Though to me, it sounds as far-fetched as NK employing a German designed fish to shoot an SK surface combattant……To me, that means “yes, most likely a torpedo, but we don’t know the make yet, nor the launching platform”

Would agree with both of those comments.

I am convinced its a torpedo strike…..to much mitigates against a mine….ship damage was wrong, waters are wrong, RoKN activity is wrong etc for a mine hit. Who’s fish and why though are anyones guess and I dont expect that to change for a good long time.

What (if any) alterations would a Ming/Romea class sub require in order to be able to effectively use a German (wireguided) heavyweight torpedo (DM2 A1-A4, SST4, SUT)

The AEG SS4/SUT series are used by virtually every navy that uses 209 SSK’s. SUT’s are even license manufactured in Indonesia. The warhead on them is even RDX based….though that, to be fair, is like saying we are closely related to chipmunks because we both breathe oxygen!. The warhead size, at 250kg’s, is also in the right bracket. Though it is so much so you do wonder which end the scientific analysis started from?!.

If we are to make the, dangerous, assumption that the released analysis is correct and that a German designed torpedo was involved then SST4/SUT has to be prime candidate….the earlier analysis reports of an attacking weapons speed range also fits with the high-speed setting of these types….the setting you would certainly use against a warship.

The least tricky thing would seem to be the actual ability to deploy it. SST4 and SUT are both very compact weapons – as HWT’s go. Nearly 8ft shorter than the Chinese Yu-3 and 4 types fitting one into a Romeo’s tubes should present little issue. Both torpedos are capable of swim-out discharge so no difficulty exists with actual weapon release. Setting the weapon for wire guided firing would, likely, be out of the question. Story goes that the Romeos had/have a purely mechanical FCS (most last-gen Russian and Chinese torps being spindle set as opposed to electrically set) so, even if they refitted a tube with the necessary electrical connections to deploy a wire-guided torpedo, there would be nothing aboard to talk to the torpedo anyway.

What they would likely do, to get round this, is the same principle the Argentines used to get their truck MM38’s working in 82. Knock together an emulator to trick the weapon into thinking it was talking to the ships FCS. All realistically the weapons engineering team would have to do would be to pass initial bearing/depth/arming settings and the instruction to go seeker active on launch and leave the rest to the torpedo. Seeing as there is such a wealth of operational knowledge of the weapons ‘in the field’ I cant imagine that being a tremendously difficult feat to pull off.

Belgranos Main belt was just 6-5.5 inches thick, lets not get carried away here, thats 15cms in new money, half a school ruler, the width of the box you type your replies on here into. Exocet would go through it, most “modern” antiship missiles of that ilk would go through 15 cms of steel.

You think a subsonic weapon would penetrate 6 inches of armour. Honestly?. Do you know how thin hull plating is for a modern warship?. If it would penetrate 6″ of ordinary hull plate, let alone hardened armour, it would have been right through the Stark and the Sheff before the warhead detonated!.

Half a dozen exocets impacting on Belgranos Hull in rapid succession would probably result in the armour failing and the ship being in trouble.

Precisely how much trouble do you think?. IF it took 6 repeated impacts on precisely the same plate and penetrated what damage do you think an Exocet would do to a ship with that kind of mass?.

So Woodward a staunch submarine man suggests that only a sub could have sunk her?…funny that.

Think about that. ‘Sunk her’ is the hint.

Belgrano had Seacat and some guns, the two escorts, both Allen Sumner class ships of WW2 vintage had some light guns. I think the Shars would have made it through

You think that their WW2 vintage Oerlikons would be less effective than the WW2 Oerlikons we were using on their Skyhawks do you?.

There is a certain amount of propoganada regarding the whole Belgrano episode about, I think her threat has been “bigged up” in the aftermath. Not saying she shouldn’t have been sunk but need to honest about what three WW2 vintage gun ships with no air cover or helicopters could have done to the Task Force.

Destroyed it if they got into guns range. Exocet could not have dealt with the threat on its own – we’d seen how vulnerable it was to softkill seduction already ourselves. Plus we were facing an Exocet threat against us from their DD’s although mitigated by the same softkill factor. Taking Exocet out of the equation you are looking at 4.5″ Mk6’s and Mk8’s (and the Mk8 was no great shakes in ’82 believe me!) taking on a cruiser while the carriers try to run. Its not a pretty scenario.

Armour is no longer fitted as its a recurring cost item. When the primary threat is a limited set of missiles then active defence is more cost effective than passive defence. Especially when we get into the 50’s and 60’s when nuclear-tipped missiles are in vogue it was much safer to intercept the missile than trust the armour to ride it out.

Exocet is a subsonic skimmer that will strike the target at around 10ft above the waterline. Exocet had no pop-up mode like Harpoon so impacts would be on the main belt of a cruiser. A subsonic projectile with, at best, a semi-AP tip is going to have a job piercing a WW2 cruisers main belt.

Woodward himself said that his only options for countering the cruiser was the Mk8** and the SHAR 1000lb’ers. Not so sure that dive bombing a cruiser with the limited SHAR numbers would be such a bright idea. We took a toll out of A-4’s doing that to us!.

I’m fairly certain not all the Amazon’s had Exocet in 82 Al – will have to check up on that. In the Carrier Group, if memory serves, was a County (Glamorgan), a couple of the Amazons and at least one of the Broadswords most of the time. In addition to the 42’s that obviously didnt sport Exocet.

A ‘flurry’ of Exocets we didnt have embarked on the vessels escorting the carriers…and we would have faced the same back from the cruisers escorting destroyers. 1000lb’ers from the SHAR’s would have been about it and delivering those wouldn’t have been risk free to the precious SHAR force and would have taken away assets needed for air defence.

I’d say an Argentine attack would be fought off by Harriers and the Escorts. Assuming the Argentines actually found the actual main task group.

I’d probably concur with that. A solo strike from the Arg carrier would scarcely have been worth it. Its only chance for a significant impact would be presentation of threat down an unexpected threat axis and that kind of precise strike planning would’ve required a tighter position fix than they had on the carrier group.

The contention was always that the Argentines knew this and that a multi-axis strike was planned between the carrier air group, AAR’d landbased AM39/SuE’s and the Belgrano SAG. Co-ordinating that would have been the devils own issue and, as it turned out, HMS Conqueror’s intervention reduced the three prongs down, decidedly, to only two!.

Whether the multi-axis attack would have worked or not is usually a matter of perspective. The RN suffered so heavily in that war because it was a blue-water fleet fighting inshore. Out in open water, where the carrier group was operating, the weapons and sensors would have offered much greater performance than they did against pop-up threats coming in from ashore. With clear arcs Sea Wolf could have had a field day against the 25 de Mayo’s A-4’s for example.

My view is that The Argentine Navies best bet for engaging the Task Force at sea was lost when Chris Wreford-Brown gave the order to fire torpedoes. The idea of Belgrano getting into guns range of the task force is miserable, in the extreme, to consider. Quite apart from nearly being a notable opportunity for CV-to-CV confrontation I think that the possibility for a heavy guns warship to square off against modern missile-equipped warships was far more of a possibility and would have worked out very poorly for the RN had it happened.

Al,

The Royal Navy had more than one submarine patrolling the Falklands – I’m sure they would have been keeping an eye on the 25th’s movements, and preparing to launch aircraft would have triggered a torpedo attack…

If memory serves HMS Spartan did catch up to the Arg Carrier somewhere north of the islands, but, when she was already steaming for home after the post-Belgrano recall order. Her CO took the decision not to fire as the vessel was non-combattant…not something I necessarily agree with. At the time when the carrier was in position, allegedly, to launch a strike the SSN force weren’t holding her.

That may be true. Then again, the search radar on Goalkeeper is especially suitable for the suite of target, which can’t be said of any and all external search radars, their power not withstanding. And I’m sure it is not too hard to feed the CIWS (fused) info from multiple external sensors.

All you need is the range to cue and lay the weapon along the target bearing in sufficient time to set up a shoot at optimal engagement range. More than that is superfluous. The Goalkeeper on-mount set is perfectly capable of servicing the weapon. I’m not sure I understand the point that offboard sensor cueing is better?. Goalkeeper can take an external cue as well as off the own-mount sensor…why isnt it optimal to have both on your last ditch hardkill system?.

I’m also not so sure why you lot are talking about gun CIWS as a defence measure against supersonics?. Countering systems to larger supersonics are primarily VSHORADS/SHORADS missiles such as ESSM, Aster15, VL MICA, RAM etc and softkill….gun CIWS faced with supersonics is to catch the odd leaker that wont be distracted only!.