Feedback: Although this video is great, it still feels incomplete: 1. How did the jets return to Argentina? Did they have enough fuel, or did they have to refuel on their way back, too? 2. Did the pilots earn any medals from Argentina? 3. Did those five men who died because they refused to abandon their stations get any medals? 4. What were the consequences for the captain and the senior officers? You said the captain of the Glasgow had prohibited the use of that communications rig - I assumed that was to set the stage for a court marshal, or at least a new fleet-wide rule. Also, those men not being at their stations, surely they didn't just get off with zero career consequences?? Overall, a GREAT video, but the end seemed very abrupt, and the story still unfinished :)
You should consider using Google Translate to hear the correct pronunciation of foreign words. It's Etendard, but you say En-tend-ard. Since you say it multiple times, it gets a little annoying.
@@adrien5834 In fact, he says "in-ten-dart" 😅 (the first time, at least; at 2:36 he says "in-ten-thars," and at 2:49 it's "in-ten-dars" - I think that's literally every option covered, lol) But yeah, it totally threw me for a loop the first time, too 😆 I actually had to rewind multiple times, but still didn't really get it.... Luckily, the Subtitles were written out, so that helps people who want to Google the plane - _really_ cool that he makes that extra effort! 😃👍🏼 (the auto-generated subs, by contrast, think he says "nintendos" at 2:49😂👌🏼)
@@imking1630 It's not entirely certain because unsurprisingly, the crew of Sheffield were similarly garbage at tracking that situation. It probably missed the Sheffield and splashed down half a mile away. Pure luck that the ship didn't get hit a second time.
There's a really good summary of the engagement at the start of Sandy Woodward's memoir "One Hundred Days". He goes in to a bit more detail on what was happening in HMS Glasgow's Ops Room.
@@imking1630 is ran out of propellant and was seen ditching into the sea. This was seen visually by some RN crewmembers. Iirc its documented in a ships log.
The UK military learnt a lot from this conflict. Having being largely army focused due to the NI troubles no one thought that aluminium on warships or nylon uniforms for the ship's company would be a problem. Also putting the right personnel in the right positions. The captain of Sheffield, as I understand it, was a former submarine commander. This wasn't the only incident that lessons were learned from, there were others. In any conflict lessons are learnt quickly, early on. I don't think that it was just the fault of officers in command but also the designers and beaurocrats back in the UK ministry of defence. The bravery shown by both UK and Argentine military is without question.
@@sichere Sheffield was a type 42 air warfare destroyer - not there primarily to counter the submarine threat. The Captain & First Lieutenant's skillsets were found wanting - according to the Board of Enquiry.
@@docdr7199 Indeed but the role that they had at that time was to counter the very real Submarine threat, as an unsuccessful attack had already been made on the Task force and the Captain was not reprimanded.
@@docdr7199 The Task force was attacked by ARA San Luis on the 1st May. ARA San Luis completed a five-week patrol unscathed. She staged several attacks on British warships but missed each time because of torpedo system malfunctions. Meanwhile, British ASW efforts against that single target proved futile. The British fired over 200 torpedoes at false contacts over the five weeks, You are correct but the bigger picture was that the RN were forced to operate their ships in ways they where not designed for, including defending the beachhead in San Carlos. Previous to the Falklands, Whitehall had assured the RN that the RAF had the ability to cover Naval operations. Also, initially Exocet missiles were not identified as Foe, due to the British fleet operated them too, so only defensive action could be taken at the time. After the attack on HMS Sheffield and the withdrawal of the Argentinian Navy, the computers were updated.
Of course, most people in the UK (that are old enough) remember the Falklands War. However the detail you provide is fantastic. Learned things I didn't know. Currently the IWM channel (Imperial War Museum) are running a video series about the Falklands war. Worth checking out for anyone interested in learning about it.
@@cjclark2002 I mean not really, humans are always humans and even though we try to make the military purely a professional thing based on merit that's hard in practice. Plus you never know when someone is just having a bad day, that's kinda the issue in war, it's almost impossible to keep alert 24/7 and humans are bad at judging risk. Also I think it's worth noting that the Admiral takes just as much blame here since he seemingly had the same careless attitude and didn't redirect the jets nor did he order the fleet to take proper precautions like not using satelite communications.
I remember reading one book a while ago that talked about one issue the Royal Navy had during the war was its anti-air capability. From what I remember, the author said it was due to what the RN was expected to do in the event of the Cold War going hot. The RN had been given a particular task (anti-submarine if I remember correctly) as part of a larger NATO mission, with the expectation that other NATO Navies would be there performing other tasks like dedicated air defence and so on. So the RN had spent decades planning to fight as part of big multinational force and then came the Falkland War... Suddenly the RN was fighting a war it had never expected and they found they had some serious capability issues, with air defence being a big one. As what they had avaliable was good if there is someone else nearby with better kit and you expected to be part of a wider network. Not so good if it is the only thing avaliable. And of course, the Argentine pilots had the skills to find and exploit those short comings.
The argies had bought two Type 42s from us and were able to practise mock attacks against them. That is one reason in part why the attack on the Sheffield was successful.
There was of course a full-naval board of enquiry afterwards that exonerated Captain Sam Salt from any undue blame in this incident! He had of course responsibility to answer for the performance & conduct of his ship, for himself & those of the HMS Sheffield’s Officers, NCOs & Crew too, during this event & the immediately preceding period, which he did in fact do too! The fact that there were then no specific, uniform ’Royal Naval’ standing orders or standard operating procedures regarding these particular systems at that time in effect that directly led to the circumstances that had been brought about by turning off one particular operating early warning radar system, in order not to compromise the operational efficacy or security of another, separately-integrated, parallel functioning, electronic-systems, therefore would then seem to expose an obvious systemic oversight & inconsistency in operational protocols at that time in 1982, a fact backed up by only HMS Glasgow of the three (The Sheffield, Coventry & Glasgow) screening Type-42 Destroyers then on forward Fleet Air Defence duties then performing these duties, had also operated, as both the alternative EWS & inter-ship communications systems had been also both temporarily switched off too by on their respective Captains’ orders & hence, they were unable to establish contact with either of the two other Type-42 ships then on forward Air Defence Patrol, whose corresponding systems had been then temporarily deactivated on legitimate but inconsistent RN orders under these circumstances!! This incident then led to a navy/fleet review of operational procedures in those situations & apparently it had been deemed by the subsequent naval enquiry that this case had arisen due to newly implemented or even experimental technologies not having been clearly, previously defined or systematically applied, but then overtaking existing operational procedures at the time that in this particular case had directly led to the tragic loss of lives & sinking of the HMS Sheffield! Later, Captain Sam Salt went on to complete a successful naval career, retiring as a Rear Admiral in 1997. He died of cancer in 2009.
I remember this well as I was a bit of a news junkie at the time. It even had made it into one of my science magazines. One thing to remember is that this was so deadly because of mistakes ON BOTH SIDES. The Exocet missile had a much longer range than had been used. Had the missiles been fired from a safer distance, there would have been less fuel to feed the fire, which was far deadlier than the warhead alone.
So the missiles were shot shorter than the intended range and that makes it less deadlier because less fuel? I think I misunderstood something because I don't understand the logic
No doubt the Argentinian Air Force was something to contend with, not only because of its size but mostly because of its daring and highly skilled pilots. I've always had the impression that the Brit Fleet somehow underestimated the danger the Argies' planes posed and later paid a high price for it. A lesson for future engagements.
small correction, most of the damage to the british fleet was done by the Navy Aviation (COAN), not the Air Force. The COAN that was specifically trained to perform these exact type of attacks. The Air Force was big in numbers, but had very limited ways of projecting power to the Islands, the planes simply lacked the range and equipment. That's why on paper the numbers greatly favor Argentina, but in reality there was never a favorable situation in the air combat for us, everything we could do was avoid detection by flying low, strike the naval assets and assets on the ground, and fly back. There was no realistic scenario where we could stand a fight with A4s that had no radars, no flares, and no MAW vs the Harriers.
What "size" ??? They only had 240 aircraft, most of them 30 yo +, many propeller fighters from ww2 era, and from those 240 ONLY 120 were available. Worst, they had no maintenance for them ( US embargo from 1976). Even Belgorod was a ww2 era cruiser, lol, 50 yo, and was killed by a brand new nuclear sub... Imagine that, an 1938 cruiser fighting a modern nuclear sub...
@@mirandela777 - "Many propeller fighters from WW2 era"...! Are you crazy or just plain ignorant ? Please tell us make and model of such imaginary "propeller fighters" ! Then, you switch to naval affairs (though I wrote about the AIR FORCE only) ! Then you talk about a "US embargo from 1976"....Dude, that embargo was imposed on the neighboring country of CHILE...not Argentina ! and so on... Moral: keep your mouth SHUT before writing novels or else better hit the books and get acquainted first with facts !
Everybody respected the ability and daring of those pilots, because they were Argentine. Once the fleet set sail I relaxed. Anyway, the man who told me it was about to kick off down there had found himself a job in Britain a month earlier. Mind you, hitting Sheffield surprised and annoyed me.
"I suspect someone's been bloody careless" - from your account, that was a very prescient and perceptive comment given how little he knew of the details of the situation at the time.
The fact the Argentinians went below to about 50 feet above sea just to use the earth’s curvature fascinates me. I never knew the earth’s curvature could be use in such a manner. I wonder if other aerial operations of other wars used this tactic too. I find it interesting and amazing that the earth’s curvature could be use to hide oneself from the enemy. Very fascinating. Overall very well made video. Godspeed to those who perished during the Falkland War. 🇫🇰 🇬🇧 🇦🇷
Its a really common tactic. Its why no one really cares much about Hypersonics nowadays, as long as you have harpoons that can glide along the curvature of the earth with minimal issues.
Common tactic.However the Argentine aircraft had to climb above the horizon to allow them to acquire the target.The bearing and range to the target allowed the missile to be launched.This according to the pilot took between one and two minutes,and after launch the aircraft dropped below the horizon while executing a 180 degree turn.The Exocet missile has an active seeker guidance system that switches on after launch to search for the target and home onto it.A ship won't out manouver it once launched.The only possible defence is,shootdown which is difficult,jamming or decoy.
Was a midshipman in the West German navy at the time, and of course we were following closely what was going on down south in 1982. I dare say that this film is the most clear and instructive on the chain of events that has lead to the loss of HMS Sheffield that I have seen so far. BZ!
Just comes to show how important a good captain is. The other destroyer was on the ball, and would have survived that had it been targeted. The ship's crew did everything it could to save its sister. Meanwhile, the Sheffield's crew were unprepared, lax, and doing things they shouldn't have been doing during wartime. That is something the captain could have resolved, but didn't.
At the time the exocet hit the Sheffield it was in communication which meant it had its radar turned off also at the time the only system that could tackle low flying missile was seawolf which the Sheffield was not equipped with
Had no idea so many mistakes were made by Sheffield. Senior officers still with peacetime thinking. Best graphics I have seen that clearly shows the sequence of events.
Atlantic Conveyor was more critical loss due to the material carried. Exocet wasn't the only threat because 14 ships were hit by conventional bombs through air raids but didn't explode. If those 14 hits were exploited or if Argentina had more Exocet missiles UK would have lost the war. I've seen a documentary where the Argentinian pilot said was launched the Exocet from longer distance and it didn't exploited but caused the fire due to its fuel.
@@EE-ve3vh there wasn't any codes, you can't disable a missile with "codes", Mitterrand might have given other useful information like the search radar frequencies to jam it.
@@martindione386 You are correct on the codes. But Mitterand didn't have to provide any frequencies. The frequency bands used by radar seekers on all but the most experimental missiles are common knowledge to all the leading military powers.
Los pilotos navales, Armando Mayora - Augusto Bedacartatz.🇦🇷 4-5-1982 El Sheffield se convirtió en el primer buque de guerra británico 🏴hundido desde Segunda Guerra Mundial y el primero de la OTAN. 20 Muertos y 63 heridos condolencias a familiares del HMS Sheffield - Su capitán Sam Salt. Despues del fin de la Segunda Guerra Mundial , Argentina🇦🇷 , Excelentes pilotos Alemane🇩🇪 en nuestro pais capacitaron a los pilotos arg. Adof Galland - Hans Ulrich Rudel- Behrens Otto - kurt Waldemar Tank- Werner Baumbach- Heinz Scheidhauer.
Silver lining: As bad as it was for her, Sheffield actually accomplished her primary mission. Neither carrier was struck by enemy fire. In extremis, the duty of the escorts is to take the hit to save the carrier. Thus, despite all the mistakes, and almost certainly inadvertently, Sheffield did succeed in her primary mission of keeping the carriers from being hit by the enemy missiles.
@@EdMcF1 Atlantic Conveyor wasn't "sacrificed". The two exocets that hit her had been successfully decoyed by chaff fired from other ships. Unfortunately, Atlantic Conveyor wasn't fitted with any kind of countermeasures and was subsequently struck and lost. The loss of the Atlantic Conveyor was a huge blow to the task force as it was carrying a lot of important equipment including heavy lift Chinook helicopters.
The British general commanding the land troops that disembarked and fought all the way to Stanley - whose name I can't recall now - wrote a book about the campaign when the war was over, titled "No picnic !". These two words say it all.
Blame for the Sheffield also largely lay with the commanders (and 800 squadron) on Hermes who would not listen to Sharkey regarding the performance of Harrier’s RADAR, 800 squadron rarely used it believing it to be dead weight where as 801 were getting terrific results using the RADAR for CAP duties sweeping large areas - inter service “pride” (arrogance) meant that they would deride Sharkey rather than try to learn from him and his squadron. Harrier CAPs were often sent off to investigate contacts using the Mk1 eyeball rather than sweeping the area with RADAR - this is why the current CAP Harriers were off on a wild goose chase when Sheffield was attacked - to spend half an hour doing a visual search that could have been done in 5 seconds with air-borne RADAR. It also transpired after the war that Argentinian pilots were told to RTB if they detected Sea Harrier RADARs - so if 800 squadron had taken Sharkey’s advice and technical assistance in the use of Sea Harrer’s Blue Fox, many attacks on the fleet would have been thwarted merely from the presence of two thirds more Sea Harrier RADARs in the sky.
I remember this well. Me and a view friends had just bought Fish and Chips one evening on the south coast of England, and were eating it out of the paper standing around another friend’s car listening to the news on the car radio. When the news came through, we were all shocked to hear it. It brought home the fact that there would be losses on both sides, and that there was more bad news likely to come. But we were all proud of Britains response and determination to retake the Falkland Islands and liberate the British citizens. Not forgetting South Georgia as well. Like all conflicts there is loss of life and other people have to live with that loss, and also many have to live with the physical and mental scars. For those that would never return, we will never forget.
I was serving in the RAN during and after this war. We were told that the warhead of the missile didn’t explode and the fires were caused by the unexpended rocket fuel. Can your research confirm this?
That was the original conclusion however exocets were brand new at the time and people didn't have much experience of them, in the latest RN review (I think it was 2016/2017) they concluded that the warhead did detonate.
Interesting discription of this event. I personally have spoken to a sailor who was in theSheffields op room at this time. His description of the events is quite different. He said that in fact they did pick up the in coming aircraft but their officer did not believe the contact. He also said the they were hit with one exocet but it failed to explode. Its impact set their superstructure on fire - it was aluminium ( to save momey and weight) and it was impossible to put this fire out.
I actually have a mug from the HMS Sheffield, my GPA was US Navy, traded one from his ship for it when he met them in port before the war. So somewhere on that wreck may very well be a mug from the USS Piedmont
A great friend of mine was in charge of assembling and testing the Exocet target tracking heads. He was also telling that heads were sometimes delivered by him personally to the Argentinians, after the periodical recalibrations. After this event, he mentally suffered a lot and he completely changed its job.
It is a common misconception that you need to hit something multiple times to destroy it as if you were reducing its hit points to 0. What good is a weapon system that doesn't neutralize a target after a hit? Sure not every hit is a kill just like people surviving after being stabbed/shot, but all it takes is a single hit to be a kill, a kill-shot!
That's not how Hit points works in a Navy context. I believe that baseline is how many 14 inch Shells you can be hit with. I don't know how much damage an Exorcet could do. 3 maybe
@@garethjames1300 yes you can design a new armor to defeat a weapon system, but the natural evolution is to design a new weapon that defeats the armor and takes out the target with a single hit. Now of course the older system is kept because it takes time and money to replace everything with new systems. As the older systems are are still effective against the older targets it was designed to destroy.
True, one 14" shell didn't sink the Bismarck but it was enough to make it abandon its mission. Just a puncture in a fuel tank from a shell that didn't explode was a mission-kill.
Demasiado daño provocaron las Fuerzas Armadas Argentinas a los ingleses siendo ésta una guerra totalmente improvisada y corta pensando hasta ultimo momento que la Task Force no iba a venir.
The irony of it all. Up till now, the informed part of the public thought the Exocet missiles were so good that modern anti air radar and missiles were useless against them. Now we learn that the destruction of the Sheffield was in large part to blame on the Royal Navy herself. And the Exocet's warhead didn't even detonate but because it still had most of its fuel, that started the fire and the ship's non-existent fire proofing ensured it was doomed.
Not really, was honestly more timing then anything else and logistical constraints the royal navy faced. The british only had 40 harriers which was not enough to provide both adequate fleet protection from argentinian strikes and conduct raids on stanley and other military targets on the falklands. The air defense platform their ships were predominantly equipped with the sea darter, was horribly outdated and unreliable, the sea wolf was slightly better, but it was very new at the time and still had problems. Both the glasgow and the sheffield only had the sea darter. The argentine fighters flew NAP most of the way, which left them pretty much undetectable to surface radar, same with the exocet itself as it flew too low for radars at the time to pick up. Anti ship missiles were still a very new threat at the time, and point defenses even newer and not that reliable. Even if the glasgow had been able to raise the sheffield to warn them of the threat, I honestly doubt it would have made any difference. It honestly could have been far worse. If the Argentinians had started the war about a year later, they not only would have had their full complement of 100 exocets they ordered from france (when the war happened they only had like 6) but their is also a good chance they would have had total air supremacy as there were serious plans to sell the HMS invincible to Australia, and the HMS Hermes was due to be decommissioned. Not to mention if Argentina had actually enlarged the airfield on stanley, they could have launched super entardes and sea hawks from it instead of the mainland, which would have drastically increased their range and amount of missions they could have performed against the Royal Navy, probably would have allowed them to engage harriers in aerial combat as well. Really a major part of British success in the war came from Argentinian incompetence and improper planning rather then their own.
@@copter2000 well originally the operation was actually planned to start around a year later then it actually did, once the argentinian military was better equipped and prepared. Was accelerated because of tensions around South Georgia islands which werent entirely planned by the Argentinians. Had the Argentinian military actually started the war when they originally meant to, it would have been a entirely different situation both for Argentina and the UK. That being said, the biggest problem was they just assumed the British would not respond, so they didn't really prepare accordingly like with not enlarging the airfield at stanley, using mostly conscript units that were also not well supplied for the siege they were about to face. Another glaring example was when the war broke out, the majority of the Argentinian Navy had to be commanded by junior officers because most of its senior leadership at the time were at a NATO conference in Western Germany. Finally a lot of air and ground units were not utilized and left in Patagonia throughout the war because of tensions with Chile. Had just any of these things been different, they could have potentially had a serious outcome on the war.
@@jonaswhitt4322 Even if they couldn't do anything about the missile, the advance warning would still likely save lives and possibly even the ship by making them better prepared for damage control, instead of needing to think about complicated actions while fire and smoke are spreading.
I worked on a prototype automatic system that controlled ventilation on the Sheffield. It went wrong and we were asked to provide a new set of boards that would be flown to the ascension isles. The company quoted cost price but was turned down....so the ventilation system was manual only. When we heard it had sunk we were grateful to hear the chief pretty officer and his team in charge of our tech had survived. He told us a major problem fighting the fires was the lack of ventilation and thick acrid smoke. He was sure it would have been a different outcome had the smoke been cleared.
Moskva was 2.65 times the size of Sheffield, and was of all-steel construction rather than Sheffield's aluminum superstructure (which doesn't hold up well to fire). Even with the fact that Moskva was hit by two missiles rather than just one (albeit Neptune has a slightly lighter warhead than Exocet), that ship absolutely should not have been lost. If the Russian Navy had competent damage control, Moskva would've safely gotten back to port for repairs.
I believe that current reports are saying the same. Two missiles were shot at her and they scored a lucky hit on those big SSMs. It wasn't so much the SSM itself, it was the ammo it set off. So the Russians aren't really stretching the truth about losing the ship to a fire. They are just omitting what started it.
@@RedXlV Sheffield was an all steel construction. The type 21s Amazon class were aluminium build. I would add that the Russian navy like the army and airforce are manned by conscripts. So there is a question as to how adequately they are trained to problem solve and act on their own initiative. I suspect there was a fire on board as a result of the missile strikes and a hit below the waterline causing flooding and smoke problems. Pictures of the ship show it on fire listing to port and all the liferafts on the port side launched. I suspect that it sank whilst under tow. IMHO.
@@rcgunner7086 If a P-1000 Vulkan got set off by the Neptunes hitting it, Russia is lucky that Moskva didn't get broken in half and lost with all hands. Those are 1-ton warheads, and you have a pair of the missiles sitting right up against each other so one detonating would have a high risk of detonating the other. If it's the onboard SSMs that were the source of the fire, it's probably that their fuel caught fire without actually detonating the warheads.
The task force commander’s worst nightmare, low flying fast jets dropping bombs, or in this case firing missiles. Very difficult to defend against that threat as demonstrated here.
A very good video. Well done on a high quality production. One small observation: the attacking Argentine jets were not named 'Super Intendard’. They were called 'Super Etendard' (or 'Super Standard' in English). Regardless of the circumstances of Sheffield's sinking, it's important to remember that she was intentionally placed in harm's way on picket duty. Because of this the risk to her - as with the other Type 42s on picket duty that day - was high. The picket ships formed the first line of a layered defence which was meant to protect the highest value assets, i.e. the two aircraft carriers HM Ships Hermes and Invincible. My reason for stating the above is that it's entirely possible that even if all three Type 42s had survived the Exocet attack of 4th May, then one of them might have been lost to some other enemy action (as HMS Coventry was on 25th May). We just don't know. What is known however is that against a professional naval air arm equipped with modern aircraft and battle proven weapons, losses are likely. In terms of the actual value of the attack, Argentina expended 40% of its stock of Exocet missiles to eliminate one guided missile destroyer (albeit a recently commissioned one). It's for military historians to judge whether the attack added any value to the overall Argentine campaign. However it could be argued that the Exocet attack on SS Atlantic Conveyor (also 25th May) was of more material value to the Argentine war effort, since it deprived British land forces of most of its helicopter heavy lift capability, tent accommodation for thousands of troops and also a temporary runway surface to be used as a forward operating strip. Interestingly, for several years afterwards many Argentinians believed that their naval Etendards had sunk the STOVL aircraft carrier HMS Invincible rather than a roll-on/roll-off freight carrier which had been taken up from trade for the war. In fact, the naval squadron which carried out the Atlantic Conveyor attack painted kill credit silhouettes of HMS Invincible on the noses of their Super Etendard attack aircraft - such was the belief among Argentinians that they had managed to sink a carrier.
@Michael Hearn You're correct in saying that there were several versions of the Exocet (e.g. MM38, AM38, AM39, SM39 & MM40), and that Argentina held additional stocks of them. What you seem to have overlooked however is that this video is about the HMS Sheffield incident. The attack on Sheffield was by fixed wing aircraft - and so all references regarding numbers used in the video and subsequent comments refer to the AM39 air-launched version of the Exocet, and not its other variants. In fact my comment about the 40% of AM39 stock used simply picks up on the same point made in the video at 11:44. As does my mention of the attack on SS Atlantic Conveyor, which was also a Super Etendard sortie using AM39. Your point about the ships in the RN Task Group being armed with Exocet is also technically accurate. But again, how is that relevant to the subject of this video? Yes the Type 12 Leanders, Type 21s, Type 22s and County class ships were all equipped with MM38 launchers. But a ship placed up-threat and on picket duty can't respond 'to' an Exocet 'with' an Exocet, as it's not a defensive munition. Besides, most of the ARA surface fleet had already returned to port or coastal waters after the General Belgrano was sunk on 2nd May - which removed most of the targets the RN would have used the MM38 against in one stroke. But like I say, how is any of that relevant to a video about an AM39 attack on HMS Sheffield?
Seen comments from Argentines still saying that the carrier was sank... even on the comments section showing video evidence of the carrier coming back after the war in victory. Bizarre belief.
@@Squival138 Argentine forces declared a hit, not a sinking. I'm Argentine, and only a few but VERY vocal nutjob minority think the carrier was sunk, I personally came to the conclusion that the attack failed and the Invincible wasn't even hit.
Nadie en argentina dijo que hundieron al invencible que lo atacaron y lo dejaron fuera de combate es verdad ahí fue el quinto exocet hay una animación del ataque y dos pilotos sobreviviente de la faa por qué te crees que el invencible volvió meses después a Inglaterra recién pintado? El ataque existió fue operación conjunta de la armada argentina y la faa
Great video, first time I have visited you sight. I was sent to Portsmouth by my company, Vickers engineering as to carry out an update on HMS Sheffield seadart system. Our team (3) were 7:52 onboard for around 8 weeks, until she was fit to sail to the Falkland 🥲 Can you imagine my shock and horror, when I heard the news 🙏🙏
Well you don't expect the top brass to take the rap.The crew were competent and well trained.Its too easy to say that the ship loss was attributed to the crew.
For a dose of irony, when HMS Sheffield was being constructed, an explosion during construction killed two dockyard workers and damaged a section of the hull, which was replaced with a section from an identical ship, Hércules, being built for the Argentine Navy. As such, it's ironic that the Sheffield would eventually be sunk by the Argentinians.
I worked on the Three type 42 being built inBarrow one British and two Argentine the navy lads praisedthem what happened would never have happened to the Old Tribal class destroyers made of hydrologics and steel
When I see things like this especially the Invisible not responding to warnings drives me nuts. ( I just wonder what his excuse was when he had to report why Invinsibile failed to respond) It's always somebody bot doing their job that causes disasters like these. It's the very reason the Titanic sunk. It's always somebody NOT doing their job. The idea of trying to second guess warnings or ignoring them has historically cost so many lives. The Titanic was warned of icebergs but ignored the warnings and continued at top speed. The Titanic's wireless operators told Californian's operator to "shut up" and they ignored the warning. Later that night the Californian spotted the flares from the Titanic. Lord was woken - twice - but said the flares were probably "company rockets" - signals between ships from the same line. He took no action. When the Japanese were approaching Pearl the young radar operator was told to ignore the mass of planes approaching the Island by his superior. We all know how that ended. It's always somebody not doing their job that ends in catastrophe. It drives me nuts. LOL
Congratulation on this detailed documentary. Today First time after 40 years I see how the British set their fleet up. Argentine's TV or YT videos never showed something like this So easy to understand. Thank you very much. Now I always thought Hermes and Invincible were far away from each other like one in the north and in the South the other. Never imagine both sailings together.
This is the first time I see a detailed report on the losses of brittain in the falklands war. Usually they skip over these facts as fast as possible -- probably because it damages their pride and they are too busy on making the Argentians look as unprofessional as possible. Thank you for this.
Maybe you should watch more videos/read more books about the Falklands war. Most of what's available, detail the losses on both sides. No one likes it when losses occur. Yes , the British pride was hurt, I know because I was there. I am British , and PROUD. War is a terrible thing to experience !. The Argentine forces were very brave, especially the pilots. The Task Force overcame great odds, fighting 8000 miles away from their home base.
Nothing is skipped over and in fact the scathing report about the sinking of the Sheffield is available online for anyone to view as well as all the other ships we lost. The British always praised the Argentine pilots for their bravery, skill and professionalism. We don't need to make the Argentinians look unprofessional they do it for themselves. Perhaps you might try looking at why Argentina continues to claim ship losses that never happened? Or why the Argentinian government didn't want the Canberra to repatriate all the POW's from the Falkland Islands after telling the population they had sunk it. Perhaps explain how professional it was to have a numerically superior army well dug in for two months with better equipment and still fail to defend those small islands, being defeated and forced to surrender by a smaller force that had to invade from the sea 8000 miles away from home? Someone's pride was damaged but it wasn't ours.
While working a removals job I remember speaking to a client who was present on one of these ships during this attack. I remember being super frustrated as to why the RN ships failed to intercept the missiles and his reasoning for the failures. Guess I understand now. Looking back feel bad as you probably shouldnt give your clients flashback ptsd 2bh.
War is cruel, and sad. And a tough reality to face. I'll hope that we never have to fight again. That being said, Las Malvinas siempre serán argentinas. May God bring peace and prosperity to you all.
As a HMS Survivor and on watch in the vicinity of the Exocet hitting the ship there are a few inaccuracies that need amendment - especially the bearing reported and the fact that Sheffield did have radar tracks on the threat.
All I can say is that the source list for the video is in the description, so you can see what info I was working from. I read pretty widely for this series, but there’s always more to find
@@historigraph TVM for reply - The HMS Sheffield trackers had tracks on the Super E's and were aware that Glasgow reported them as Super Etendard. The Anti Air Warfare Officer (Lt Cdr Nick Batho) left the Operations Room for several minutes prior to the attack - the Command chain in the OPS Room broke down with him being absent. The Principal Warfare Officer (PWO) Lt Graham Tolly was on 8 miles range scale on his radar in Sheffield Ops Room as there was a reported Argentine Submarine in the area - When the Air team reported enemy aircraft approaching he made a tense pipe of main broadcast 'AWO Ops Room At The Rush' as he was not aware where the AWO was! Sadly by the time the AWO arrived in the Ops room the missile was only seconds from striking the ship. The bearing was known and tracks on but ID was obscured as you rightly point out Sheffield transmitted on Satellite which blocked out their EW system! This was know and a Command error! Both Batho and Tolly were repremanded for their conduct. however Admiral Fieldhouse did not want the eventual victory tarnished by Court Marshalls so there was none in the whole campaign. Great video series by the way and happy to chat if required ?
imagine having specialised anti air ships in your escort, having them detect a threat, warn you that there is a threat that you cant even see and then tell them "no its fine surely the enemy we are at war with wouldnt attack us" i hope whoever made that call got send to prison.
The ship never sunk being hit by the Exocet the ship sank two days later on tow to South Georgia due to the weather conditions and the amount of water in the ship from the fire fighting. The ship was burnt out but she did not sink that day.
I'm no expert but the words "That should damn well never of happened!" come to mind, purely out of frustration. Sympathies with those killed and injured and kudos to the Argentine pilots for their skill and bravery.
@@jonaswhitt4322 of course there was, make it a fleet order to to use satellite communications during the day. Ensure the command room was staffed at all times and relay information between ships effectively. There is probably more, I know it's easy for me to say but these were professional sailors and it was for their own safety.
@@rob5944 Except the raid happened during the day, and the satellite communications were actually contributing factors to the sheffields radar being fucked up. In hindsight your completely right there probably would have been something that could have been done which might have marginally helped, but as it was the frigates were already organized in a ok picket formation and it was a logistically challenging raid for the argentines to mount, so I wouldnt be surprised if the Royal Navies guard was slightly down. Besides even if the Sheffield had been hailed, it probably would not have mattered, it was equipped with outdated sea darter missiles that had pretty much no chance of detecting let alone intercepting either the enterdes or the exocets that they fired. Might have been slightly helpful preparing or damage control, but I doubt the ship would have made it either way.
@@jonaswhitt4322 It's Sea Dart, not sea darter, and had been in service less than 10 years at the time of the loss of HMS Sheffield so no, not outdated. Seven Argentine aircraft were brought down by Sea Dart during the Falklands conflict, and one unfortunate British Army Gazelle helicopter in a blue on blue incident. Sea Dart had a theoretical minimal engagement altitude of 30 metres, a pair of Skyhawks were shot down by HMS Exeter reportedly below that altitude. That said, the Sea Dart was more effective at medium and high altitudes. If HMS Sheffield had been aware of the attack then Sea Dart may have been used, but the primary defensive system would have been chaff.
TBF that wasn't woodward's fault - the Anti Air Warfare Co-ordinator aboard HMS Invincible was responsible for that decision. Woodward's flagship was HMS Hermes
7:53 more incorrect information, They didn't get as close as 12 miles, the range was estimated to be between 20 to 30 miles when they released 2 exocets and turned for home.
Just found out that my dad was on this ship! He bent down to tie his shoe at the right time, stopping him from being killed, VERY LUCKY now I'm researching what happened.
I've always wanted to understand what exactly happened during this war, but I've never seen a good documentary that breaks down all the key moments and isn't over-dramatic. It's the only time in my life that Britain has been at war, but I was too young to even know it was going on. That woman giving Thatcher the business over the sinking of the Belgrano, despite her being wrong, is the proudest I've ever been of this country.
This series is rather good at telling it how it happened, there is also a series by the Imperial War Museum, and also one in four parts on the battle for the falklands
Captain Sam Salt would go on to command HMS Southampton, after being found blameless by the board of enquirery, and eventially working his way up the ranks until he was a rear admiral. He retired from the navy in 1997, and passed away in 2009
@@icarus_falling They knew, the communication the Sheffield recieved was unauthorised. The people who were found to be negligent were the primary warfare officer and the anti air officer, although the MOD decided not to court martial them
The coverup by the british navy is quite good, and the details here would apparently be the official summary version of events. the real version of events is that the the boss didn't have to be in the ships defense room ... the defense room crew had authority and training to do absolutely everything anyway, probably better if the boss wasn't there mutterring " you pathetic worms, get a lock on now, you must be blind !". There was no "interefernce" by the use of other systems thats just a balmy idea. What the actual cause was was the argie's came from the blindspot created by the Glasgow.
"We didn't feel that it was retaliation...proved we had the ability to sink one of their's too" Maybe I'm mistaken, but isn't that basically what revenge kill means?
I remember keeping up with the daily news reports and shouting at the TV when clearly mistakes were made by the so called ruling classes of officers in charge of operations, apart from Sheffield there was the Sir Galahad where anyone knows, you just don’t land troops at lunchtime or was it left until after breakfast!!
obviusly you can justify why you never saw the aircrafts , the missiles...whatever...but was our first time an air force take part on a war...and i think they did very well
Hit the ocean. The missiles weren't without its faults. Out of the five air launched, three hit, and two hit the water (or possibly one hit the water and one was shot down, last is unclear). Basically, Argentina had 8 launches (5 air,3 land) Out of these 8 Two were fired at Sheffield (1 hit one miss) Two were fired at SS Atlantic conveyor (two hits) One was fired at HMS Exeter (some in Argentina claim this was HMS invincible, evidence proves otherwise. It missed) There was a ground based missile which shot at (and missed), HMS Penelope And then there were two aimed at HMS Glamorgan (one hit, one miss)
Argentina is constantly on the verge of economic collapse and they purchase all kinds of military equipment and take on Great Britain!?! Granted, they probably didn't think that England would fight them for the islands but Argentina should look after the resources that they already have, which is a lot.
@@blitzblutz However, Argentina sent 5,000 men to fight in World War II, highlighting its aviators from the British Argentine RAF 164 squadron (the Black Knight of Malta, for example). The ties between the two nations go beyond the war, since more than 500,000 British live In Argentina today and Patagonia, for example, was inhabited by Welsh in the mid-19th century, keeping their customs intact...
The Sea Harrier CAP which had been well to the west was diverted by Hermes to investigate a possible surface threat, leaving a gap in the "Defence in Depth" screen. As well, 800 squadron pilots did not trust the Blue Vixen radar and the staff on Hermes had forbidden 800 pilots to use it for downward looking oversea scanning. (801 pilots had been instructed not to use it either, but ignored the directive) The threat was anticipated, prepared for and in place and should have resulted in deterring the raid at the least when the RWR in the Argentine aircraft warned of a Sea Harrier CAP in their path, but they were not there, and not using the radar. (Source: Sea Harrier over the Falklands, Commander Nigel Ward)
Yes it's ridiculous that pilots were diverted to search for possible contacts by eye - which is what happened to this CAP group which should have been covering Sheffield. 800 Squadron and commanders on board Hermes refused to listen to Sharkey (801) and take advice on the operation of Blue Fox. Even more galling is after the conflict we found out tht Argentinian pilots were told to RTB whenever they detected Sea Harrier's RADAR - so had 800 taken 801's lead - there would have been two thirds more Sea Harrier RADAR emissions in the air which would have thwarted countless attacks.
Start building your ideal daily routine 💪The first 100 people who click on the link will get 25% OFF 🎁 Fabulous Premium ➡ thefab.co/historigraph
Feedback:
Although this video is great, it still feels incomplete:
1. How did the jets return to Argentina?
Did they have enough fuel, or did they have to refuel on their way back, too?
2. Did the pilots earn any medals from Argentina?
3. Did those five men who died because they refused to abandon their stations get any medals?
4. What were the consequences for the captain and the senior officers?
You said the captain of the Glasgow had prohibited the use of that communications rig - I assumed that was to set the stage for a court marshal, or at least a new fleet-wide rule.
Also, those men not being at their stations, surely they didn't just get off with zero career consequences??
Overall, a GREAT video, but the end seemed very abrupt, and the story still unfinished :)
That tip for those working from home about taking a five minute walk is Fabulous! Thank you !:-)
💜🙏⚡️
You should consider using Google Translate to hear the correct pronunciation of foreign words. It's Etendard, but you say En-tend-ard. Since you say it multiple times, it gets a little annoying.
@@adrien5834
In fact, he says "in-ten-dart" 😅
(the first time, at least; at 2:36 he says "in-ten-thars," and at 2:49 it's "in-ten-dars" - I think that's literally every option covered, lol)
But yeah, it totally threw me for a loop the first time, too 😆
I actually had to rewind multiple times, but still didn't really get it....
Luckily, the Subtitles were written out, so that helps people who want to Google the plane - _really_ cool that he makes that extra effort! 😃👍🏼
(the auto-generated subs, by contrast, think he says "nintendos" at 2:49😂👌🏼)
@@MrNicoJac I mean, I did like the video. I didn't mean to sound too acerbic...
I can't even begin to imagine the frustration and dread at HMS Glasgow when their sister ship isn't doing anything to prevent iminent danger.
Even more so was they "confirmed" 4 kills when all they got was well 2.
Lost contact after engagement = confirmed kill
What happened with the second missile? There is no reference in the video, it just disappears from radar.
@@imking1630 It's not entirely certain because unsurprisingly, the crew of Sheffield were similarly garbage at tracking that situation. It probably missed the Sheffield and splashed down half a mile away. Pure luck that the ship didn't get hit a second time.
There's a really good summary of the engagement at the start of Sandy Woodward's memoir "One Hundred Days". He goes in to a bit more detail on what was happening in HMS Glasgow's Ops Room.
@@imking1630 is ran out of propellant and was seen ditching into the sea. This was seen visually by some RN crewmembers. Iirc its documented in a ships log.
10:11 The way you present complex information in the form of infographics is second to none
Thanks so much mate- means a lot
You two should consider doing collab videos -- love both of your work!
High praise from the Ops room right there, I love both your channels
It's fake. Sheffield sunk days later when a tug rammed it.
The UK military learnt a lot from this conflict. Having being largely army focused due to the NI troubles no one thought that aluminium on warships or nylon uniforms for the ship's company would be a problem. Also putting the right personnel in the right positions. The captain of Sheffield, as I understand it, was a former submarine commander. This wasn't the only incident that lessons were learned from, there were others. In any conflict lessons are learnt quickly, early on. I don't think that it was just the fault of officers in command but also the designers and beaurocrats back in the UK ministry of defence. The bravery shown by both UK and Argentine military is without question.
The Sheffield's role was primarily to counter the submarine threat and a former Submarine Commander was an appropriate candidate.
@@sichere Sheffield was a type 42 air warfare destroyer - not there primarily to counter the submarine threat. The Captain & First Lieutenant's skillsets were found wanting - according to the Board of Enquiry.
@@docdr7199 Indeed but the role that they had at that time was to counter the very real Submarine threat, as an unsuccessful attack had already been made on the Task force and the Captain was not reprimanded.
@@sichere We disagree...
@@docdr7199
The Task force was attacked by ARA San Luis on the 1st May. ARA San Luis completed a five-week patrol unscathed. She staged several attacks on British warships but missed each time because of torpedo system malfunctions. Meanwhile, British ASW efforts against that single target proved futile. The British fired over 200 torpedoes at false contacts over the five weeks,
You are correct but the bigger picture was that the RN were forced to operate their ships in ways they where not designed for, including defending the beachhead in San Carlos.
Previous to the Falklands, Whitehall had assured the RN that the RAF had the ability to cover Naval operations.
Also, initially Exocet missiles were not identified as Foe, due to the British fleet operated them too, so only defensive action could be taken at the time. After the attack on HMS Sheffield and the withdrawal of the Argentinian Navy, the computers were updated.
Of course, most people in the UK (that are old enough) remember the Falklands War. However the detail you provide is fantastic. Learned things I didn't know.
Currently the IWM channel (Imperial War Museum) are running a video series about the Falklands war. Worth checking out for anyone interested in learning about it.
It was NEVER a war brother,, it was a conflict war was never declared, just greasing the wheels and sharing the love xxxx
@@bobmiller7502 like the Ukraine, you meant to say? Not a war?
Those videos are propaganda, ir you're really interested on the conflict, see both countries videos, with NO propaganda.
@@bobmiller7502 correct as Thatcher never stood up in parliament and declared that we were ar war with Argentina.
@@michaelhearn3052 xx
You can’t build a “cheap ship” If you reduce the monetary cost you’ll pay in sailor’s blood
Also, get a competent captain.
@@andrewholdaway813
hard to believe those kinds of issues still exist isn’t it?
@@cjclark2002 I mean not really, humans are always humans and even though we try to make the military purely a professional thing based on merit that's hard in practice. Plus you never know when someone is just having a bad day, that's kinda the issue in war, it's almost impossible to keep alert 24/7 and humans are bad at judging risk. Also I think it's worth noting that the Admiral takes just as much blame here since he seemingly had the same careless attitude and didn't redirect the jets nor did he order the fleet to take proper precautions like not using satelite communications.
Which we are doing again by skimping on weapons system for Type 45.
What about the sas in Argentine , observing all departures of combat aircraft? This was a cock up.
I remember reading one book a while ago that talked about one issue the Royal Navy had during the war was its anti-air capability. From what I remember, the author said it was due to what the RN was expected to do in the event of the Cold War going hot.
The RN had been given a particular task (anti-submarine if I remember correctly) as part of a larger NATO mission, with the expectation that other NATO Navies would be there performing other tasks like dedicated air defence and so on. So the RN had spent decades planning to fight as part of big multinational force and then came the Falkland War...
Suddenly the RN was fighting a war it had never expected and they found they had some serious capability issues, with air defence being a big one. As what they had avaliable was good if there is someone else nearby with better kit and you expected to be part of a wider network. Not so good if it is the only thing avaliable.
And of course, the Argentine pilots had the skills to find and exploit those short comings.
The argies had bought two Type 42s from us and were able to practise mock attacks against them. That is one reason in part why the attack on the Sheffield was successful.
Very insightful observation, though it no doubt explains why the UK went on the develop the Type 45 Destroyer.
@@TeamCGS2005 and in the next war RN's adversary will attack them with submarines 😂
I do have evidence that the Sheffield was attacked on May the 1st with bombs (not the 4th with an Exocet)
What a preventable attack. They had ample warning and they managed to screw it up. There are times, I think, some commanders don't deserve their post.
Submarine Captain! Helicopter No2!
Alot don't
No one was held responsible in typical British cover up.
There was of course a full-naval board of enquiry afterwards that exonerated Captain Sam Salt from any undue blame in this incident! He had of course responsibility to answer for the performance & conduct of his ship, for himself & those of the HMS Sheffield’s Officers, NCOs & Crew too, during this event & the immediately preceding period, which he did in fact do too!
The fact that there were then no specific, uniform ’Royal Naval’ standing orders or standard operating procedures regarding these particular systems at that time in effect that directly led to the circumstances that had been brought about by turning off one particular operating early warning radar system, in order not to compromise the operational efficacy or security of another, separately-integrated, parallel functioning, electronic-systems, therefore would then seem to expose an obvious systemic oversight & inconsistency in operational protocols at that time in 1982, a fact backed up by only HMS Glasgow of the three (The Sheffield, Coventry & Glasgow) screening Type-42 Destroyers then on forward Fleet Air Defence duties then performing these duties, had also operated, as both the alternative EWS & inter-ship communications systems had been also both temporarily switched off too by on their respective Captains’ orders & hence, they were unable to establish contact with either of the two other Type-42 ships then on forward Air Defence Patrol, whose corresponding systems had been then temporarily deactivated on legitimate but inconsistent RN orders under these circumstances!!
This incident then led to a navy/fleet review of operational procedures in those situations & apparently it had been deemed by the subsequent naval enquiry that this case had arisen due to newly implemented or even experimental technologies not having been clearly, previously defined or systematically applied, but then overtaking existing operational procedures at the time that in this particular case had directly led to the tragic loss of lives & sinking of the HMS Sheffield!
Later, Captain Sam Salt went on to complete a successful naval career, retiring as a Rear Admiral in 1997. He died of cancer in 2009.
HMS Coventry was sunk and HMS Glasgow was hit....so who could tell anything to Captain Salt
I remember this well as I was a bit of a news junkie at the time. It even had made it into one of my science magazines.
One thing to remember is that this was so deadly because of mistakes ON BOTH SIDES. The Exocet missile had a much longer range than had been used. Had the missiles been fired from a safer distance, there would have been less fuel to feed the fire, which was far deadlier than the warhead alone.
There's always enough food for a fire in any machinery room...
@@leopold3146 True enough. However, the assessment at the time was this specific missile was more of a molotov cocktail than a bomb.
So the missiles were shot shorter than the intended range and that makes it less deadlier because less fuel? I think I misunderstood something because I don't understand the logic
@@Fae-Fey makes it more deadly
@@Fae-Fey Not less, more. Shorter distance = Less fuel expended.
No doubt the Argentinian Air Force was something to contend with, not only because of its size but mostly because of its daring and highly skilled pilots. I've always had the impression that the Brit Fleet somehow underestimated the danger the Argies' planes posed and later paid a high price for it. A lesson for future engagements.
not 300 fighters jets, the number includes all. but it was pretty big during the military regime yeah
small correction, most of the damage to the british fleet was done by the Navy Aviation (COAN), not the Air Force. The COAN that was specifically trained to perform these exact type of attacks. The Air Force was big in numbers, but had very limited ways of projecting power to the Islands, the planes simply lacked the range and equipment. That's why on paper the numbers greatly favor Argentina, but in reality there was never a favorable situation in the air combat for us, everything we could do was avoid detection by flying low, strike the naval assets and assets on the ground, and fly back. There was no realistic scenario where we could stand a fight with A4s that had no radars, no flares, and no MAW vs the Harriers.
What "size" ??? They only had 240 aircraft, most of them 30 yo +, many propeller fighters from ww2 era, and from those 240 ONLY 120 were available. Worst, they had no maintenance for them ( US embargo from 1976). Even Belgorod was a ww2 era cruiser, lol, 50 yo, and was killed by a brand new nuclear sub... Imagine that, an 1938 cruiser fighting a modern nuclear sub...
@@mirandela777 - "Many propeller fighters from WW2 era"...! Are you crazy or just plain ignorant ? Please tell us make and model of such imaginary "propeller fighters" ! Then, you switch to naval affairs (though I wrote about the AIR FORCE only) ! Then you talk about a "US embargo from 1976"....Dude, that embargo was imposed on the neighboring country of CHILE...not Argentina ! and so on...
Moral: keep your mouth SHUT before writing novels or else better hit the books and get acquainted first with facts !
Everybody respected the ability and daring of those pilots, because they were Argentine.
Once the fleet set sail I relaxed. Anyway, the man who told me it was about to kick off down there had found himself a job in Britain a month earlier.
Mind you, hitting Sheffield surprised and annoyed me.
"I suspect someone's been bloody careless" - from your account, that was a very prescient and perceptive comment given how little he knew of the details of the situation at the time.
British understatement at it' finest (the "bloody careless" comment)
I do have evidence that the Sheffield was attacked on May the 1st with bombs (not the 4th with an Exocet)
The fact the Argentinians went below to about 50 feet above sea just to use the earth’s curvature fascinates me. I never knew the earth’s curvature could be use in such a manner. I wonder if other aerial operations of other wars used this tactic too. I find it interesting and amazing that the earth’s curvature could be use to hide oneself from the enemy. Very fascinating. Overall very well made video. Godspeed to those who perished during the Falkland War.
🇫🇰 🇬🇧 🇦🇷
Its a really common tactic.
Its why no one really cares much about Hypersonics nowadays, as long as you have harpoons that can glide along the curvature of the earth with minimal issues.
Common tactic.However the Argentine aircraft had to climb above the horizon to allow them to acquire the target.The bearing and range to the target allowed the missile to be launched.This according to the pilot took between one and two minutes,and after launch the aircraft dropped below the horizon while executing a 180 degree turn.The Exocet missile has an active seeker guidance system that switches on after launch to search for the target and home onto it.A ship won't out manouver it once launched.The only possible defence is,shootdown which is difficult,jamming or decoy.
Thats why North Korea has studied this war and started producing Argentine Pucaras....
@@EE-ve3vh.... what?
Never heard about that
@@matiasfpmbecause is not true
Was a midshipman in the West German navy at the time, and of course we were following closely what was going on down south in 1982.
I dare say that this film is the most clear and instructive on the chain of events that has lead to the loss of HMS Sheffield that I have seen so far.
BZ!
Thank you for your service to the DDR
@@trueKENTUCKY Federal German Navy was not the "DDR".
@@trueKENTUCKY - DDR was the Communist Germany... you mean the Bundesmarine, West Germany's Navy.
I do have evidence that the Sheffield was attacked on May the 1st with bombs (not the 4th with an Exocet)
Just comes to show how important a good captain is. The other destroyer was on the ball, and would have survived that had it been targeted. The ship's crew did everything it could to save its sister. Meanwhile, the Sheffield's crew were unprepared, lax, and doing things they shouldn't have been doing during wartime. That is something the captain could have resolved, but didn't.
At the time the exocet hit the Sheffield it was in communication which meant it had its radar turned off also at the time the only system that could tackle low flying missile was seawolf which the Sheffield was not equipped with
Had no idea so many mistakes were made by Sheffield. Senior officers still with peacetime thinking. Best graphics I have seen that clearly shows the sequence of events.
There were not mistakes: I do have evidence that the Sheffield was attacked on May the 1st with bombs (not the 4th with an Exocet)
Atlantic Conveyor was more critical loss due to the material carried. Exocet wasn't the only threat because 14 ships were hit by conventional bombs through air raids but didn't explode. If those 14 hits were exploited or if Argentina had more Exocet missiles UK would have lost the war. I've seen a documentary where the Argentinian pilot said was launched the Exocet from longer distance and it didn't exploited but caused the fire due to its fuel.
They did not explote because Mitterand gave the codes to Thatcher.
@@EE-ve3vh there wasn't any codes, you can't disable a missile with "codes", Mitterrand might have given other useful information like the search radar frequencies to jam it.
@@martindione386
You are correct on the codes. But Mitterand didn't have to provide any frequencies. The frequency bands used by radar seekers on all but the most experimental missiles are common knowledge to all the leading military powers.
Los pilotos navales, Armando Mayora - Augusto Bedacartatz.🇦🇷
4-5-1982 El Sheffield se convirtió en el primer buque de guerra británico 🏴hundido desde Segunda Guerra Mundial y el primero de la OTAN.
20 Muertos y 63 heridos condolencias a familiares del HMS Sheffield - Su capitán Sam Salt.
Despues del fin de la Segunda Guerra Mundial , Argentina🇦🇷 , Excelentes pilotos Alemane🇩🇪 en nuestro pais capacitaron a los pilotos arg. Adof Galland - Hans Ulrich Rudel- Behrens Otto - kurt Waldemar Tank- Werner Baumbach-
Heinz Scheidhauer.
Despite all these, bravery to the pilot that did the operation.
R.I.P to those 20 sailors that died on board HMAS Sheffield🙌
I do have evidence that the Sheffield was attacked on May the 1st with bombs (not the 4th with an Exocet)
Woo! Favorite channel post right before bed!
The range and punch of that little jet was astounding
The range and punch of that little jet was pathetic compared to other carrier strike aircraft of the same era.
@@mikearmstrong8483still, the bri'ish were nervous about those boom sticks ☠️
15 feet at 500 knots that's less than 5 meters at 926km/h the cold guts to do that are astounding.
50 feet
@@adrien5834 i've no doubt .... but we're talking about the aircraft & pilots not the missiles.
Silver lining:
As bad as it was for her, Sheffield actually accomplished her primary mission. Neither carrier was struck by enemy fire.
In extremis, the duty of the escorts is to take the hit to save the carrier. Thus, despite all the mistakes, and almost certainly inadvertently, Sheffield did succeed in her primary mission of keeping the carriers from being hit by the enemy missiles.
Followed by the Atlantic Conveyor on 25th May 1982, sacrificed to decoy the two Exocets.
@@EdMcF1 Exactly - "Picket ships"
Are you sure ?
@@EdMcF1 Atlantic Conveyor wasn't "sacrificed". The two exocets that hit her had been successfully decoyed by chaff fired from other ships. Unfortunately, Atlantic Conveyor wasn't fitted with any kind of countermeasures and was subsequently struck and lost. The loss of the Atlantic Conveyor was a huge blow to the task force as it was carrying a lot of important equipment including heavy lift Chinook helicopters.
The British general commanding the land troops that disembarked and fought all the way to Stanley - whose name I can't recall now - wrote a book about the campaign when the war was over, titled "No picnic !". These two words say it all.
Blame for the Sheffield also largely lay with the commanders (and 800 squadron) on Hermes who would not listen to Sharkey regarding the performance of Harrier’s RADAR, 800 squadron rarely used it believing it to be dead weight where as 801 were getting terrific results using the RADAR for CAP duties sweeping large areas - inter service “pride” (arrogance) meant that they would deride Sharkey rather than try to learn from him and his squadron. Harrier CAPs were often sent off to investigate contacts using the Mk1 eyeball rather than sweeping the area with RADAR - this is why the current CAP Harriers were off on a wild goose chase when Sheffield was attacked - to spend half an hour doing a visual search that could have been done in 5 seconds with air-borne RADAR. It also transpired after the war that Argentinian pilots were told to RTB if they detected Sea Harrier RADARs - so if 800 squadron had taken Sharkey’s advice and technical assistance in the use of Sea Harrer’s Blue Fox, many attacks on the fleet would have been thwarted merely from the presence of two thirds more Sea Harrier RADARs in the sky.
I like this channel's emphasis on naval history
This is a really interesting and well compiled series on Falklands war. Well done
I remember this well.
Me and a view friends had just bought Fish and Chips one evening on the south coast of England, and were eating it out of the paper standing around another friend’s car listening to the news on the car radio.
When the news came through, we were all shocked to hear it.
It brought home the fact that there would be losses on both sides, and that there was more bad news likely to come.
But we were all proud of Britains response and determination to retake the Falkland Islands and liberate the British citizens. Not forgetting South Georgia as well.
Like all conflicts there is loss of life and other people have to live with that loss, and also many have to live with the physical and mental scars.
For those that would never return, we will never forget.
Britain's response? Britain should not have thought the Malvinas were theirs for the taking to begin with.
"liberate the British citizens" yet the only 3 civilian casualties were caused by british fire.
I was serving in the RAN during and after this war. We were told that the warhead of the missile didn’t explode and the fires were caused by the unexpended rocket fuel. Can your research confirm this?
That was the original conclusion however exocets were brand new at the time and people didn't have much experience of them, in the latest RN review (I think it was 2016/2017) they concluded that the warhead did detonate.
@@tomriley5790 Thank you. ❤️
About 50% of all Exocets ever fired haven't detonated - it's a common fault.
Interesting discription of this event. I personally have spoken to a sailor who was in theSheffields op room at this time. His description of the events is quite different. He said that in fact they did pick up the in coming aircraft but their officer did not believe the contact. He also said the they were hit with one exocet but it failed to explode. Its impact set their superstructure on fire - it was aluminium ( to save momey and weight) and it was impossible to put this fire out.
I actually have a mug from the HMS Sheffield, my GPA was US Navy, traded one from his ship for it when he met them in port before the war. So somewhere on that wreck may very well be a mug from the USS Piedmont
A great friend of mine was in charge of assembling and testing the Exocet target tracking heads.
He was also telling that heads were sometimes delivered by him personally to the Argentinians, after the periodical recalibrations.
After this event, he mentally suffered a lot and he completely changed its job.
Im so sorry your friend suffers from such a weak constitution
What did your friend think he was doing ? Obviously the intent was to increase the probability of a direct hit......
Your content is 10/10 like late 90s early 2000s history Channel. thank you.
you mean before they brought aliens into their show
@@gastonmdq07 nah dude aliens did everything
It is a common misconception that you need to hit something multiple times to destroy it as if you were reducing its hit points to 0.
What good is a weapon system that doesn't neutralize a target after a hit? Sure not every hit is a kill just like people surviving after being stabbed/shot, but all it takes is a single hit to be a kill, a kill-shot!
The exact point of impact and circumstances within the hit ship, along with just sheer luck, must play a very strong role in the final outcome.
Many vehicles, boats could take multiple hits to kill it, it depends on what's doing the hitting and where they hit!
That's not how Hit points works in a Navy context.
I believe that baseline is how many 14 inch Shells you can be hit with.
I don't know how much damage an Exorcet could do. 3 maybe
@@garethjames1300 yes you can design a new armor to defeat a weapon system, but the natural evolution is to design a new weapon that defeats the armor and takes out the target with a single hit.
Now of course the older system is kept because it takes time and money to replace everything with new systems. As the older systems are are still effective against the older targets it was designed to destroy.
True, one 14" shell didn't sink the Bismarck but it was enough to make it abandon its mission.
Just a puncture in a fuel tank from a shell that didn't explode was a mission-kill.
What amazes me is that Salt was given another command. He ended up as a Rear Admiral. He should have been Court-Martialed.
Demasiado daño provocaron las Fuerzas Armadas Argentinas a los ingleses siendo ésta una guerra totalmente improvisada y corta pensando hasta ultimo momento que la Task Force no iba a venir.
The irony of it all. Up till now, the informed part of the public thought the Exocet missiles were so good that modern anti air radar and missiles were useless against them.
Now we learn that the destruction of the Sheffield was in large part to blame on the Royal Navy herself.
And the Exocet's warhead didn't even detonate but because it still had most of its fuel, that started the fire and the ship's non-existent fire proofing ensured it was doomed.
Save the most recent 2015 MOD report concluded that the missile DID detonate.....
Not really, was honestly more timing then anything else and logistical constraints the royal navy faced. The british only had 40 harriers which was not enough to provide both adequate fleet protection from argentinian strikes and conduct raids on stanley and other military targets on the falklands. The air defense platform their ships were predominantly equipped with the sea darter, was horribly outdated and unreliable, the sea wolf was slightly better, but it was very new at the time and still had problems. Both the glasgow and the sheffield only had the sea darter. The argentine fighters flew NAP most of the way, which left them pretty much undetectable to surface radar, same with the exocet itself as it flew too low for radars at the time to pick up. Anti ship missiles were still a very new threat at the time, and point defenses even newer and not that reliable. Even if the glasgow had been able to raise the sheffield to warn them of the threat, I honestly doubt it would have made any difference.
It honestly could have been far worse. If the Argentinians had started the war about a year later, they not only would have had their full complement of 100 exocets they ordered from france (when the war happened they only had like 6) but their is also a good chance they would have had total air supremacy as there were serious plans to sell the HMS invincible to Australia, and the HMS Hermes was due to be decommissioned. Not to mention if Argentina had actually enlarged the airfield on stanley, they could have launched super entardes and sea hawks from it instead of the mainland, which would have drastically increased their range and amount of missions they could have performed against the Royal Navy, probably would have allowed them to engage harriers in aerial combat as well. Really a major part of British success in the war came from Argentinian incompetence and improper planning rather then their own.
@@jonaswhitt4322 That's a lot of if.
@@copter2000 well originally the operation was actually planned to start around a year later then it actually did, once the argentinian military was better equipped and prepared. Was accelerated because of tensions around South Georgia islands which werent entirely planned by the Argentinians. Had the Argentinian military actually started the war when they originally meant to, it would have been a entirely different situation both for Argentina and the UK.
That being said, the biggest problem was they just assumed the British would not respond, so they didn't really prepare accordingly like with not enlarging the airfield at stanley, using mostly conscript units that were also not well supplied for the siege they were about to face. Another glaring example was when the war broke out, the majority of the Argentinian Navy had to be commanded by junior officers because most of its senior leadership at the time were at a NATO conference in Western Germany. Finally a lot of air and ground units were not utilized and left in Patagonia throughout the war because of tensions with Chile.
Had just any of these things been different, they could have potentially had a serious outcome on the war.
@@jonaswhitt4322 Even if they couldn't do anything about the missile, the advance warning would still likely save lives and possibly even the ship by making them better prepared for damage control, instead of needing to think about complicated actions while fire and smoke are spreading.
I remember when that happened. I was glued to my little tv keeping up with the news.
I worked on a prototype automatic system that controlled ventilation on the Sheffield. It went wrong and we were asked to provide a new set of boards that would be flown to the ascension isles. The company quoted cost price but was turned down....so the ventilation system was manual only. When we heard it had sunk we were grateful to hear the chief pretty officer and his team in charge of our tech had survived. He told us a major problem fighting the fires was the lack of ventilation and thick acrid smoke. He was sure it would have been a different outcome had the smoke been cleared.
Great presentation. Would be interesting to find out if the Moskva sank in similar circumstances.
Moskva was 2.65 times the size of Sheffield, and was of all-steel construction rather than Sheffield's aluminum superstructure (which doesn't hold up well to fire). Even with the fact that Moskva was hit by two missiles rather than just one (albeit Neptune has a slightly lighter warhead than Exocet), that ship absolutely should not have been lost. If the Russian Navy had competent damage control, Moskva would've safely gotten back to port for repairs.
I believe that current reports are saying the same. Two missiles were shot at her and they scored a lucky hit on those big SSMs. It wasn't so much the SSM itself, it was the ammo it set off. So the Russians aren't really stretching the truth about losing the ship to a fire. They are just omitting what started it.
@@RedXlV Sheffield was an all steel construction. The type 21s Amazon class were aluminium build. I would add that the Russian navy like the army and airforce are manned by conscripts. So there is a question as to how adequately they are trained to problem solve and act on their own initiative. I suspect there was a fire on board as a result of the missile strikes and a hit below the waterline causing flooding and smoke problems. Pictures of the ship show it on fire listing to port and all the liferafts on the port side launched. I suspect that it sank whilst under tow. IMHO.
@@rcgunner7086 If a P-1000 Vulkan got set off by the Neptunes hitting it, Russia is lucky that Moskva didn't get broken in half and lost with all hands. Those are 1-ton warheads, and you have a pair of the missiles sitting right up against each other so one detonating would have a high risk of detonating the other.
If it's the onboard SSMs that were the source of the fire, it's probably that their fuel caught fire without actually detonating the warheads.
The task force commander’s worst nightmare, low flying fast jets dropping bombs, or in this case firing missiles. Very difficult to defend against that threat as demonstrated here.
Good video
Grettings from Argentina
A very good video. Well done on a high quality production. One small observation: the attacking Argentine jets were not named 'Super Intendard’. They were called 'Super Etendard' (or 'Super Standard' in English).
Regardless of the circumstances of Sheffield's sinking, it's important to remember that she was intentionally placed in harm's way on picket duty. Because of this the risk to her - as with the other Type 42s on picket duty that day - was high. The picket ships formed the first line of a layered defence which was meant to protect the highest value assets, i.e. the two aircraft carriers HM Ships Hermes and Invincible.
My reason for stating the above is that it's entirely possible that even if all three Type 42s had survived the Exocet attack of 4th May, then one of them might have been lost to some other enemy action (as HMS Coventry was on 25th May). We just don't know. What is known however is that against a professional naval air arm equipped with modern aircraft and battle proven weapons, losses are likely.
In terms of the actual value of the attack, Argentina expended 40% of its stock of Exocet missiles to eliminate one guided missile destroyer (albeit a recently commissioned one). It's for military historians to judge whether the attack added any value to the overall Argentine campaign. However it could be argued that the Exocet attack on SS Atlantic Conveyor (also 25th May) was of more material value to the Argentine war effort, since it deprived British land forces of most of its helicopter heavy lift capability, tent accommodation for thousands of troops and also a temporary runway surface to be used as a forward operating strip.
Interestingly, for several years afterwards many Argentinians believed that their naval Etendards had sunk the STOVL aircraft carrier HMS Invincible rather than a roll-on/roll-off freight carrier which had been taken up from trade for the war. In fact, the naval squadron which carried out the Atlantic Conveyor attack painted kill credit silhouettes of HMS Invincible on the noses of their Super Etendard attack aircraft - such was the belief among Argentinians that they had managed to sink a carrier.
@Michael Hearn You're correct in saying that there were several versions of the Exocet (e.g. MM38, AM38, AM39, SM39 & MM40), and that Argentina held additional stocks of them. What you seem to have overlooked however is that this video is about the HMS Sheffield incident.
The attack on Sheffield was by fixed wing aircraft - and so all references regarding numbers used in the video and subsequent comments refer to the AM39 air-launched version of the Exocet, and not its other variants. In fact my comment about the 40% of AM39 stock used simply picks up on the same point made in the video at 11:44. As does my mention of the attack on SS Atlantic Conveyor, which was also a Super Etendard sortie using AM39.
Your point about the ships in the RN Task Group being armed with Exocet is also technically accurate. But again, how is that relevant to the subject of this video? Yes the Type 12 Leanders, Type 21s, Type 22s and County class ships were all equipped with MM38 launchers. But a ship placed up-threat and on picket duty can't respond 'to' an Exocet 'with' an Exocet, as it's not a defensive munition.
Besides, most of the ARA surface fleet had already returned to port or coastal waters after the General Belgrano was sunk on 2nd May - which removed most of the targets the RN would have used the MM38 against in one stroke. But like I say, how is any of that relevant to a video about an AM39 attack on HMS Sheffield?
Seen comments from Argentines still saying that the carrier was sank... even on the comments section showing video evidence of the carrier coming back after the war in victory. Bizarre belief.
It was not a kill paint, it was a "damaged" paint. The Argentine navy and Air force said that they hit the carrier, not that they sink it.
@@Squival138 Argentine forces declared a hit, not a sinking. I'm Argentine, and only a few but VERY vocal nutjob minority think the carrier was sunk, I personally came to the conclusion that the attack failed and the Invincible wasn't even hit.
Nadie en argentina dijo que hundieron al invencible que lo atacaron y lo dejaron fuera de combate es verdad ahí fue el quinto exocet hay una animación del ataque y dos pilotos sobreviviente de la faa por qué te crees que el invencible volvió meses después a Inglaterra recién pintado? El ataque existió fue operación conjunta de la armada argentina y la faa
I've been waiting for this.
Thank you 🙏 again for your EXCELLENT work
Great video, first time I have visited you sight.
I was sent to Portsmouth by my company, Vickers engineering as to carry out an update on HMS Sheffield seadart system.
Our team (3) were 7:52 onboard for around 8 weeks, until she was fit to sail to the Falkland 🥲
Can you imagine my shock and horror, when I heard the news 🙏🙏
34 dislikes are flat earthers for 4:12
Excellent report. Some of Sheffiield's crew deserved a severer telling off, that's for sure, especially the captain and other officers.
Well you don't expect the top brass to take the rap.The crew were competent and well trained.Its too easy to say that the ship loss was attributed to the crew.
For a dose of irony, when HMS Sheffield was being constructed, an explosion during construction killed two dockyard workers and damaged a section of the hull, which was replaced with a section from an identical ship, Hércules, being built for the Argentine Navy. As such, it's ironic that the Sheffield would eventually be sunk by the Argentinians.
I worked on the Three type 42 being built inBarrow one British and two Argentine the navy lads praisedthem what happened would never have happened to the Old Tribal class destroyers made of hydrologics and steel
Even more ironically a similar section of her sister ship the ARA Santísima Trinidad was damaged by a bomb while she was being fitted in Argentina.
When I see things like this especially the Invisible not responding to warnings drives me nuts. ( I just wonder what his excuse was when he had to report why Invinsibile failed to respond) It's always somebody bot doing their job that causes disasters like these. It's the very reason the Titanic sunk. It's always somebody NOT doing their job. The idea of trying to second guess warnings or ignoring them has historically cost so many lives. The Titanic was warned of icebergs but ignored the warnings and continued at top speed.
The Titanic's wireless operators told Californian's operator to "shut up" and they ignored the warning. Later that night the Californian spotted the flares from the Titanic. Lord was woken - twice - but said the flares were probably "company rockets" - signals between ships from the same line. He took no action. When the Japanese were approaching Pearl the young radar operator was told to ignore the mass of planes approaching the Island by his superior. We all know how that ended. It's always somebody not doing their job that ends in catastrophe. It drives me nuts. LOL
Best way to advertise for the exocet missile.
I think the guy who fired the missile should be called Rango, because "It only takes one bullet..."
Congratulation on this detailed documentary. Today First time after 40 years I see how the British set their fleet up. Argentine's TV or YT videos never showed something like this So easy to understand. Thank you very much.
Now I always thought Hermes and Invincible were far away from each other like one in the north and in the South the other. Never imagine both sailings together.
Q dcís ????!!
maybe bcause you don't speak spanish?
El invencible fue atacado y puesto fuera de combate
This is the first time I see a detailed report on the losses of brittain in the falklands war. Usually they skip over these facts as fast as possible -- probably because it damages their pride and they are too busy on making the Argentians look as unprofessional as possible.
Thank you for this.
Maybe you should watch more videos/read more books about the Falklands war. Most of what's available, detail the losses on both sides. No one likes it when losses occur. Yes , the British pride was hurt, I know because I was there. I am British , and PROUD. War is a terrible thing to experience !. The Argentine forces were very brave, especially the pilots. The Task Force overcame great odds, fighting 8000 miles away from their home base.
@@tonyjetcrow2954 Well, that didn't take long now did it.
@@egnappahz seriously though egnapp, gotta 2nd to what Tony & Jet wrote..
Nothing is skipped over and in fact the scathing report about the sinking of the Sheffield is available online for anyone to view as well as all the other ships we lost. The British always praised the Argentine pilots for their bravery, skill and professionalism. We don't need to make the Argentinians look unprofessional they do it for themselves. Perhaps you might try looking at why Argentina continues to claim ship losses that never happened? Or why the Argentinian government didn't want the Canberra to repatriate all the POW's from the Falkland Islands after telling the population they had sunk it. Perhaps explain how professional it was to have a numerically superior army well dug in for two months with better equipment and still fail to defend those small islands, being defeated and forced to surrender by a smaller force that had to invade from the sea 8000 miles away from home? Someone's pride was damaged but it wasn't ours.
@@Matelot123 well in any case it should be by now.
Excellent video 📹
Excellent graphics.
Yikes, a damming video
Captain Salt drunk the sea ! Sorry, a funny french expression (he drunk a cup of ocean).
What happened to the second Exocet though?
it looks like it missed.
It ran out of propellant and ditched into the sea.
@@michaelhearn3052 Ah, thx. I wonder if that means it was a faulty missile or the pilot simply released too early...
While working a removals job I remember speaking to a client who was present on one of these ships during this attack. I remember being super frustrated as to why the RN ships failed to intercept the missiles and his reasoning for the failures. Guess I understand now. Looking back feel bad as you probably shouldnt give your clients flashback ptsd 2bh.
9:58 Were there medals etc. for these 5?
Lt Cdr Woodhead was posthumously given the DSC, not sure on others
4:14 Flat earthers having a conniption here
1st May 1982. There was various Argentine air attacks which were repelled by the UK Task Force.
Made in France
Coming straight from the 21st century
War is cruel, and sad. And a tough reality to face. I'll hope that we never have to fight again.
That being said, Las Malvinas siempre serán argentinas.
May God bring peace and prosperity to you all.
As a HMS Survivor and on watch in the vicinity of the Exocet hitting the ship there are a few inaccuracies that need amendment - especially the bearing reported and the fact that Sheffield did have radar tracks on the threat.
All I can say is that the source list for the video is in the description, so you can see what info I was working from. I read pretty widely for this series, but there’s always more to find
@@historigraph TVM for reply - The HMS Sheffield trackers had tracks on the Super E's and were aware that Glasgow reported them as Super Etendard. The Anti Air Warfare Officer (Lt Cdr Nick Batho) left the Operations Room for several minutes prior to the attack - the Command chain in the OPS Room broke down with him being absent. The Principal Warfare Officer (PWO) Lt Graham Tolly was on 8 miles range scale on his radar in Sheffield Ops Room as there was a reported Argentine Submarine in the area - When the Air team reported enemy aircraft approaching he made a tense pipe of main broadcast 'AWO Ops Room At The Rush' as he was not aware where the AWO was! Sadly by the time the AWO arrived in the Ops room the missile was only seconds from striking the ship. The bearing was known and tracks on but ID was obscured as you rightly point out Sheffield transmitted on Satellite which blocked out their EW system! This was know and a Command error! Both Batho and Tolly were repremanded for their conduct. however Admiral Fieldhouse did not want the eventual victory tarnished by Court Marshalls so there was none in the whole campaign. Great video series by the way and happy to chat if required ?
@@historigraph yeap I have seen this video many times and much of it is correct. Date is 4th May of the attack.
damn cant believe 2 super Nintendo's destroyed a British ship
lol I heard that too!
Grandes los pilotos argentinos!
imagine having specialised anti air ships in your escort, having them detect a threat, warn you that there is a threat that you cant even see and then tell them "no its fine surely the enemy we are at war with wouldnt attack us" i hope whoever made that call got send to prison.
The ship never sunk being hit by the Exocet the ship sank two days later on tow to South Georgia due to the weather conditions and the amount of water in the ship from the fire fighting. The ship was burnt out but she did not sink that day.
I'm no expert but the words "That should damn well never of happened!" come to mind, purely out of frustration. Sympathies with those killed and injured and kudos to the Argentine pilots for their skill and bravery.
Honestly was not much else the Royal Navy could have done differently.
@@jonaswhitt4322 of course there was, make it a fleet order to to use satellite communications during the day. Ensure the command room was staffed at all times and relay information between ships effectively. There is probably more, I know it's easy for me to say but these were professional sailors and it was for their own safety.
@@rob5944 Except the raid happened during the day, and the satellite communications were actually contributing factors to the sheffields radar being fucked up. In hindsight your completely right there probably would have been something that could have been done which might have marginally helped, but as it was the frigates were already organized in a ok picket formation and it was a logistically challenging raid for the argentines to mount, so I wouldnt be surprised if the Royal Navies guard was slightly down.
Besides even if the Sheffield had been hailed, it probably would not have mattered, it was equipped with outdated sea darter missiles that had pretty much no chance of detecting let alone intercepting either the enterdes or the exocets that they fired. Might have been slightly helpful preparing or damage control, but I doubt the ship would have made it either way.
@@jonaswhitt4322 perhaps, I'm just going off what's what was said in the video. It's always a big mistake to underestimate the enemy.
@@jonaswhitt4322 It's Sea Dart, not sea darter, and had been in service less than 10 years at the time of the loss of HMS Sheffield so no, not outdated. Seven Argentine aircraft were brought down by Sea Dart during the Falklands conflict, and one unfortunate British Army Gazelle helicopter in a blue on blue incident. Sea Dart had a theoretical minimal engagement altitude of 30 metres, a pair of Skyhawks were shot down by HMS Exeter reportedly below that altitude. That said, the Sea Dart was more effective at medium and high altitudes. If HMS Sheffield had been aware of the attack then Sea Dart may have been used, but the primary defensive system would have been chaff.
Nightmare scenario, but this was an important lesson which had to be learned.
Sandy Woodward: "I suspect someone's been bloody careless."
Yes. You. For not taking a threat seriously and thinking if was another false alarm.
TBF that wasn't woodward's fault - the Anti Air Warfare Co-ordinator aboard HMS Invincible was responsible for that decision. Woodward's flagship was HMS Hermes
Great video sad story about the loss of life Going from peace to war mistakes must be inevitable Just a thought what happened to me second Exocet
7:53 more incorrect information, They didn't get as close as 12 miles, the range was estimated to be between 20 to 30 miles when they released 2 exocets and turned for home.
Just found out that my dad was on this ship! He bent down to tie his shoe at the right time, stopping him from being killed, VERY LUCKY now I'm researching what happened.
I've always wanted to understand what exactly happened during this war, but I've never seen a good documentary that breaks down all the key moments and isn't over-dramatic.
It's the only time in my life that Britain has been at war, but I was too young to even know it was going on.
That woman giving Thatcher the business over the sinking of the Belgrano, despite her being wrong, is the proudest I've ever been of this country.
This series is rather good at telling it how it happened, there is also a series by the Imperial War Museum, and also one in four parts on the battle for the falklands
What a documentary... Ill bet salt found life hard after that, especially when Glasgow was prepared and Sheffield not
And what was the captains career after losing his ship I wonder? Infact I'm going to look it up because Woodward had it right in what he said
Captain Sam Salt would go on to command HMS Southampton, after being found blameless by the board of enquirery, and eventially working his way up the ranks until he was a rear admiral. He retired from the navy in 1997, and passed away in 2009
@@littleshep5502 they didn't want the bad Press of a court marshall maybe. If one t42 knew the coms gear messed with the radar why didn't they all
@@icarus_falling They knew, the communication the Sheffield recieved was unauthorised. The people who were found to be negligent were the primary warfare officer and the anti air officer, although the MOD decided not to court martial them
The coverup by the british navy is quite good, and the details here would apparently be the official summary version of events. the real version of events is that the the boss didn't have to be in the ships defense room ... the defense room crew had authority and training to do absolutely everything anyway, probably better if the boss wasn't there mutterring " you pathetic worms, get a lock on now, you must be blind !". There was no "interefernce" by the use of other systems thats just a balmy idea. What the actual cause was was the argie's came from the blindspot created by the Glasgow.
"We didn't feel that it was retaliation...proved we had the ability to sink one of their's too"
Maybe I'm mistaken, but isn't that basically what revenge kill means?
What level of arrogance does a country have to have to expect fighting a war with no loses?
When the bearing was given to Sheffield, it wasn't given with clarification "true" or "relative.?"
I remember keeping up with the daily news reports and shouting at the TV when clearly mistakes were made by the so called ruling classes of officers in charge of operations, apart from Sheffield there was the Sir Galahad where anyone knows, you just don’t land troops at lunchtime or was it left until after breakfast!!
I see that Captain Salt's career was in no way affected by him losing his ship. 😲
I know no plan survives first contact, but this reads as a series of errors by the HMS Sheffield Officers?
Los mejores pilotos de combate del mundo!!!
Would love to see a carrier killer get a carrier -- the way Sheffield was sunk by Argentina.
We back some day 🇦🇷
Good luck
@@littleshep5502 always whatch the sea pirate !
@@martinvacirca7126 for the argentinian paddling tournament maybe?
@@littleshep5502 yes keep watching always !
@@martinvacirca7126 well, once again, good luck paddling the force hundreds of miles
A yes once again the french get to slap the British through a proxy
SHEFFIELD THE MISSLE IS COMING! OH MY GOD SHE HAS HEADPHONES ON! OH MY GOD SHE CANT HEAR US! OH MY GOD!
The aircraft is an Étendard (AY-tawn-dard) not an “ENtendard”.
obviusly you can justify why you never saw the aircrafts , the missiles...whatever...but was our first time an air force take part on a war...and i think they did very well
Muy buen documental..me queda una duda..el segundo misil exocet también alcanzó al sheffield? O dónde fue a parar?
Hit the ocean. The missiles weren't without its faults. Out of the five air launched, three hit, and two hit the water (or possibly one hit the water and one was shot down, last is unclear).
Basically, Argentina had 8 launches (5 air,3 land)
Out of these 8
Two were fired at Sheffield (1 hit one miss)
Two were fired at SS Atlantic conveyor (two hits)
One was fired at HMS Exeter (some in Argentina claim this was HMS invincible, evidence proves otherwise. It missed)
There was a ground based missile which shot at (and missed), HMS Penelope
And then there were two aimed at HMS Glamorgan (one hit, one miss)
They should have landed the survivors on invincible as a way of saying 'Told you it wasn't fake!'
Viva el mundo hispanico e irlanda. Malvinas argentinas Gibraltar español y ulster de irlanda
Aww bless, no
🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪
No son falkland... Se llaman Malvinas Argentinas
They are called the Falklands, and have been called the Falklands long before Argentina was named
@@littleshep5502 Malouines
@@MrBruh-yb9qi malouines -1764. Falklands -1690. My point still stands
Quiet west Falklander
@@littleshep5502 kinda not
The way this story goes, HMS Sheffield had no business leaving the pier.
Excelente video
Exocet moment
Argentina is constantly on the verge of economic collapse and they purchase all kinds of military equipment and take on Great Britain!?! Granted, they probably didn't think that England would fight them for the islands but Argentina should look after the resources that they already have, which is a lot.
This was 40 years ago genius.
@@fl3669 nothing has changed in 40 years. Argentina didn't have to lose anything in WWI or WWII. They were rich back then!
@@blitzblutz However, Argentina sent 5,000 men to fight in World War II, highlighting its aviators from the British Argentine RAF 164 squadron (the Black Knight of Malta, for example). The ties between the two nations go beyond the war, since more than 500,000 British live In Argentina today and Patagonia, for example, was inhabited by Welsh in the mid-19th century, keeping their customs intact...
The Sea Harrier CAP which had been well to the west was diverted by Hermes to investigate a possible surface threat, leaving a gap in the "Defence in Depth" screen. As well, 800 squadron pilots did not trust the Blue Vixen radar and the staff on Hermes had forbidden 800 pilots to use it for downward looking oversea scanning. (801 pilots had been instructed not to use it either, but ignored the directive) The threat was anticipated, prepared for and in place and should have resulted in deterring the raid at the least when the RWR in the Argentine aircraft warned of a Sea Harrier CAP in their path, but they were not there, and not using the radar. (Source: Sea Harrier over the Falklands, Commander Nigel Ward)
Yes it's ridiculous that pilots were diverted to search for possible contacts by eye - which is what happened to this CAP group which should have been covering Sheffield. 800 Squadron and commanders on board Hermes refused to listen to Sharkey (801) and take advice on the operation of Blue Fox. Even more galling is after the conflict we found out tht Argentinian pilots were told to RTB whenever they detected Sea Harrier's RADAR - so had 800 taken 801's lead - there would have been two thirds more Sea Harrier RADAR emissions in the air which would have thwarted countless attacks.