Yuupieehh, quizztime, quizztime, quizztime!!!!

Not much left unanswered, but here I go:

1.d: The Kamov Hormone Ka-25BT – anti-mine helo?? (http://www.aviation.ru)

3.a: May be Grenada or Panama? You weren’t asking for actual combat, but operational sorties…
Anyhow Bosnia, as Billy said, is prolly the one you were asking for.

3.c: Iran is the missing one, as already mentioned by MPA.

4: I read this one not long ago, missplaced the magazine. I think its the Viggen. Not sure. There is also a commercial aircraft, very well known, which has an ingenious anti-FOD system. Were you referring to this one?

King Jester

In Argentina it was a head to head race* between the Gloster Meteor Fmk 4 and the indigenous IA 27 Pulqui.

The lonely prototype flew on August 1947, the Meteors had arrived a few months earlier, but did not really operate in numbers due to lack of pilots with jet training.

King Jester

edit: * a race to be the first jet flown by the FAA, not really a competition to equip the FAA. Meteor and Pulqui were to be complementary. Pulqui II was to be the replacement of the Meteors.

Were did they get all the firewood for their burial ceremonies, in a countryside where there is not a single tree left or right?

King Jester

Camaro wrote:

a force of poorly trained conscripts is no match against professional soldiers as it hapened again and again and again
(i`m talking infantry)

The accent is on poorly trained. Poorly trained pros (iraki Rep Guard?) would be no match for well trained conscripts (german Bundeswehr?).

what was the ratio… if i recall,it was 2000 britts against 10,000 argentinians, please correct me if i`m wrong.

The brit Task Force counted some 23000 men total (including sailors, infantry, flying personnel, etc). IRCC nearly 2400 landed on San Carlos the first day and eventually the brit land forces build up to some 7000 total.
There were almost 14000 argies on the islands (again, counting aircraft mechanics, liason, communications, logistics, medics etc). The combat force was about 8000 to 9000 men.

All that said, there was not a single battle were the attacking brits were outnumbered 5 to 1 as you mentioned. Brit fractions faced and dealt with argie defensive positions which held 1.5 or 2 times numerical advantage. Argie infantry was sparcely distributed over wide areas, with good fortifications BTW, but on a “micro-tactical” level (don’t know if the concept is clear…) i.e. within range of infantry weapons such as the L1A or FAL, brit attackers did only face small groups at a time. The rather ineffective argie C3I capabilities to call in fire support, and more on the concept of static ‘trench-warfare” defence adopted by the argies, allowed small brit units to take out sistematically the outer defence lines and by the end of the day, step by step, displace the more numerous argies. As they say about eating an elephant, one bite at the time…
There also were some mass surrendings, as in Goose Green on May 27th, were 450 Paras “captured” 1200 argie defenders. They managed to do the trick cause nearly 500 of the argie “reserve manpower” weren’t even infantry at all, they were AF ground personnel, AAA gunners, even an MP unit IRCC. After the outer defence had collapsed on Darwin isthmus, the assorted reserve was only eager to surrender.

After the cease fire and surrender was signed in Stanley on June 14th, some 3500 argies to the East and the South of town had not had the chance to enter combat at all.

King Jester

Mixtec wrote:

but their has never been an all out war between any countrys in South America in modern history (after Colombus)

Mix, I can think about at least 2 “all out wars” in the XXth century, i.e. Chile vs. Peru and Bolivia (Pisco War), and Bolivia vs. Paraguay (Chaco War).

After Columbus there has been a considerable quota of blood shedded.

But I know what you meant, no classic war (other than civil wars or COIN wars such as in Colombia or Peru) which involved the majority of a country’s population, bigger cities or the occupation of a large part of any country or its capital.

King Jester

Skythe wrote:

Speaking of Argentina, the IDF/AF Museum recently received one of our former Mirages back from Argentina. It was supposed to be 13-kills 158, but apparently the Argentians made a mistake and sent 159. So now it’s on display, still bearing Argentinian camo but adorned with its mate’s former identity and kills markings

A couple of words about that Mirage.
First about the camo pattern. The two-tone graysh/greenish on the IAF museum CJ was never argie AF standart. I don’t understand why the AAF freshly painted the Mirage with THAT camo before delivering it back to Israel. May be the only paint buckets at hand were those two colors? They don’t match any argie camo pattern….

The argie CJs flew with these colors (two tone brown/earth) :

But some airframes were painted in this two tone brown/dark green scheme:

About which airframe was returned to Israel, apparently the “real” 159 is AAF C-715, a gate guardian at the Liceo Aeronautico in Funes, Cdba. The aircraft is painted in a fictional three tone camo pattern:

The airframe returned to Israel is C-713 (IAF 142, according to my sources). I don’t know if it was a mistake, or simply a practical question. C-713 was in depot, while C-715 is already a gate guardian at a (somewhat) remote location. Disassembling and shipping C-713 vs. C-715 may simply have been less expensive/complex. But this is just a speculation, it may very well have been a scr** up.

Picture and info source: http://arqueologiaaeronautica.hypermart.net/cazascazabombarderos.htm

King Jester

Distiller wrote:

7. — What was the Argentinan Air Force’ last operational involvement in a war? Which aircraft were participating?
*No UN stuff plz*
?

That rules out UNCYFIP (Cyprus) and UNPROFOR (ex-Yugoslavia) ops, but I wouldn’t be sure if it also rules out Desert Storm (with UN approval, but not strickly a UN operation)…

I looked it up, and I think I know what Distiller wants to hear. The surviving Canberra from Bachus flight was the last argie AF plane to return to base, but the fighter cover (two Mirage IIIs callsign Pluton) despite returning home earlier, did in fact take off 30 minutes later from Rio Gallegos (21:50 local) than the Canberras from Trelew (21:20 local). So, that would make Pluton Mirages the last operational sortie to be dispatched.

King Jester

PS: I’ll give up if it isn’t this…

Flood wrote:

Just looked again and feel that you are confusing the army UH1Hs that flew medevac with the air force Bell 212s – both of which were at Stanley Racecourse with shrapnel damage on surrender

Yes. You’re right about the 212’s. It were a few Army UH-1s that flew with red crosses till June 16th. Then they were handed over by the argie crews to the brit forces.

Transall wrote:

6)I thought the C-46 was the “Commando”, not Comanche?

If Comanche doesn’t work, may be the Westland Commando (stripped version of the Sea King) will do…Do you want to share the credit for this question?…sort of team work we did here 😀

King Jester