to the F14 as well!
XN923you know what you’ve got to do then bigvern, indeed all of us if we want to see her fly, and that’s lobby the airshow organisers to bin the decidely boring extra 300’s and their kind and cough up the cash for foxy lady. or if there are any rich benefactors in our midst, come on guys give De Hav’s the money to pay the fuel or else the only thing you’ll see of foxy lady is an air test and then her gathering dust in De Hav’s hanger for the rest of the year or perhaps the rest of her days
I’ll never forgive my Dad if the Sea Vixen never makes another airshow appearance! 🙁
I suppose we’d all better get lobbying then, eh?
XN923Hannants is good. If you can’t find it there…!!
…try entering TSR2 into a search in eBay. Otherwise they should have it.
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