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@ForgottenWeapons Official argentine aircraft losses to type from the war.. Sea wolf 3 skyhawk a4b 1 dagger a Seadart 1 skyhawk a4b 2.5 skyhawk a4c 1 puma 1 learjet 35a 1 canberra b62 Sidewinder 9l 1.5 mirage lllea 9 dagger a 1 canberra b62 3 skyhawk a4b 2 skyhawk a4c 1 skyhawk a4q(navy) 0.5 hercules c130e Friendly fire (argentine) 1 skyhawk a4b 1 puma 0.5 mirage lllea CBU 3 pucara 0.5 puma Flying accident including evasion (manoeuvre kill) 1 skyhawk a4c 1 lynx 1 aermacchi mb339 1 puma 2 pucara 30mm cannon (harrier) 1 chinook 2.5 puma 1 pucara 2 skyhawk a4q(navy) 1 Augusta 0.5 hercules c130e 40mm (bofors) 1 skyhawk a4b SAS 6 pucara (ground) 1 pucara (stinger sam) 1 skyvan (ground) 4 mentor (ground) Small arms 1 puma (by royal marines) 1 pucara (by 2 para) Rapier 1 dagger A 0.67 skyhawk a4c Blowpipe 1 aeromacchi mb339a 0.67 skyhawk a4c Seacat 0.67 skyhawk a4c Went down with ship 1 alouette lll (belgrano) Captured intact 11 pucara 2 bell212 3 aermacchi mb339a 1 puma 1 chinook (later used by raf) 2 augusta a109a 9 iroquois Total 100 aircraft attrition Note.. since the war 2 wrecked skyhawk have been discovered and it is believed that these (and at least one other) ran out of fuel after sustaining damage at san Carlos and failed to return... likely from multiple possible weapons.. sea cat, mg, rapier etc.. British losses were 34 aircraft
Surgeon Captain Rick Jolly (Royal Navy) who ran the red and green life machine field hospital, was decorated by the Argentines for his care of Argentinian wounded.
Argentinian here. Yes, and all the Argentine prisoners interviewed after the war agreed that there was no preference for one side or the other, he handled the situation as if they were all on the same side. A true gentelman and hero. Greetings from Patagonia Argentina
I kind of understand why the local Falkland islanders still have hard feelings towards the Argies but the vets typically don't. For the vets the event was showing up, killing and getting killed, then it was over. Professional soldiers doing a job, and conscripts doing follwing orders. For the islanders, the Argentine soldiers violated their sense of home. They were prisoners on their own island, in their own homes, and forced to wait and hope that task force was successful. That's a lot more personal.
@@Studio23Mediamaybe the argies should try and send us home then? Oh wait, they won’t because last time they had 12,000+ men killed wounded or captured. “Los Malvinas” nunca seran argentinos. End of story 🇫🇰🇬🇧
I'm Norwegian and I don't really have a dog in the fight, but: The Falklands islands were uninhabited when Europeans (and the British were first) first discovered them - no native Argentinians lived there. Then there is the factual history that the British have continually controlled the Islands since 1833 - 20 years before the Argentinian constitution was signed. The descendants of the Spanish conquerors of Argentina have no legitimate claim to the islands, the current inhabitants of the islands do.
That's a pretty good answer, I have never studied the history of the islands because I have no stake on it, but I always half assumed since they are right next to Argentine it was their claim, thanks for clearing things for me!
Argentina doesn't claim the islands belong to her because of natives but because they were part of Argentina when Argentina was still an integral part of Spain. It's as if you said Scotland doesn't exist yet because it's an integral part of the UK of GB and NI. It's a very long discussion but you're misunderstanding the Argentine claim.
"Your Own Marching Pace" and "Tactical Advance to Battle" are both backronyms. They were made up after the fact to fit a word that had no clear origin and still doesn't. Yomp was no more an acronym than Yeet or Mooch
Correct. In the late '70s / early 80s Army, I'd certainly been on many 'tabs' - it was not confined to the Paras, they just made it popular - and it just meant a battle march, no acronym known or even thought about.
Actually those terms were used during the Falkland's War. Possibly not by troops, but the media reporters did use them, "presumably" picked up from some of the troops? I recall the magazine articles written during that time and they also had lists of acronyms in use during the conflict, much like "new" acronyms that appeared during the Gulf Wars.
@@skyd8726 He's not saying the term was made up after the war, he's saying the backronym was made up after the term was in regular use. You are both correct.
The RM has a unique Bootneck speak civ pop may not understand yomp is one of them we know it infers pain and sweat with a donkey on your back. Just another day in the life of a blue suit. A s for Yomp being your own marching pace you could not be more wrong. It is a group thing.
@@chrissheppard5068 Irrelevant. It still is a word with unclear origin. If I had to speculate, I would say that it started as "romp" and became "yomp" over time, but I have no source other than my own musings. Whether you know what it means does or not doesn't affect the origin of a word.
I spent several years modifying Rapier post conflict, so have some insight into the failures. Things to note Rapier was designed to be used in the point defence role, for RAF airfields and key points for the Army, as such it was maintained to a high state of readiness and deployed short distances. It was a high maintenance piece of kit and needed a slew of spares, specialist test equipment and a team of technicians to keep it running to any degree of reliability. Spending weeks on a ship without maintenance, then being forded ashore at San Carlos caused a lot of faults which took time for the engineers to resolve. This was not helped when the spares and support equipment was lost with the sinking of the Atlantic Conveyor. Apart from the reliability issues, the radar systems suffered from interference from the ship radar scanners forcing the crew to try and hand slew the trackers onto the approaching hostile aircraft. Systems were sited on the hills overlooking San Carlos but the missile and optical tracker optics could not depress down far enough to engage the low flying Argentine jets. Subsequent to the conflict Rapier was modified to enable it to shoot down 10 degrees, a secondary sighting system was added allowing easier manual target acquisition and improvements to the radar receiver to help with interference amongst other things. Despite the failures and problems Rapier had operationally, the Argentine pilots were aware of the threat it posed forcing them to fly extremely low which prevented the bombs fusing properly when released and affecting accuracy thus preventing more losses to the landing fleet.
A few years ago I chatted to a fellow Ryanair passenger who related a story about a Rapier system returned from the Falklands for repair. Apparently it had been shot at! It was repaired in the field using aluminium foil! When they tested it in the UK they were amazed to find that it was still fully functioning!
Surgeon Captain (then Surgeon Commander) Ric "the Doc" Jolly RM the commanding officer of the Ajax bay field hospital was actually awarded the Orden de Mayo by the post Junta Argentine Government in recognition of the aid rendered to Argentine wounded. He had to seek permission to accept the decoration and was personally authorised to wear it alongside his British medals "on all occasions" on behalf of the 300 British Naval, Royal Marines and Army medics involved in the war by the late Queen.
The Falklands are basically the weather and terrain of large British training areas so familiar territory in that way. An unmentioned campaign specific weapon addition was to draw L4 LMGs as additional platoon firepower in addition to the standard L7 GPMGs. Unofficially extra L4 magazines found their way onto troops who wanted 30 round magazines, and yes they do work reliably with the L1A1 SLRs. There is whole lot more to be said of Chilean cooperation with the United Kingdom in the conflict theatre than was admitted at the time.
L4 primarily were with the RM as they used them in Northern Norway routinely as they were more reliable than GPMG in the arctic. The Para's also brought a few, but doubled up the number of GPMG as well to increase firepower.
In June 1989 I was a test pilot at Edwards AFB. A group of foreign officers were being given a tour of the base. Two were from Argentina, one Air Force and the other Navy. Both were pilots. I asked them if they flew during the "Malvinas" War. Both had. The Navy pilot flew Entenards and was forced to eject when he flamed out due to fuel exhaustion. He said that if forced to tap afterburners once they couldn't make it back to base. The Air Force pilot flew A-4 Skyhawks. He flew 3 missions and at which point the aircraft were ineffective due to spare parts shortages. Both were pissed at the Army for getting them in to the war.
Ambos mienten... El plan de recuperacion de las islas era de la Armada. Ningun etendard se perdio en el conflicto..4 se usaron en misiones y uno se uso para repuestos El etendard no tiene afterburner No tiene problemas de quedarse sin combustible porque tiene abastecimiento en vuelo Habia muchisimos a4 en servicio, y muchos repuestos de hecho se los siguio usando hasta 1999 cuendo se recibieron los a4ar que fueron elegidos por sobre los f16 porque habia muchos repuestos compatibles...
I was 6 when i heard my mum and grandma talking about a war with Argentina. I was terrified cause I thought my dad would be forced to join the army and would end up like my grandad. After grandad had a few drinks if you asked him why he only had one leg he'd smile and say he lost it when he and a couple of mates went on a driving holiday, in Normandy, in 1944. (He signed up in the '30s and spent most of the war in Africa as a driver but by the time he went to Normandy was a tank commander.) Unfortunately after a few more drinks things would get a lot darker... and sometimes violent. And that was the bit that scared me.
@@Studio23Media The vote was on the islands, if there was a majority for returning the islands we'd be working to give them back. Those islands are as British as Jersey and Gurnesy, and so is Gibralter. The Argentine claim is an internal rabble rouser, and suspiciously more vocal since the discovery of the Oil and Gas desposets in the area.
@@FrontSideBus Daah you must be the most clever fly of the turd. Indeed we were a colony of the Spain Crown. But after the indepency we didnt retain the colonial territories of the Virreinato. But yeah just keep enjoying your turd Mr.Fly.
I have missed the q&a so much these are some of my favorite videos of yours I love the gun ones but when I need to turn something on to mindlessly listen to something while gaming or trying to go to bed this is where it’s at
A fascinating Q&A session. First I have seen, only got hooked on your channel by the Marching Across the Falklands video. I was there in 1982 in Royal Engineers. A few comments: The Argentinians has some Cobra anti-tank missiles there was one near the air field at Stanley. I know because I still have. the rather nice Zeiss monocular that was it’s sight. There were also some dummy positions with drainpipes to look like recoilless rifles. The launcher box from the Exocet that damaged HMS Glamorgam was re-purposed as a culvert when 11Fd Sqn built the Harrier Strip adjacent to the runway at Stanley. I have some photos that may be of interest. Post war I have been back and run the Stanley Marathon, I may yet do the YOMP from Port San Carlos to Stanley.
"Wire guided missiles" sounds so quaint, until you find out that cutting edge drones have gone _back_ to wire guidance, to prevent detection and jamming.
@@vaclav_fejt Also if you use optical fibre to carry the signals, there's no risk of EM signals being emitted or the wire acting as an antenna for enemy signal jamming efforts.
There was a story going around at the time about a British Commando in charge of a Stinger his unit was testing. When an Argentinian helicopter started firing at them from its sides, this commando discarded his Blowpipe, broke a Stinger out of the box, read the manual and shot it at the helicopter shooting it down. That's how bad the Blowpipe was.
The SAS had 6 Stingers, but the only trained user was killed in the helicopter crash, another trooper, as you said, worked it out and took down a Pucara. This was the first combat use of a Stinger.
SAS - Mike Rose was in charge of the SAS ops there and it was a Pucara, their specialist was ill. He subsequently met the pilot in Bosnia as part of a UN op
In regards to cobbled together armaments - the Royal Navy lynx helicopters did not have a door mount for a GPMG machine gun. The ship armourers put together one using the mechanism from an office swivel chair. It worked and was said to be better than the subsequent issued piece of equipment
My Penguin Brutality T-Shirt arrived an hour ago I love the design, and it's really comfortable too Looking forward to whatever you do next, and thanks for the videos Ian!
@@viperscot1 Where are you? I'm in Britain, ordered last Saturday Varusteleka got it out the door to Posti on the 30th who then shipped it over by the 2nd and Parcelforce dropped it off at my door about noon today (the 3rd) Very quick turnaround all things considered, I'm very happy with it
The LMG was a 7.62 weapon used by the then 2 arctic Royal Marine units those being 42 and 45 Commandos due to being magazine fed and lighter than a GPMG. The sniper rifle was the L42.
All UK infantry is well used to the conditions found in the Falklands, we train in the Breacon Beacons,the Yorkshire moors and the Scottish Highlands. Ian's description of the winter down there, welcome to south Wales in winter.
@@dave073nyep. grew up hiking on dartmoor and now live near the brecons. brecons are far too hilly in comparison. basically all of dartmoor looks similar to the falklands. maybe not the se quadrant from postbridge.
The early part of the walk video, you would almost think you were on the stretch of the West Highland Way, bordering Rannoch Moor. Military road and all, although the one on the WHW is rather older..
The terrain is quite similar, but the weather varies between winter UK moorland conditions and much worse. The Falkland winds Ian mentioned really are extreme. The islands experienced _hurricane_ force winds on 2/3 of the days of the conflict!
the fact that the brit soldiers were used to and equipped for cold and wet, makes it even more surprising their boots turned out to be useless in those conditions. it was so bad british soldiers took boots from dead argies, who had normal military boots.
Enjoyed both this and the yomping video. I served from 80-96 carrying in rifle terms the SLR through to the SA80 A1. Only from my own personal experience, I rarely remember having a stoppage on the SLR. We trained regularly with stoppage drills though. I remember going on week long range camps and firing mag after mag and not having a single stoppage. I did my SA80 conversion course in Cyprus in the late 80's 🙄 I had more stoppages in 3 days than the previous 8 years with the SLR. I think it's a blessing our MBR was the L1A1 SLR and not the SA80 during the Falklands war.
We were given a bunch of SA80s by the Reg demo team doing fibua at longmore. Assault company ex started pre-dawn, ended around 10am. Every SA80 was US by that time.
Sat in the EOD Ops room in Stanley in 92 when a squad of Argies passed by; had to wonder if someone needed to tell me something? We had a fully functioning GMPG in the sandpit display which was pulled out of the peat on Sapper Hill during my first tour.
An Ungentlemanly Act is such a great film, I've watched it so many times as I have it on DVD. Its amazing how many people who are into military movies haven't seen it.
Back in 2022, I had the honour of meeting Gordon Brooks who was the medical officer aboard the Atlantic Conveyor, he remembered the exocet impact and the cacophony of noise as all the aviation fuel and ammunition went up. He went to lift an injured sailor from the floor to help him abandon ship, as he did the skin on his hands was peeled away due to the sheer heat of the deck plates from the fires in the hold below. He jumped from the Stern Ramp with the sailor and used his respirator bag to bail water from a liferaft whilst awaiting rescue. I got to visit the Falklands myself in 2009 when my Father was posted at RAF Mount Pleasant, supporting the Tornadoes of 1435 Flight (of Malta Fame). Went to Wireless Ridge, Mt Longdon and Mt Kent including the Wreck of Puma AE 508 (have a small piece of it on my shelf.) Also saw the Black Buck Craters at Stanley Airfield.
filming amazing content on a 65 mile hike in the cold elements @Falkland Islands for Christmas.vacation. A total dedication to ones channel. great stuff as usual Ian!
As a Brit i am so glad that the war was over before Christmas. If there had been a Christmas Day Armistice, we were unlikely to have won the football match in No Man's Land...
"I like how both sides used the same rifles". The British used them Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and then gave them to the Argentinians to use Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays ;) Who got em on Sundays is what i want to know.....
I was in the army stationed in N.Ireland during the Falklands war. Eventually some of the captured Argentine 7.62 rounds found it's way there. We were only allowed to use it as training ammo and not on operations. It worked but not as well as we were used to and required more messing with the gas plug settings to avoid jams. It wasn't long before it was completely withdrawn from use for safety reasons.
Our amunition factory FM have state of the art german and swiss machinery so amo *(all all our guns) are quite good (we sell several ballester molina to british army during ww2, instead we have the colt 1911 license and is even heavier than the original)
@@chrisgs8727 I have no doubt the Argentine ammo was good when it left the factory but I would guess the problems we had could have been down to poor storage. Whether that happened in Argentine or British hands I have no idea.
Ian, I like your channel and videos in general but I particularly enjoyed the Falklands Yomp video. I love the idea of incorporating history into tourism and adventure tourism. I've done a tiny bit of that in Europe (which of course is absolutely riddled with battlefields) and would love to see more similar content and/or ideas for similar travel.
In that case I would recommend "walking the ground" a youtube channel from the guys (James Holland and Ed Murray) who do the Second World War focused podcast "We have ways...".
Just an aside about the Phalanx... I've never verified this, but I had a friend who was an officer in the US Navy when Phalanx was introduced, and he was responsible for them on at least one ship he was assigned to. According him, when first installed and for quite some times after, they were so full of flaws and bugs (primarily software, but also electronic) it was a nightmare to keep them functional so they were often offline. He also said that for quite a while the Navy and the manufacturer denied there were problems and it really took until the next generation of the system for the problems to begin to be corrected. He had some very pithy things to say about the fun they had when the Navy was computerizing everything too Thanks for this post Ian and I'm very much looking forward to others in this series about the Falklands.
My understanding that up until like 6-8 years ago there was one company that was still making floppy disc’s, and their sole customer was the US Navy. Though I bet there are several federal agencies still using them.
This is absolutely true. Phalanx arrived in 1980 and was basically unusable for most of its first decade in service. When the RN trialled gun based CIWS post Falklands War, when the Treasury gave them a blank cheque to purchase whatever they wanted, the Dutch made Goalkeeper CIWS won by a colossal margin. The only problem was that Goalkeeper was massive so needed to be on large ships, like Carriers, or designed into smaller vessels in build. As a result the RN had to purchase Phalanx as well, despite its issues, because its smaller size meant it could be mounted on ships with limited space or top weight margine (like T42). When they had the choice it was always Goalkeeper that went on....Phalanx has improved however. The updates in the 90's and 2000's resolved a lot of issues and made it reasonably effective, and useful against surface targets. In 1982 Sea Wolf was pretty much the only hard kill defence against sea skimmers, let alone supersonic sea skimmers like Sunburn, that actually worked...
The Falklands airspace is "only" protected by four Typhoons. Fun fact, the RAFs QRA, responsible for protecting UK airspace has a grand total of four Typhoons, based at two sites, Conigsbury in the south and Leuchars in Scotland.
@@dogsnads5634 Exactly. There was a reason people joked that CIWS really stood for "Captain It Won't Shoot". And even AEGIS was once written off as "Ain't Ever Gonna Intercept Shit". Phalanx has always been a very marginal weapon system even when it works. When you consider that some of those Russian anti-ship missiles are about the size of a coach 20mm isn't that impressive.
There is a utube video about a US battleship in one of the gulf wars being targeted by a Chinese antiship missile. They turned phalanx on to auto and it fired at the chaf cloud put up by an escort ship. The missile was eventually intersepted by a british ship launched missile.
Ian, really enjoyed this video. For anyone interested in a film about the Battle for Stanley & the initial invasion I would recommend 'An Ungentlemanly Act'. Me and my best mate grew up watching it many times & we both joined up
The artwork you have is always cool! Great history report. And thanks for reminding me...I emailed off to Varusteleka for issue with their wool jacket, that your channel promoted back in the day. I
Glamorgan was damaged by a shore launched Exocet, not lost: At 06:37 on 11 June Glamorgan was supporting the Royal Marines fighting the Battle of Two Sisters, 18 miles offshore. Three missile were fired, one failed to launch, the second launched but did not lock, the third was on target and tracked. "Before the missile impact, the ship executed a high speed turn away from the missile, it hit the deck coaming at an angle, skidded on the deck and detonated, making a 10 by 15 feet hole in the hangar deck and a 5 by 4 feet hole in the galley area below. A fire started and caused the ship's fully fuelled and armed Wessex helicopter to explode and started a severe fire in the hangar. Fourteen crew members were killed and more wounded. The ship was underway again with all fires extinguished by 11:00. Sea Wolf was the successful short range self defence missile - 8 Sea Wolf missiles were fired in anger, for 5 aircraft kills. Only 3 ships mainly in defence of the Carriers, they never got their chance to engage Exocet.
Worth noting that the ground launched Exocet system (the UK also developed one post war called Excalibur, based at Gibraltar until the early 90's) was known about. Glamorgan's captain lingered too long whilst on bombardment duties and as dawn came up, knowingly crossed into the known engagement range of the system in an effort to make up time...truth be told this was a huge mistake as the air threat by then was minimal and he would have been better served keeping out of range and taking a little longer...
Yeah, we called it ITB "Instalacion de tiro Berreta", it was created by 3 engineers, one from the navy and two from the National University of La Plata, having only 22 and 24 years old. Basically it use two radars to translate instructions for the missile, one antipersonal radar from the army and another radar from the Air Force. It is amazing because its something from a chapter of Macgyver. And when we surrender the British took the ITB and they design the Excalibur based on that
It seems that a total of 11 Exocets were fired in the conflict of which 2 hit their target -HMS Glamorgan survived and HMS Sheffield sank later from fire damage - as far as I know the missile that hit HMS Sheffield failed to explode but the rocket engine set the ship on fire. 2 other missiles hit the Atlantic conveyor after being decoyed away from the warships. Thus of the 11 fired only 2 actually hit target - 18% hit and 82% missed or were destroyed in flight . After the war the Royal Navy gradually ditched their Exocets and replaced with the Harpoon - why? was it considered that the Exocet accuracy was suspect for a precision weapon system?
Good Q&A. It's always interesting hearing the views of someone from a country not directly involved in the conflict. Looking forward to hopefully hearing you talk about the Royal Marine's defence of South Georgia, fighting off the corvette ARA Guerrico with small arms & a Carl Gustaf recoilless rifle, has gone down in legend.
Another bit of trivia regarding weird weapons. The last Maxim in .303 in use in the British Armed Forces was with ND8901. The only place they could train on one was in the Royal Marines Weapons Museum in CTCRM. I think it was deployed outside Government House during the Argentine landing.
4:31 IMHO I believe it was helo hit by the Blowpipe. Not having a proximity fuse was a major handicap. I've also heard that Rapier suffered from breakages. Wasn't really expected to be ships in heavy seas, and they struggled to get the systems properly running when it was needed. I do think the use (and high cost) of the Milan is one reason why the CG 85mm is still around, and new, dual capability rounds developed for it.
The SAS got early delivery via ‘friends’ in the US SF, of Stingers, first ever combat use got a Pucara counter insurgency aircraft. Blowpipe got one or two, might include a chopper, in British service, Argentina got a Harrier GR.3 with one supplied pre war. The pilot, Bob Iverson, ejected and pics recovered from the aircraft’s side mounted F95 camera showed the Argentine Blowpipe operator leveling it about to fire. Like Rapier, like indeed the air defence for the navy, all designed to fight the Soviets. The latter large Soviet naval aviation bombers and large missiles, some being flung at Ukrainian cities now. That was also the rationale (get it past the Treasury) for the Sea Harriers. Swatting bombers outside the range of Sea Dart. Blowpipe was command guided so needed a lot of training but avoided using infra red detection so in theory impervious to decoy flares. Though it was supersonic. Which limited range in a small missile.
@@recce8619 fraudulent testing and validation,got found out in combat. Officially Rapier claimed 2 fighters,unofficially 0.Worst of all was the completely unserviceable tigerfish torpedo
@@andrewpease3688 The Tigerfish was known about prior to the war, especially against surface vessels. Hence the Belgrano sunk with Mark 8’s. Tigerfish eventually worked and in 1986 blew a decommissioned Type 12 Frigate in half. 13 years after ‘entering’ service! And a lot of money. Luckily Spearfish didn’t repeat that experience. In Iranian service, while they still had spares, Rapier had some success. Interestingly, two years after the war, the USAF brought Rapier, with unlike the Falklands, working Blindfire radars, to defend US air bases in the UK. Manned by RAF Regiment personnel. They must have done their own assessment and maybe concluded lack of working radars, the unique positions including on sites where attacking aircraft flew below them, didn’t apply to airfields in Eastern England.
What you said around the minute 11:00 is truly heartbreaking. As an Argentine I think it's shameful that we as a people deny urgent medical care to Falklanders.
It's also not true. As far as I'm aware the Argentine government has never prevented an air ambulance flying through their airspace. I do also speak from experience, I had a heart attack in 2022 while travelling between Goose Green and Stanley; it was very fortunate that my wife was actually driving. After a night in hospital in Stanley we were flown to Montevideo, through their airspace. A fortnight later, after four stents were added, we flew back, also through their airspace. JM-B
Missed these interrogation videos, glad you are bringing them back. Being a fan of Drachinifel, I won’t hold you to the same standard. Thank you for your entertaining and informative content
The Milan was so effective against entrenched positions that the MoD eventually prohibited the British troops from using them as the rounds were deemed to be too expensive for this purpose.
Re British missiles and AAA: Rapiers of that generation had a search radar on the launcher, but were optically guided by a guy tracking the target through a sight, a bit like a second-gen SACLOS ATGW (but with radio command rather than wire). The batteries didn't take their Blindfire radar trackers because space and time were limited and night attacked weren't expected. The Rapier launchers were badly stored during the voyage down and their electronics suffered from salt water damage. Then they turned out to be poorly adapted to the cold: sometimes the shear pins holding the missiles to the launch rails would go brittle in the freezing temperatures and break, dumping the missiles on the ground. There was also mutual interference between the Rapiers' warning radars and the radar of RN ships in the bay. Tracking targets optically when looking down at a fast jet moving against a complicated background turned out to be as hard as you'd imagine, and accidentally hitting an RN ship was a real concern. Lastly, the missile lacked a proximity fuse, so many very near misses that would have resulted in a kill with, say, Seacat/Tigercat didn't with Rapier. Rapier was massively improved afte the war. It ended up with a proximity fuse, twice as many missiles on the launcher, a sophisiticated EO/IIR tracking turret on the launcher, and new search and fire control radars on their own trailers. Blowpipe was a shoulder-fired MANPADS that used a MACLOS system similar to a first-gen ATGW, where the operator had to manually steer the missile with a small joystick. As with Rapier, it proved much more difficult to use in actual war than in practice shoots. After the war it was improved into Javelin, which had a faster missile and a SACLOS guidance system whereby the operator only had to track the target, the launcher tracking the missile and radioing it guidance commands automatically. Javelin was then replaced by Starstreak, which uses a VERY fast missile (mach 3.5) with laser beam-riding guidance, and deploys three homing darts once it's motor burns out. Starstreak remains in service today on both vehicles and pedestal launchers. Some have been sent to Ukraine. There was also an intermediate standard called Starburst, which was basically the Javelin missile but with the Starstreak laser-guidance system. The Sea Dart naval SAM actually did fairly well, WHEN it was used against the kind of targets for which it was designed, i.e. those at long range and high altitude. The major problem wasn't with the missile system, it was that, due to major budget cutbacks in the late 1960s, the ships on which it was mounted (Type 42s destroyers) didn't have a backup close-in missile or gun system to deal with fast, low altitude targets like Exocets or jet fighters doing an "old fashioned" bombing run. The ubiquitous short-range system in the RN was the obsolete Seacat, which was another optically guided (MACLOS) job, and which suffered from having a subsonic missile. This made it only suitable to defend it's own ship against a target coming straight at it, whereas the Falklands situation required it to engage crossing targets heading for other ships, which it couldn't chase down. Seacat was supposed to be replaced by the very sophisticated, fully automatic Seawolf missile system which performed well in the Falklands, but was only fitted to three ships, one of which only arrived near the end. Seawolf had been significantly delayed due to development difficulties, and had also grown in weight and below-decks volume requirements to the point where it was no longer a plug-and-play replacement for Seacat. The only ships to be refitted from Seacat to Seawolf were five Broad Beam Leanders which had to be totally rebuilt at huge expense to accomodate a bare minimum system. Five more had their planned conversions cancelled. The RN had decided in the 1960s that AAA just couldn't do the job. The Falklands caused a reappraisal of this to some extent, and some RN ships were hastily refitted with whatever 20mm or 30mm autocannons could be found. Some of these were old single and twin 20mm Oerlikons of WWII-ish pattern (actually 1950s). Other more modern mounts were Oerlikon GAM-B01 sinlger 20mm mounts bought on the open market and Oerlikon BMARC GCM-A03 twin 30mm mounts which ironically, were produced in the UK by an Oerlikon subsidiary, and had been available since 1969, but had only found export customers. Eventually most of these were replaced by 20mm Vulcan Phalanx or 30mm SIGNAAL Goalkeeper radar-guided gatling guns for anti-missile defence, but RN ships stipp carry a pair of single 30mm DS-30B or DS-30M mounts. An entire battery of Oerlikon GDF-001 twin 35mm AA guns, together with their fire control systems, was captured intact from the Argentinians and was subsequently put into service with the RAF regiment for the defence of an airbase in (I think) West Germany. The war also caused the British Army to reappraise the .50 cal machine-gun, and these weapons, which were never seen in British service in 1982, are now widespread.
I walked past an Army display and a Rapier battery caught my eye. They were pleased to talk about it. That was well before the Falklands difficulties. But when I told my father about it he asked if they had shown me the 10kW trailer.
Thank you for your indepth appraisal here of the AA weapons used.I served onboard HMS Glamorgan throughout the conflict,manning the Starboard 20mm Oerlikon single barrel, and part of the original fit of the ship.Interesting fact here,the date stamp on it was 1943??¿¿!! Still worked well in 1982.I was also part of Air Defence Troop, that used the Blowpipe system,not a very soffisticated weapon system,but to be fair,it was the 1st generation of its type. The Troop was credited with 4 kills throughtout the conflict,including the 1 that saved 2 Para from alot of casualties,potentialy,at Goose Green.Fired by Marine Rick Strange.
Very good comment. Couple of extra points... - Rapier - It was also asked to do a job for which it had never been designed, area defence, whereas it was in fact a point defence missile. Similar story with Blowpipe. It, like all MANPAD's of the time, was designed to protect a point. Basically an aircraft had to be flying eroughly towards you or flying roughly away to really have success engaging. A major issue with Rapier at San Carlos was the fact its generators ran on petrol (gasoline for US). This meant a signiifcant number of helo flights to keep the launchers sustained with petrol. - Trainable mounts, for Sea Wolf and Sea Dart caused all sorts of issues with damage from heavy seas, salt water encrusting interlocks etc. Ironically both missiles had originally been intended for vertical launch.... - The GDF-001 were put into service by the RAuxAF, one of their last jobs, specifically to defend RAF Waddington and the AEW aircraft there. They were later retired but their radars continued to be used, and I believe still are, by RAF Police to check heights of aircraft in Low Flying Areas. - It wasn't the Falklands that caused the .50 cal to make it back into service, it was the IRA use of armoured trucks to raid checkpoints in NI that caused its return to service on a limited basis. Later in the 90's it returned on WMIK, then Iraq and Afghanistan in particular, on a variety of vehicle mounts along with 40mm GMG that saw its really widespread return.
Lots of good information there, but one error: Rapier has always been SACLOS (you only track the target, not the missile, while Blowpipe was CLOS (you have to track both the target and the missile)
Two observations from the point of view of an Canadian forward observation officer at the time of Operation CORPORATE. 1° From contact with troops of the 1st Bn, The Light infantry, the idea of magazine interchangeability between various inch-standard rifles in the Commonwealth seems to have been more honoured in the breach. The SLR's 20-round box magazine on issue had two small teeth on its front to engage in the magazine well. It was not a happy fit on a Canadian Arsenals FN C1A1. (I did not get a chance to try it for real on a range.) The C1A1's magazine had a machined tooth that was bronze-brazed to the front of the magazine and engaged in the magazine well more solidly -- of the SLR, too. 2° Concerning ECM and anti-ship missile defence, a source who was sailing with Canada's DDH 280 in STANAVFORLANT during CORPORATE told me that, when the RN understood what they faced in terms of an ASM threat, they asked Canada for every chaff rocket they could spare. MARLANT duly emptied their ammo depots and ships stores (except for those then deploying to STANAVFORLANT) of all the RBOCs they could find.
One aspect I recall with the US media on the lead-up to the arrival of the British forces to the Falklands was the slowness of the British ships that were were traveling to the islands. Usually when one hears about military forces going into battle, it was done with the utmost of speed. But in the case with the British in 1982, the ships were, according to news reports, steaming slowly to their destination. It was speculated there was hope the situation would be resolved diplomatically prior to battle engagements.
Hi Ian bravo on you guys doing this I was thirteen when this happened I remember it vividly Later in life through re enactment I had the pleasure of meeting a few guys that did this conflict Told me stories about things One was in the royal marines commando he was only four/ five years older he stayed in up till after the first gulf war he did special operations and other things Ps if the person was under 18 he would have not allowed to go to northern Ireland but he went too war in the Falklands Bestest from Scotland keep up with the excellent work you do
Many little comments to make. I was commissioned as a new infantry 2Lt in 1985. One of the mandatory reads for us in the 'officer reading file' was the Para Regt's AAR from the campaign. A few things stood out. They really praised the firepower of having a belt fed MG at the section level (they used a 7.62 MAG 58 with bipod at section - what yanks call 'squad' -level). Ironically, the new sect weapon was to be the LAR version of the SA80 (L85) which was mag-fed. Seemed an odd decision. At least we (Canada) were doing something right for a change by switching from a mag-fed LAR (FN C2) to a belt-fed Minimi (C9 - what yanks call an M 249 SAW). The report was also critical of the basic UK uniforms for having flat, patch pockets that couldn't hold much. This caused the change to generous bellows pockets. In this we messed up as in late 86, some twat introduced a new combat shirt for us that no longer had lower pockets at all and switched to flat, patch pockets on the chest. The rationale was that, with the intro of 82 pat web kit, we didn't need any pockets ever again because, apparently, we were expected to wear webbing 24/7. Also, it was deemed to be more comfortable/compatible with body armour. While true, we didn't start giving everyone body armour until Afghanistan in 2002.... so... Battlefield pickup of enemy weapons. Lt Robert Lawrence of the Scots Guards famously plucked up an Argentinian rifle in the heat of the attack as his rifle failed. IIRC, he was wielding both rifles as he was afraid to toss his away as it was on his charge (signed for it) and, in retrospect, he felt it made him look a bit of a twat to be running around with an FAL in each hand. This was famously depicted by Colin Forth in the film Tumbledown. This, combined with the odd decision to have the Scots Guards conduct the attack while wearing berets (evidently for IFF purposes?) make the scene look absolutely ridiculous and silly. However, according to Lawrence, that's how it happened. Stranger than fiction. Unfortunately, Lawrence was shot in the head during the consolidation phase of the attack. A helmet likely wouldn't have helped. Despite losing 40% of his brain, he recovered and learned to walk again. I'd never pick a fight with Ian over weapon facts. However, he mistakenly refers to the Carl Gustav early in the video as a 'rocket launcher'. It isn't. It's a shoulder fired recoilless rifle. Yikes... get ready for the hate from all the keyboard commandoes...
@@Foxtrottangoabcneed to watch that as if my dad stayed in 2 years longer would have been on that hill…. As for attacking in Berets, that’s ‘ally as fuck 💪🏼’
I'm the question around the 48 minute mark a big thing Ian didn't mention was that the 2 carriers we now have carry 24 F-35B's each and can carry an additional squadron each if necessary giving a potential air wing of 48 - 72 F-35B'S which is substantially more of a threat than 24 sea harriers 😮
@@WALTERBROADDUSwe don't need to. Just the announcement we have a sub guarding the islands with orders to send any argie ships that approach to join Belgrano will scare the argies into staying at home.
Tony Bojko, a 3rd Para Vet, went back six to eight years ago. He met and befriended an Argentinian Vet officer there. The locals hate "The Argies", but the vets do not.
@@poja82 my guess would be that a quick gander in every comments section of a video dealing with the Falklands War will show hundreds of your countrymen raving and ranting about how the islands are Argentinian (which they never were), and how they should be taken back; that would constitute reason for saying that the Argentinian population is not cool with it. Which is a bit sad; raving nationalism is never positive. And while they may not represent you, they are what is seen.
For some reason even as a young guy living in Los Angeles I was aware of the yomp. When I look at people suffering and I seem to be able to feel what they're feeling, this was confirmed many years later when I did Ruck marches with not only the standard rucksack but extras, I'm the big guy so I can take it. And the amount of weight that those guys were carrying was in many cases the biggest common injury experienced. I'm surprised that didn't come up more but perhaps it was exaggerated ?
I met Sir Rex Hunt one evening at a hotel bar in Stratford-upon-Avon back in '99 - he had some very interesting stories to tell. We closed the bar together......
As I watched you Yom- across the island, I kept hoping to see you with a flag poking from your bag. Also: LOVE the ‘penguin brutality’ theme. I suspect the patch will become popular with 3 Commando vets.
Years ago I was on exchange with 2 Para. We did a series of exercises in Wales at Sennybridge....the weather was the most wet and miserable I have ever been in my career. I am confident this experience was integral to the Paras and Commandos skills in the Falklands.
'When is the Parachute Regiment ever going to fight in anywhere like Brecon?' Jan.82 question to the Adjutant from a Coy Comdr and Int.Offr who thought other training areas more relevant to 10 Para's NATO role. Well intentioned but misguided, shall we say
300 Weatherby Magnum is a damn good long range round. Very similar to 300 Winchester Magnum, another popular sniper round. There are several popular wildcat rounds in the long range shooting community today that are based on the 300 Weatherby.
We carried as much ammo as we could carry. My day sack was just toppers and weighed close to a full bergan weight. The big take away is train to carry a lot of weight which we did so no biggie. 5 Bde not so.
I served a year's tour 'Down South', in the 90's. I loved it! I flew all over the islands and did visited the battle sites - obviously. I also visited all the pubs in the town, also obviously 🙂 I seem to remember that the locals tolerated Argie visitors so that they may visit the war graves in the cemetery. No British Soldier I ever knew - myself included, who would fire over a parapet whilst ducking as you demonstrated. That sort of behaviour, in training, would have made your bollocks ache - severely. 'The Red and Green Life Machine' was unique as it was the only hospital, at the time, that never lost a patient during the conflict. If you arrived breathing - you survived. Anyway, thanks for the tickle of the nostalgia muscle.
On 'Improvised Vehicles', you missed 'Task Force Trudi', if you regard re-purposed civilian vehicles as falling within that bracket. TF Trudi was the informal name given to the group of locals who used farm vehicles to augment logistics for the British forces. It's named for Trudi Morrison (now McPhee) who organised and led the 22 islanders. This group also used their local knowledge to take part in night reconnaissance patrols.
And for anyone looking for the Britishest of British war documentaries, look up "Operations Black Buck Falklands' Most Daring Raid" in the TH-cam search bar for the funniest documentary on what was, up until the GWOT, the longest bombing campaign in history, Operation Black Buck. It's got everything! 10 pound pocket calculators! Bits of bicycle chain! Bacon sandwiches! Chariots Of Fire! "Monty Python couldn't've planned it better..."
It is just so nice to hear you talking, Ian. I wondered why I became so interested in weapons after viewing your videos a few years ago, but here you have me fascinated by the Falklands. I seriously think you could talk about anything and I'd sit and listen engaged to what you say.
Chris Thrall has a series of interviews on his channel. He's a bit out there, but he's done a brilliant job of documenting the stories of a diverse group of veterans
Argentinian here. Excellent video and thank you very much for the objectivity put into it. - Regarding ground-based anti-aircraft missiles: indeed, on both sides they were quite inefficient: The Rapiers, I understand, shot down only one plane (Lieutenant Bernhard, Mirage V Dagger on May 24). The ones that were better were the Stingers that the SAS had unofficially, shooting down at least one Pucará and one Aermacchi. On the Argentine side, 2 Harriers were shot down with missiles, one with a Roland missile near the capital and another with a Blowpipe near Puerto Howard. AR-15: The Argentine special forces also used them, but mixed with FAL. In relation to the mines and the penguins, in a nature TV program hosted by Lorne Greene in the 80s, he said that in fact the mines had improved the lives of some penguins, since the area had been fenced off and the sheep did not enter. , which prevented their nests from being trampled. - The other naval anti-aircraft missile is the Sea Wolf (quite effective against our planes, but not against Exocet missiles). And in the comments people forget the Seaslug anti-air missile. - The Mark V, 300 weatherby magnum, belonged to a special forces doctor (Captain Hugo Rainieri) and a hunter in his private life. One of the few adaptations (besides the Exocet "transplanted" from the ships) was the "Missile Tractor" was an agricultural tractor, on which a 70 mm rocket launcher (19 tubes) extracted from a damaged Pucará was placed on top. Greetings from Argentine Patagonia.
@@myparceltape1169 According to the same doctor, when the surrender occurred, he broke and folded it using a heavy stone and threw the remains into the water. Obviously the English would not have allowed him to bring the rifle on the SS Canberra.
Regarding what you said about the British Rapier surface-to-air batteries being ineffective. According to Chief Petty Officer Rich Edwards, Royal Navy, he claims that the Royal Air Force forgot to bring their Rapiers' test equipment with them down to the Falklands. This meant they couldn't calibrate the batteries to work properly, and they seem to have only discovered this after they landed in San Carlos. It apparently took over a week to sort it out this oversight, so long after the Battle of San Carlos was already over, when they needed the air cover the most. He also agrees with your assessment that the Sea Wolf was quite effective, "really effective" in his words. Interestingly, he doesn't mention the Sea Slug, but he wasn't impressed with the Sea Cat which he claims was flown remotely be a pilot. Apparently, HMS Fearless fired a years allowance of Sea Cats on the first day at San Carlos alone so the hit rate must have been quite low. If you're interested in reading this up for yourself, it's on Page 98, Goose Green by Nigel Ely, a British paratrooper turned SAS operator who served in the war whilst still a paratrooper. The book is mostly centered around 2nd Battalion, the Parachute Regiment, or 2 Para, in short, and the Battle of Goose Green, but I thought I'd give my source anyway, just in case you wanted it.
11:50 during the occupation an islander had a heart attack. When his son went to get help on his motorbike, he was fire on and had to flee, unable to get the medical help they needed.
27:37 This only works for grenades with a running motor on the trajectory, such as the RPG-7 grenade. In LAW, the motor burns out while the grenade is in the launch tube and the windage adjustments are similar to those in small arms.
As I wrote, only for rockets where the engine works on the trajectory. Then the wind will deflect the tail and the rocket will turn around the center of mass against the wind and the engine will push it in this direction. If the rocket flies by inertia, like in many disposable grenade launchers, then the wind will simply blow it away in the same direction.
Great to see you covering the Falklands Ian, seeing you walking the ground was awesome. Although I see the kit I was issued with behind glass now in museums even I wasn't old enough for the Falklands War. I remember being glued to the news reports each night back in 1982, by 1983 I was 16 & joined an Infantry Regt. A truly fascinating book on the war is the After The Battle series 'The Falklands War, Then & Now' by Gordon Ramsey. Keep up the great work!
I've watched lots of documentaries about the Falkland islands war and unlike most wars in the last 50 years this involved the Navy Air force and army against two first-class militaries. It was pretty intense. I wonder if land is expensive there?
top6ear@@top6ear Be interesting to see the answer to the question on which were the top class militaries. Was it the Army or The Royal Navy or the RAF ?? In those days we had for a short time a prime minister that was happy to support her forces AND Sam Fox.
"The sheep would occasionally walk on a anti-personnel mine… that was usually a problem for the sheep." 🤣 I love the understatement here, lol. Great video! I honestly didn't think I would enjoy this kind of content, but I am very happy to be proven wrong. Please do more Q&As! Also, lamb mac & cheese sounds delicious!
Among the curious stories about weapons are two Argentine commandos who were both also doctors and designated marksmen and BOTH used the weatherby mkv 300 wby magnum with daylight german made weatherby hunting scope they didnt have so much 300wby ammo so Ranieri also carry on his back one ar15 with a bag with 700 rounds . Also Lieutenant Vazquez who defended San carlos used a smle. Enfield. In each platoon there used to be some 1909 Mauser rifle but they were not used. Sergeant Colemil used a captured British fal that had a night sight and was able to maintain his position thanks to it.The 601 commandos had some steyr aug that had come in the sk105 tanks trade but it was not a weapon to their liking, perhaps due to the difficulty of obtaining ammunition. Most argentina submachine guns didnt saw action, nor some shotguns as the bullpup high standard 10
Thanks for putting out such an informative video. I recently watched the movie "That Christmas" and knew enough to pick up on the subtle (at least to an American like myself) reference to the Flaklands War in one character's backstory. It made me realize, though, how little I knew beyond some broad strokes about air and naval battles. Thanks for filling in some missing pieces.
Thanks for doing the documentary and q & a Ian, great stuff as usual. Sea Dart if I remember correctly was an anti aircraft system deployed on the type 42 destroyers, with Sea Dart (WWII line of site system) and Sea Wolf (radar controlled system) used on board the ships for anti aircraft and anti missile use. Inserted as a stoker on Leander Class Frigates during this period, but hopefully a Gunner from this period will be along to set the record straight. Cheers mate.
Just the one and He's a complete Tit; but fair is fair he was called and served. Not that that gives him a free pass afterwards, but he could have had 'Bone Spurs' or something to get him out of it.
That war also exposed an overlooked situation. French Exocet anti ship missiles were not programmed into threat assessment in the electronic systems by the Allies of the French, and one British ship, HMS Sheffield was hit and mortally wounded. All electronic signatures from weapons by any combatant are registered now as potential threats.
Want a patch or t-shirt with our adorably heavily armed rockhopper penguin? Both are available from Varusteleka:
www.varusteleka.com/en/search?q=penguin
Got both ordered right after you dropped the video of the yomp
@ForgottenWeapons
Official argentine aircraft losses to type from the war..
Sea wolf
3 skyhawk a4b
1 dagger a
Seadart
1 skyhawk a4b
2.5 skyhawk a4c
1 puma
1 learjet 35a
1 canberra b62
Sidewinder 9l
1.5 mirage lllea
9 dagger a
1 canberra b62
3 skyhawk a4b
2 skyhawk a4c
1 skyhawk a4q(navy)
0.5 hercules c130e
Friendly fire (argentine)
1 skyhawk a4b
1 puma
0.5 mirage lllea
CBU
3 pucara
0.5 puma
Flying accident including evasion (manoeuvre kill)
1 skyhawk a4c
1 lynx
1 aermacchi mb339
1 puma
2 pucara
30mm cannon (harrier)
1 chinook
2.5 puma
1 pucara
2 skyhawk a4q(navy)
1 Augusta
0.5 hercules c130e
40mm (bofors)
1 skyhawk a4b
SAS
6 pucara (ground)
1 pucara (stinger sam)
1 skyvan (ground)
4 mentor (ground)
Small arms
1 puma (by royal marines)
1 pucara (by 2 para)
Rapier
1 dagger A
0.67 skyhawk a4c
Blowpipe
1 aeromacchi mb339a
0.67 skyhawk a4c
Seacat
0.67 skyhawk a4c
Went down with ship
1 alouette lll (belgrano)
Captured intact
11 pucara
2 bell212
3 aermacchi mb339a
1 puma
1 chinook (later used by raf)
2 augusta a109a
9 iroquois
Total 100 aircraft attrition
Note.. since the war 2 wrecked skyhawk have been discovered and it is believed that these (and at least one other) ran out of fuel after sustaining damage at san Carlos and failed to return... likely from multiple possible weapons.. sea cat, mg, rapier etc..
British losses were 34 aircraft
Damm just missed out
SLURS!!!!!
th-cam.com/video/J3d_KYAdPUU/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=Hazbindust
What kind of gun ownership laws do they have? Are they more lenient with firearms because of their history or more extremely restrictive like the UK?
Surgeon Captain Rick Jolly (Royal Navy) who ran the red and green life machine field hospital, was decorated by the Argentines for his care of Argentinian wounded.
Argentinian here. Yes, and all the Argentine prisoners interviewed after the war agreed that there was no preference for one side or the other, he handled the situation as if they were all on the same side. A true gentelman and hero. Greetings from Patagonia Argentina
RIP Capt Jolly.
I believe Rick Jolly is the only serviceman in military history to be officially decorated by opposing governments for the same actions during war.
His book Doctor for Friend and Foe. Well worth a read. Also on the humourus side. Jackspeack.
@@51WCDodge I didn´t know it. Thanks
I kind of understand why the local Falkland islanders still have hard feelings towards the Argies but the vets typically don't. For the vets the event was showing up, killing and getting killed, then it was over. Professional soldiers doing a job, and conscripts doing follwing orders. For the islanders, the Argentine soldiers violated their sense of home. They were prisoners on their own island, in their own homes, and forced to wait and hope that task force was successful. That's a lot more personal.
Plus the decades of sanctions and threats from Argentina, as well as living in between minefields for 30 years.
@@WittynametagThe British could always go home. 🤷🏻♂️
@@Studio23Mediamaybe the argies should try and send us home then? Oh wait, they won’t because last time they had 12,000+ men killed wounded or captured. “Los Malvinas” nunca seran argentinos. End of story 🇫🇰🇬🇧
@@Studio23MediaThey are home
@@Studio23Media They are home.
I'm Norwegian and I don't really have a dog in the fight, but: The Falklands islands were uninhabited when Europeans (and the British were first) first discovered them - no native Argentinians lived there. Then there is the factual history that the British have continually controlled the Islands since 1833 - 20 years before the Argentinian constitution was signed. The descendants of the Spanish conquerors of Argentina have no legitimate claim to the islands, the current inhabitants of the islands do.
Amen.
Lots of oil offshore down there. The UK has it, the Argies want it. The Argie economy has been a mess for decades.
That's a pretty good answer, I have never studied the history of the islands because I have no stake on it, but I always half assumed since they are right next to Argentine it was their claim, thanks for clearing things for me!
the Falklands War always reminds me of the Eddie Izzard bit about flags
Argentina doesn't claim the islands belong to her because of natives but because they were part of Argentina when Argentina was still an integral part of Spain. It's as if you said Scotland doesn't exist yet because it's an integral part of the UK of GB and NI. It's a very long discussion but you're misunderstanding the Argentine claim.
@@CorvusLeukos You're wrong. But even if you were right. There was a war, Argentina lost. Move on.
"Your Own Marching Pace" and "Tactical Advance to Battle" are both backronyms. They were made up after the fact to fit a word that had no clear origin and still doesn't. Yomp was no more an acronym than Yeet or Mooch
Correct. In the late '70s / early 80s Army, I'd certainly been on many 'tabs' - it was not confined to the Paras, they just made it popular - and it just meant a battle march, no acronym known or even thought about.
Actually those terms were used during the Falkland's War. Possibly not by troops, but the media reporters did use them, "presumably" picked up from some of the troops?
I recall the magazine articles written during that time and they also had lists of acronyms in use during the conflict, much like "new" acronyms that appeared during the Gulf Wars.
@@skyd8726 He's not saying the term was made up after the war, he's saying the backronym was made up after the term was in regular use. You are both correct.
The RM has a unique Bootneck speak civ pop may not understand yomp is one of them we know it infers pain and sweat with a donkey on your back. Just another day in the life of a blue suit. A s for Yomp being your own marching pace you could not be more wrong. It is a group thing.
@@chrissheppard5068 Irrelevant. It still is a word with unclear origin. If I had to speculate, I would say that it started as "romp" and became "yomp" over time, but I have no source other than my own musings.
Whether you know what it means does or not doesn't affect the origin of a word.
I spent several years modifying Rapier post conflict, so have some insight into the failures. Things to note Rapier was designed to be used in the point defence role, for RAF airfields and key points for the Army, as such it was maintained to a high state of readiness and deployed short distances. It was a high maintenance piece of kit and needed a slew of spares, specialist test equipment and a team of technicians to keep it running to any degree of reliability. Spending weeks on a ship without maintenance, then being forded ashore at San Carlos caused a lot of faults which took time for the engineers to resolve. This was not helped when the spares and support equipment was lost with the sinking of the Atlantic Conveyor. Apart from the reliability issues, the radar systems suffered from interference from the ship radar scanners forcing the crew to try and hand slew the trackers onto the approaching hostile aircraft. Systems were sited on the hills overlooking San Carlos but the missile and optical tracker optics could not depress down far enough to engage the low flying Argentine jets. Subsequent to the conflict Rapier was modified to enable it to shoot down 10 degrees, a secondary sighting system was added allowing easier manual target acquisition and improvements to the radar receiver to help with interference amongst other things. Despite the failures and problems Rapier had operationally, the Argentine pilots were aware of the threat it posed forcing them to fly extremely low which prevented the bombs fusing properly when released and affecting accuracy thus preventing more losses to the landing fleet.
A few years ago I chatted to a fellow Ryanair passenger who related a story about a Rapier system returned from the Falklands for repair. Apparently it had been shot at! It was repaired in the field using aluminium foil! When they tested it in the UK they were amazed to find that it was still fully functioning!
Surgeon Captain (then Surgeon Commander) Ric "the Doc" Jolly RM the commanding officer of the Ajax bay field hospital was actually awarded the Orden de Mayo by the post Junta Argentine Government in recognition of the aid rendered to Argentine wounded. He had to seek permission to accept the decoration and was personally authorised to wear it alongside his British medals "on all occasions" on behalf of the 300 British Naval, Royal Marines and Army medics involved in the war by the late Queen.
The Falklands are basically the weather and terrain of large British training areas so familiar territory in that way. An unmentioned campaign specific weapon addition was to draw L4 LMGs as additional platoon firepower in addition to the standard L7 GPMGs. Unofficially extra L4 magazines found their way onto troops who wanted 30 round magazines, and yes they do work reliably with the L1A1 SLRs. There is whole lot more to be said of Chilean cooperation with the United Kingdom in the conflict theatre than was admitted at the time.
L4 primarily were with the RM as they used them in Northern Norway routinely as they were more reliable than GPMG in the arctic. The Para's also brought a few, but doubled up the number of GPMG as well to increase firepower.
@@dogsnads5634 C (patrols) Coy 2 Para had them at a rate of one per four-man patrol. Source: "Not mentioned in dispatches".
I believe the Chileans, on a couple of occasions, turned a blind eye to unmarked helicopters flying through their airspace and😊 into Argentina
Never underestimate how far Chile will go to piss off Argentina
In June 1989 I was a test pilot at Edwards AFB. A group of foreign officers were being given a tour of the base. Two were from Argentina, one Air Force and the other Navy. Both were pilots. I asked them if they flew during the "Malvinas" War. Both had. The Navy pilot flew Entenards and was forced to eject when he flamed out due to fuel exhaustion. He said that if forced to tap afterburners once they couldn't make it back to base. The Air Force pilot flew A-4 Skyhawks. He flew 3 missions and at which point the aircraft were ineffective due to spare parts shortages. Both were pissed at the Army for getting them in to the war.
Ambos mienten...
El plan de recuperacion de las islas era de la Armada.
Ningun etendard se perdio en el conflicto..4 se usaron en misiones y uno se uso para repuestos
El etendard no tiene afterburner
No tiene problemas de quedarse sin combustible porque tiene abastecimiento en vuelo
Habia muchisimos a4 en servicio, y muchos repuestos de hecho se los siguio usando hasta 1999 cuendo se recibieron los a4ar que fueron elegidos por sobre los f16 porque habia muchos repuestos compatibles...
There's no afterburners on an Etendard?
@@Guerilla_G no
@@Mmjk_12 I’m pretty sure Super Etendards don’t have afterburners
Me too. Seemed like nice guys with big mustaches. I guess they also had C-130s in 1980. I'm really wondering about that now.
I was 6 when i heard my mum and grandma talking about a war with Argentina. I was terrified cause I thought my dad would be forced to join the army and would end up like my grandad.
After grandad had a few drinks if you asked him why he only had one leg he'd smile and say he lost it when he and a couple of mates went on a driving holiday,
in Normandy,
in 1944.
(He signed up in the '30s and spent most of the war in Africa as a driver but by the time he went to Normandy was a tank commander.)
Unfortunately after a few more drinks things would get a lot darker... and sometimes violent.
And that was the bit that scared me.
Similar. I was in Australia FFS (but British born) but so scared when I heard there was a war happening!
They had a vote in 2013 whether to remain a British overseas colony. It was 1513 for and 3 against.
Well duh. The British are never going to acknowledge fault and make amends for their imperialism. 🙄
@@Studio23Media The vote was on the islands, if there was a majority for returning the islands we'd be working to give them back. Those islands are as British as Jersey and Gurnesy, and so is Gibralter. The Argentine claim is an internal rabble rouser, and suspiciously more vocal since the discovery of the Oil and Gas desposets in the area.
@@stubbyseventhree2963I like it when they cry colonialism when they themselves are a colony of Spain lol.
@@FrontSideBus Daah you must be the most clever fly of the turd. Indeed we were a colony of the Spain Crown. But after the indepency we didnt retain the colonial territories of the Virreinato. But yeah just keep enjoying your turd Mr.Fly.
@@Studio23Mediawomp womp 😢😂
I have missed the q&a so much these are some of my favorite videos of yours I love the gun ones but when I need to turn something on to mindlessly listen to something while gaming or trying to go to bed this is where it’s at
Same bro
Im British, fighting in Ukraine, carrying an Argentinian produced select fire FAL that was sold to Bulgaria and then donated to Ukraine.
Best of luck out there.
Didnt expect to see you here, keep up the good work!
Good luck mate
Stay safe @BigMakBattleBlog, although I'm still smarting from some of your jabs on Lindey's interviews about how Canadians speak....
Stay safe mate.
A fascinating Q&A session. First I have seen, only got hooked on your channel by the Marching Across the Falklands video.
I was there in 1982 in Royal Engineers.
A few comments: The Argentinians has some Cobra anti-tank missiles there was one near the air field at Stanley. I know because I still have.
the rather nice Zeiss monocular
that was it’s sight.
There were also some dummy positions with drainpipes to look like recoilless rifles.
The launcher box from the Exocet that damaged HMS Glamorgam was re-purposed as a culvert when 11Fd Sqn built the Harrier Strip adjacent to the runway at Stanley.
I have some photos that may be of interest.
Post war I have been back and run the Stanley Marathon, I may yet do the YOMP from Port San Carlos to Stanley.
"Wire guided missiles" sounds so quaint, until you find out that cutting edge drones have gone _back_ to wire guidance, to prevent detection and jamming.
Turns out, wires are actually great. Just look at earphones.
@@vaclav_fejt Also if you use optical fibre to carry the signals, there's no risk of EM signals being emitted or the wire acting as an antenna for enemy signal jamming efforts.
There was a story going around at the time about a British Commando in charge of a Stinger his unit was testing. When an Argentinian helicopter started firing at them from its sides, this commando discarded his Blowpipe, broke a Stinger out of the box, read the manual and shot it at the helicopter shooting it down. That's how bad the Blowpipe was.
The SAS had 6 Stingers, but the only trained user was killed in the helicopter crash, another trooper, as you said, worked it out and took down a Pucara.
This was the first combat use of a Stinger.
@graemepaul8748 Yes, it was a Pucara, not a helo. My bad.
SAS - Mike Rose was in charge of the SAS ops there and it was a Pucara, their specialist was ill. He subsequently met the pilot in Bosnia as part of a UN op
@jmcsms I was talking from memory...42 years later.
Somebody beat you at correcting me, but thanks anyway.
@@Gearparadummies There's a youtube vid with Rose talking about it and meeting the Pilot in Bosnia - first Stinger kill in action
The q&a’s are some of my favourite FW content for some reason. Good to see it back.
Glad to see the Q&A is back. Please keep it going.
In regards to cobbled together armaments - the Royal Navy lynx helicopters did not have a door mount for a GPMG machine gun. The ship armourers put together one using the mechanism from an office swivel chair. It worked and was said to be better than the subsequent issued piece of equipment
My Penguin Brutality T-Shirt arrived an hour ago
I love the design, and it's really comfortable too
Looking forward to whatever you do next, and thanks for the videos Ian!
Waiting on mine too and patch enjoy
@@viperscot1 Where are you?
I'm in Britain, ordered last Saturday
Varusteleka got it out the door to Posti on the 30th who then shipped it over by the 2nd and Parcelforce dropped it off at my door about noon today (the 3rd)
Very quick turnaround all things considered, I'm very happy with it
And for the record, there is a picture of a Royal Marine in Stanley carrying a 7.62 Bren. Still good for the task.
The Marines used them as a LMG as an extra section MG and in some cases the section MG as they had not fully been replaced by the GPMG then.
I think their sniper rifle at the time was still a SMLE variant I believe.
@@josephknaak9034 A No4 not an SMLE
The LMG was a 7.62 weapon used by the then 2 arctic Royal Marine units those being 42 and 45 Commandos due to being magazine fed and lighter than a GPMG. The sniper rifle was the L42.
@@josephknaak9034 Yep, L42A1.
Loving this Falkland series Ian.
All UK infantry is well used to the conditions found in the Falklands, we train in the Breacon Beacons,the Yorkshire moors and the Scottish Highlands. Ian's description of the winter down there, welcome to south Wales in winter.
Found the Falklands terrain near identical to Dartmoor - the hilltops were also like Dartmoor tors.
@@dave073nyep. grew up hiking on dartmoor and now live near the brecons. brecons are far too hilly in comparison. basically all of dartmoor looks similar to the falklands. maybe not the se quadrant from postbridge.
The early part of the walk video, you would almost think you were on the stretch of the West Highland Way, bordering Rannoch Moor. Military road and all, although the one on the WHW is rather older..
The terrain is quite similar, but the weather varies between winter UK moorland conditions and much worse. The Falkland winds Ian mentioned really are extreme. The islands experienced _hurricane_ force winds on 2/3 of the days of the conflict!
the fact that the brit soldiers were used to and equipped for cold and wet, makes it even more surprising their boots turned out to be useless in those conditions. it was so bad british soldiers took boots from dead argies, who had normal military boots.
Enjoyed both this and the yomping video. I served from 80-96 carrying in rifle terms the SLR through to the SA80 A1. Only from my own personal experience, I rarely remember having a stoppage on the SLR. We trained regularly with stoppage drills though. I remember going on week long range camps and firing mag after mag and not having a single stoppage. I did my SA80 conversion course in Cyprus in the late 80's 🙄 I had more stoppages in 3 days than the previous 8 years with the SLR. I think it's a blessing our MBR was the L1A1 SLR and not the SA80 during the Falklands war.
Yup thank you for your service
And the SA80 thank god was not used in the Falklands heard all about the flaws of it
The only SLR stoppage I had was because of low gas. Quick rotation of the adjuster, no more probs.
We were given a bunch of SA80s by the Reg demo team doing fibua at longmore. Assault company ex started pre-dawn, ended around 10am. Every SA80 was US by that time.
Only had stoppages on L1A1 with blanks. Didn't put that a huge number of rounds down range so take of that what you will..
@emergingloki First day of our conversion course, a load ended up going back to the armoury to fix problems beyond the DS skills.
Glad to see the Q&A videos back.
I recommend watching "An Ungentlemanly Act" - excellent portrayal of the run-up to the conflict and the community.
"What ever that Argie is doing....let him live!" some great lines in that film.
I think Tumbledown is the only movie that shows a battle in the war?
A little difficult to come by...I had it on DVD, but sadly the disc is now broken 😞
Sat in the EOD Ops room in Stanley in 92 when a squad of Argies passed by; had to wonder if someone needed to tell me something? We had a fully functioning GMPG in the sandpit display which was pulled out of the peat on Sapper Hill during my first tour.
An Ungentlemanly Act is such a great film, I've watched it so many times as I have it on DVD. Its amazing how many people who are into military movies haven't seen it.
During my time in the USN, CIWS was referred to as "sea wiz". Fantastic Q&A and the yomping video was very interesting too!
So glad to see the Q&A format make a return!
Back in 2022, I had the honour of meeting Gordon Brooks who was the medical officer aboard the Atlantic Conveyor, he remembered the exocet impact and the cacophony of noise as all the aviation fuel and ammunition went up. He went to lift an injured sailor from the floor to help him abandon ship, as he did the skin on his hands was peeled away due to the sheer heat of the deck plates from the fires in the hold below. He jumped from the Stern Ramp with the sailor and used his respirator bag to bail water from a liferaft whilst awaiting rescue.
I got to visit the Falklands myself in 2009 when my Father was posted at RAF Mount Pleasant, supporting the Tornadoes of 1435 Flight (of Malta Fame). Went to Wireless Ridge, Mt Longdon and Mt Kent including the Wreck of Puma AE 508 (have a small piece of it on my shelf.) Also saw the Black Buck Craters at Stanley Airfield.
Now, that's an exciting incident! Glad Brooks made it!
filming amazing content on a 65 mile hike in the cold elements @Falkland Islands for Christmas.vacation.
A total dedication to ones channel. great stuff as usual Ian!
So happy that Q&As are back, one of my favorite segments!
I fall asleep to these q@a’s all the time. I’m glad to see they’re coming back
As a Brit i am so glad that the war was over before Christmas. If there had been a Christmas Day Armistice, we were unlikely to have won the football match in No Man's Land...
Well played sir, well played.
God bless Brit humour lmao. Cheers from Argentina
The war would've restarted quite quickly after the 3rd or 4th 'Hand of god' goal
An excellent subject, and delighted to hear you talking about it.
Awesome I missed the Q&A content and watched the yomp with great interest
I like how both sides used the same rifles
Like the post-Soviet wars aswell
*as well
Just like during the American Revolution
Both sides were using the Brown Bess
*almost the same.
"I like how both sides used the same rifles".
The British used them Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and then gave them to the Argentinians to use Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays ;)
Who got em on Sundays is what i want to know.....
I'm glad to hear the QA format making a return. I always enjoyed these
I was in the army stationed in N.Ireland during the Falklands war. Eventually some of the captured Argentine 7.62 rounds found it's way there. We were only allowed to use it as training ammo and not on operations. It worked but not as well as we were used to and required more messing with the gas plug settings to avoid jams. It wasn't long before it was completely withdrawn from use for safety reasons.
Our amunition factory FM have state of the art german and swiss machinery so amo *(all all our guns) are quite good (we sell several ballester molina to british army during ww2, instead we have the colt 1911 license and is even heavier than the original)
@@chrisgs8727
I have no doubt the Argentine ammo was good when it left the factory but I would guess the problems we had could have been down to poor storage. Whether that happened in Argentine or British hands I have no idea.
Ian, I like your channel and videos in general but I particularly enjoyed the Falklands Yomp video. I love the idea of incorporating history into tourism and adventure tourism. I've done a tiny bit of that in Europe (which of course is absolutely riddled with battlefields) and would love to see more similar content and/or ideas for similar travel.
Battlefield tours would make for great content. Outside the US, the battlefields of the American Civil War are largely unknown, for example.
@billyruffian1426 In fairness, outside of the USA, there isn't really a lot of interest in the US Civil War.
In that case I would recommend "walking the ground" a youtube channel from the guys (James Holland and Ed Murray) who do the Second World War focused podcast "We have ways...".
I am very pleased to hear the long q&a's are coming back
Just an aside about the Phalanx... I've never verified this, but I had a friend who was an officer in the US Navy when Phalanx was introduced, and he was responsible for them on at least one ship he was assigned to.
According him, when first installed and for quite some times after, they were so full of flaws and bugs (primarily software, but also electronic) it was a nightmare to keep them functional so they were often offline.
He also said that for quite a while the Navy and the manufacturer denied there were problems and it really took until the next generation of the system for the problems to begin to be corrected.
He had some very pithy things to say about the fun they had when the Navy was computerizing everything too
Thanks for this post Ian and I'm very much looking forward to others in this series about the Falklands.
My understanding that up until like 6-8 years ago there was one company that was still making floppy disc’s, and their sole customer was the US Navy. Though I bet there are several federal agencies still using them.
This is absolutely true. Phalanx arrived in 1980 and was basically unusable for most of its first decade in service. When the RN trialled gun based CIWS post Falklands War, when the Treasury gave them a blank cheque to purchase whatever they wanted, the Dutch made Goalkeeper CIWS won by a colossal margin. The only problem was that Goalkeeper was massive so needed to be on large ships, like Carriers, or designed into smaller vessels in build. As a result the RN had to purchase Phalanx as well, despite its issues, because its smaller size meant it could be mounted on ships with limited space or top weight margine (like T42). When they had the choice it was always Goalkeeper that went on....Phalanx has improved however. The updates in the 90's and 2000's resolved a lot of issues and made it reasonably effective, and useful against surface targets.
In 1982 Sea Wolf was pretty much the only hard kill defence against sea skimmers, let alone supersonic sea skimmers like Sunburn, that actually worked...
The Falklands airspace is "only" protected by four Typhoons. Fun fact, the RAFs QRA, responsible for protecting UK airspace has a grand total of four Typhoons, based at two sites, Conigsbury in the south and Leuchars in Scotland.
@@dogsnads5634 Exactly. There was a reason people joked that CIWS really stood for "Captain It Won't Shoot". And even AEGIS was once written off as "Ain't Ever Gonna Intercept Shit". Phalanx has always been a very marginal weapon system even when it works. When you consider that some of those Russian anti-ship missiles are about the size of a coach 20mm isn't that impressive.
There is a utube video about a US battleship in one of the gulf wars being targeted by a Chinese antiship missile. They turned phalanx on to auto and it fired at the chaf cloud put up by an escort ship. The missile was eventually intersepted by a british ship launched missile.
So stoked to hear Q&As are coming back :)
Ian, really enjoyed this video. For anyone interested in a film about the Battle for Stanley & the initial invasion I would recommend 'An Ungentlemanly Act'. Me and my best mate grew up watching it many times & we both joined up
'It's alright fer yous! Some aye us has got to get to work!'
Superb little drama.
The artwork you have is always cool! Great history report. And thanks for reminding me...I emailed off to Varusteleka for issue with their wool jacket, that your channel promoted back in the day. I
Oh I’ve missed these Q&A!! I always learn something. Thank you all for the questions and ofc many thanks to Ian for great answers!
Glamorgan was damaged by a shore launched Exocet, not lost: At 06:37 on 11 June Glamorgan was supporting the Royal Marines fighting the Battle of Two Sisters, 18 miles offshore. Three missile were fired, one failed to launch, the second launched but did not lock, the third was on target and tracked. "Before the missile impact, the ship executed a high speed turn away from the missile, it hit the deck coaming at an angle, skidded on the deck and detonated, making a 10 by 15 feet hole in the hangar deck and a 5 by 4 feet hole in the galley area below. A fire started and caused the ship's fully fuelled and armed Wessex helicopter to explode and started a severe fire in the hangar. Fourteen crew members were killed and more wounded. The ship was underway again with all fires extinguished by 11:00. Sea Wolf was the successful short range self defence missile - 8 Sea Wolf missiles were fired in anger, for 5 aircraft kills. Only 3 ships mainly in defence of the Carriers, they never got their chance to engage Exocet.
Worth noting that the ground launched Exocet system (the UK also developed one post war called Excalibur, based at Gibraltar until the early 90's) was known about. Glamorgan's captain lingered too long whilst on bombardment duties and as dawn came up, knowingly crossed into the known engagement range of the system in an effort to make up time...truth be told this was a huge mistake as the air threat by then was minimal and he would have been better served keeping out of range and taking a little longer...
Yeah, we called it ITB "Instalacion de tiro Berreta", it was created by 3 engineers, one from the navy and two from the National University of La Plata, having only 22 and 24 years old. Basically it use two radars to translate instructions for the missile, one antipersonal radar from the army and another radar from the Air Force. It is amazing because its something from a chapter of Macgyver. And when we surrender the British took the ITB and they design the Excalibur based on that
Damaged on the 12th June Hank,0637 on the morning of the 12th!?¿
@@philholding8501 The Hms Glamorgan didn’t sank, it was repaired and then sold to Chile
It seems that a total of 11 Exocets were fired in the conflict of which 2 hit their target -HMS Glamorgan survived and HMS Sheffield sank later from fire damage - as far as I know the missile that hit HMS Sheffield failed to explode but the rocket engine set the ship on fire. 2 other missiles hit the Atlantic conveyor after being decoyed away from the warships. Thus of the 11 fired only 2 actually hit target - 18% hit and 82% missed or were destroyed in flight . After the war the Royal Navy gradually ditched their Exocets and replaced with the Harpoon - why? was it considered that the Exocet accuracy was suspect for a precision weapon system?
Good Q&A. It's always interesting hearing the views of someone from a country not directly involved in the conflict.
Looking forward to hopefully hearing you talk about the Royal Marine's defence of South Georgia, fighting off the corvette ARA Guerrico with small arms & a Carl Gustaf recoilless rifle, has gone down in legend.
Another bit of trivia regarding weird weapons. The last Maxim in .303 in use in the British Armed Forces was with ND8901. The only place they could train on one was in the Royal Marines Weapons Museum in CTCRM. I think it was deployed outside Government House during the Argentine landing.
Bravo Sir, excellent content. Bestest from Wales.
4:31 IMHO I believe it was helo hit by the Blowpipe. Not having a proximity fuse was a major handicap.
I've also heard that Rapier suffered from breakages. Wasn't really expected to be ships in heavy seas, and they struggled to get the systems properly running when it was needed.
I do think the use (and high cost) of the Milan is one reason why the CG 85mm is still around, and new, dual capability rounds developed for it.
The SAS got early delivery via ‘friends’ in the US SF, of Stingers, first ever combat use got a Pucara counter insurgency aircraft.
Blowpipe got one or two, might include a chopper, in British service, Argentina got a Harrier GR.3 with one supplied pre war. The pilot, Bob Iverson, ejected and pics recovered from the aircraft’s side mounted F95 camera showed the Argentine Blowpipe operator leveling it about to fire.
Like Rapier, like indeed the air defence for the navy, all designed to fight the Soviets. The latter large Soviet naval aviation bombers and large missiles, some being flung at Ukrainian cities now.
That was also the rationale (get it past the Treasury) for the Sea Harriers. Swatting bombers outside the range of Sea Dart.
Blowpipe was command guided so needed a lot of training but avoided using infra red detection so in theory impervious to decoy flares.
Though it was supersonic. Which limited range in a small missile.
@@recce8619 fraudulent testing and validation,got found out in combat.
Officially Rapier claimed 2 fighters,unofficially 0.Worst of all was the completely unserviceable tigerfish torpedo
@@andrewpease3688 Always loved this bit from Yes Prime Minister
th-cam.com/video/IKQlQlQ6_pk/w-d-xo.html
CG is actually 84mm. But yes, point taken.
@@andrewpease3688 The Tigerfish was known about prior to the war, especially against surface vessels. Hence the Belgrano sunk with Mark 8’s.
Tigerfish eventually worked and in 1986 blew a decommissioned Type 12 Frigate in half.
13 years after ‘entering’ service! And a lot of money.
Luckily Spearfish didn’t repeat that experience.
In Iranian service, while they still had spares, Rapier had some success.
Interestingly, two years after the war, the USAF brought Rapier, with unlike the Falklands, working Blindfire radars, to defend US air bases in the UK. Manned by RAF Regiment personnel.
They must have done their own assessment and maybe concluded lack of working radars, the unique positions including on sites where attacking aircraft flew below them, didn’t apply to airfields in Eastern England.
These q&a's are my sleep/relax medicine. Good to hear they are coming back! What a nice way to learn about intresting things.
What you said around the minute 11:00 is truly heartbreaking. As an Argentine I think it's shameful that we as a people deny urgent medical care to Falklanders.
And from the sounds of it, not just deny care, but preventing medical flights passing through Argentinian airspace going from Falkland to Chile.
Spain used to do the same thing with flights going into Gibraltar. Flights have a strange approach in order to avoid flying over their airspace!
Sounds like a country that welcomed Nazis in 44-45, hasn't changed its stripes much...
It's also not true. As far as I'm aware the Argentine government has never prevented an air ambulance flying through their airspace. I do also speak from experience, I had a heart attack in 2022 while travelling between Goose Green and Stanley; it was very fortunate that my wife was actually driving. After a night in hospital in Stanley we were flown to Montevideo, through their airspace. A fortnight later, after four stents were added, we flew back, also through their airspace. JM-B
Hell yeah, ordered your shirt as well. Always love your battlefield tours, please do more if time allows.
Penguin Brutally patch just arrived..loving it Thanks.
Missed these interrogation videos, glad you are bringing them back. Being a fan of Drachinifel, I won’t hold you to the same standard. Thank you for your entertaining and informative content
The Milan was so effective against entrenched positions that the MoD eventually prohibited the British troops from using them as the rounds were deemed to be too expensive for this purpose.
Re British missiles and AAA:
Rapiers of that generation had a search radar on the launcher, but were optically guided by a guy tracking the target through a sight, a bit like a second-gen SACLOS ATGW (but with radio command rather than wire). The batteries didn't take their Blindfire radar trackers because space and time were limited and night attacked weren't expected. The Rapier launchers were badly stored during the voyage down and their electronics suffered from salt water damage. Then they turned out to be poorly adapted to the cold: sometimes the shear pins holding the missiles to the launch rails would go brittle in the freezing temperatures and break, dumping the missiles on the ground. There was also mutual interference between the Rapiers' warning radars and the radar of RN ships in the bay. Tracking targets optically when looking down at a fast jet moving against a complicated background turned out to be as hard as you'd imagine, and accidentally hitting an RN ship was a real concern. Lastly, the missile lacked a proximity fuse, so many very near misses that would have resulted in a kill with, say, Seacat/Tigercat didn't with Rapier. Rapier was massively improved afte the war. It ended up with a proximity fuse, twice as many missiles on the launcher, a sophisiticated EO/IIR tracking turret on the launcher, and new search and fire control radars on their own trailers.
Blowpipe was a shoulder-fired MANPADS that used a MACLOS system similar to a first-gen ATGW, where the operator had to manually steer the missile with a small joystick. As with Rapier, it proved much more difficult to use in actual war than in practice shoots. After the war it was improved into Javelin, which had a faster missile and a SACLOS guidance system whereby the operator only had to track the target, the launcher tracking the missile and radioing it guidance commands automatically. Javelin was then replaced by Starstreak, which uses a VERY fast missile (mach 3.5) with laser beam-riding guidance, and deploys three homing darts once it's motor burns out. Starstreak remains in service today on both vehicles and pedestal launchers. Some have been sent to Ukraine. There was also an intermediate standard called Starburst, which was basically the Javelin missile but with the Starstreak laser-guidance system.
The Sea Dart naval SAM actually did fairly well, WHEN it was used against the kind of targets for which it was designed, i.e. those at long range and high altitude. The major problem wasn't with the missile system, it was that, due to major budget cutbacks in the late 1960s, the ships on which it was mounted (Type 42s destroyers) didn't have a backup close-in missile or gun system to deal with fast, low altitude targets like Exocets or jet fighters doing an "old fashioned" bombing run. The ubiquitous short-range system in the RN was the obsolete Seacat, which was another optically guided (MACLOS) job, and which suffered from having a subsonic missile. This made it only suitable to defend it's own ship against a target coming straight at it, whereas the Falklands situation required it to engage crossing targets heading for other ships, which it couldn't chase down. Seacat was supposed to be replaced by the very sophisticated, fully automatic Seawolf missile system which performed well in the Falklands, but was only fitted to three ships, one of which only arrived near the end. Seawolf had been significantly delayed due to development difficulties, and had also grown in weight and below-decks volume requirements to the point where it was no longer a plug-and-play replacement for Seacat. The only ships to be refitted from Seacat to Seawolf were five Broad Beam Leanders which had to be totally rebuilt at huge expense to accomodate a bare minimum system. Five more had their planned conversions cancelled.
The RN had decided in the 1960s that AAA just couldn't do the job. The Falklands caused a reappraisal of this to some extent, and some RN ships were hastily refitted with whatever 20mm or 30mm autocannons could be found. Some of these were old single and twin 20mm Oerlikons of WWII-ish pattern (actually 1950s). Other more modern mounts were Oerlikon GAM-B01 sinlger 20mm mounts bought on the open market and Oerlikon BMARC GCM-A03 twin 30mm mounts which ironically, were produced in the UK by an Oerlikon subsidiary, and had been available since 1969, but had only found export customers. Eventually most of these were replaced by 20mm Vulcan Phalanx or 30mm SIGNAAL Goalkeeper radar-guided gatling guns for anti-missile defence, but RN ships stipp carry a pair of single 30mm DS-30B or DS-30M mounts.
An entire battery of Oerlikon GDF-001 twin 35mm AA guns, together with their fire control systems, was captured intact from the Argentinians and was subsequently put into service with the RAF regiment for the defence of an airbase in (I think) West Germany. The war also caused the British Army to reappraise the .50 cal machine-gun, and these weapons, which were never seen in British service in 1982, are now widespread.
I walked past an Army display and a Rapier battery caught my eye. They were pleased to talk about it.
That was well before the Falklands difficulties. But when I told my father about it he asked if they had shown me the 10kW trailer.
Thank you for your indepth appraisal here of the AA weapons used.I served onboard HMS Glamorgan throughout the conflict,manning the Starboard 20mm Oerlikon single barrel, and part of the original fit of the ship.Interesting fact here,the date stamp on it was 1943??¿¿!! Still worked well in 1982.I was also part of Air Defence Troop, that used the Blowpipe system,not a very soffisticated weapon system,but to be fair,it was the 1st generation of its type. The Troop was credited with 4 kills throughtout the conflict,including the 1 that saved 2 Para from alot of casualties,potentialy,at Goose Green.Fired by Marine Rick Strange.
Very good comment.
Couple of extra points...
- Rapier - It was also asked to do a job for which it had never been designed, area defence, whereas it was in fact a point defence missile. Similar story with Blowpipe. It, like all MANPAD's of the time, was designed to protect a point. Basically an aircraft had to be flying eroughly towards you or flying roughly away to really have success engaging. A major issue with Rapier at San Carlos was the fact its generators ran on petrol (gasoline for US). This meant a signiifcant number of helo flights to keep the launchers sustained with petrol.
- Trainable mounts, for Sea Wolf and Sea Dart caused all sorts of issues with damage from heavy seas, salt water encrusting interlocks etc. Ironically both missiles had originally been intended for vertical launch....
- The GDF-001 were put into service by the RAuxAF, one of their last jobs, specifically to defend RAF Waddington and the AEW aircraft there. They were later retired but their radars continued to be used, and I believe still are, by RAF Police to check heights of aircraft in Low Flying Areas.
- It wasn't the Falklands that caused the .50 cal to make it back into service, it was the IRA use of armoured trucks to raid checkpoints in NI that caused its return to service on a limited basis. Later in the 90's it returned on WMIK, then Iraq and Afghanistan in particular, on a variety of vehicle mounts along with 40mm GMG that saw its really widespread return.
Lots of good information there, but one error: Rapier has always been SACLOS (you only track the target, not the missile, while Blowpipe was CLOS (you have to track both the target and the missile)
@@kryten10f Quite right - thank you. I've amended the original post.
Two observations from the point of view of an Canadian forward observation officer at the time of Operation CORPORATE.
1° From contact with troops of the 1st Bn, The Light infantry, the idea of magazine interchangeability between various inch-standard rifles in the Commonwealth seems to have been more honoured in the breach. The SLR's 20-round box magazine on issue had two small teeth on its front to engage in the magazine well. It was not a happy fit on a Canadian Arsenals FN C1A1. (I did not get a chance to try it for real on a range.) The C1A1's magazine had a machined tooth that was bronze-brazed to the front of the magazine and engaged in the magazine well more solidly -- of the SLR, too.
2° Concerning ECM and anti-ship missile defence, a source who was sailing with Canada's DDH 280 in STANAVFORLANT during CORPORATE told me that, when the RN understood what they faced in terms of an ASM threat, they asked Canada for every chaff rocket they could spare. MARLANT duly emptied their ammo depots and ships stores (except for those then deploying to STANAVFORLANT) of all the RBOCs they could find.
Great series of videos. Thanks man.
One aspect I recall with the US media on the lead-up to the arrival of the British forces to the Falklands was the slowness of the British ships that were were traveling to the islands.
Usually when one hears about military forces going into battle, it was done with the utmost of speed. But in the case with the British in 1982, the ships were, according to news reports, steaming slowly to their destination.
It was speculated there was hope the situation would be resolved diplomatically prior to battle engagements.
You are steaming in formation. You are not steaming at top speed. Your regulated by the speed of your slowest vessel.
@@WALTERBROADDUS Ah! That makes sense. Thanks!
The supply ships probably didn't have the robust propulsion as the Naval vessels.
An excellent video. looking forward to the rest of this series.
Sea Dart and Sea Sparrow missiles were mentioned. The type 22 frigates such as HMS Broadsword had the shorter range Sea Wolf missile.
Hi Ian bravo on you guys doing this
I was thirteen when this happened I remember it vividly
Later in life through re enactment I had the pleasure of meeting a few guys that did this conflict
Told me stories about things
One was in the royal marines commando he was only four/ five years older he stayed in up till after the first gulf war he did special operations and other things
Ps if the person was under 18 he would have not allowed to go to northern Ireland but he went too war in the Falklands
Bestest from Scotland keep up with the excellent work you do
Many little comments to make. I was commissioned as a new infantry 2Lt in 1985. One of the mandatory reads for us in the 'officer reading file' was the Para Regt's AAR from the campaign. A few things stood out. They really praised the firepower of having a belt fed MG at the section level (they used a 7.62 MAG 58 with bipod at section - what yanks call 'squad' -level). Ironically, the new sect weapon was to be the LAR version of the SA80 (L85) which was mag-fed. Seemed an odd decision. At least we (Canada) were doing something right for a change by switching from a mag-fed LAR (FN C2) to a belt-fed Minimi (C9 - what yanks call an M 249 SAW). The report was also critical of the basic UK uniforms for having flat, patch pockets that couldn't hold much. This caused the change to generous bellows pockets. In this we messed up as in late 86, some twat introduced a new combat shirt for us that no longer had lower pockets at all and switched to flat, patch pockets on the chest. The rationale was that, with the intro of 82 pat web kit, we didn't need any pockets ever again because, apparently, we were expected to wear webbing 24/7. Also, it was deemed to be more comfortable/compatible with body armour. While true, we didn't start giving everyone body armour until Afghanistan in 2002.... so...
Battlefield pickup of enemy weapons. Lt Robert Lawrence of the Scots Guards famously plucked up an Argentinian rifle in the heat of the attack as his rifle failed. IIRC, he was wielding both rifles as he was afraid to toss his away as it was on his charge (signed for it) and, in retrospect, he felt it made him look a bit of a twat to be running around with an FAL in each hand. This was famously depicted by Colin Forth in the film Tumbledown. This, combined with the odd decision to have the Scots Guards conduct the attack while wearing berets (evidently for IFF purposes?) make the scene look absolutely ridiculous and silly. However, according to Lawrence, that's how it happened. Stranger than fiction. Unfortunately, Lawrence was shot in the head during the consolidation phase of the attack. A helmet likely wouldn't have helped. Despite losing 40% of his brain, he recovered and learned to walk again.
I'd never pick a fight with Ian over weapon facts. However, he mistakenly refers to the Carl Gustav early in the video as a 'rocket launcher'. It isn't. It's a shoulder fired recoilless rifle. Yikes... get ready for the hate from all the keyboard commandoes...
Good call, thanks for the info
Tumbledown was an excellent film , really well done , still one of my favourites
Love it, how to get twat into a gun forum
@@Foxtrottangoabcneed to watch that as if my dad stayed in 2 years longer would have been on that hill….
As for attacking in Berets, that’s ‘ally as fuck 💪🏼’
Thanks for the reference to the Scots Guard LT.
Just found the full film on TH-cam, starting watching it just now.
I'm the question around the 48 minute mark a big thing Ian didn't mention was that the 2 carriers we now have carry 24 F-35B's each and can carry an additional squadron each if necessary giving a potential air wing of 48 - 72 F-35B'S which is substantially more of a threat than 24 sea harriers 😮
That is until the current Labour government decide to scrap or sell one of them and halve the number of aircraft on the remaining one....
Cry me a river 😂@@FrontSideBus
@@nafo_good_fella3452 Blow me.
The UK could not redo the whole Falkland thing if they wish on a star.
@@WALTERBROADDUSwe don't need to. Just the announcement we have a sub guarding the islands with orders to send any argie ships that approach to join Belgrano will scare the argies into staying at home.
Tony Bojko, a 3rd Para Vet, went back six to eight years ago. He met and befriended an Argentinian Vet officer there. The locals hate "The Argies", but the vets do not.
Plenty of the vets are really cool about the whole thing, sadly the same cant be said for many Argentinian people
I always think of that top gear episode
need some decent artwork....get in touch mate
@@Will_M600 Hi, I'm argentinian, in a spirit of mutual understanding, what do you mean when you say we are not cool about it?
@@poja82 my guess would be that a quick gander in every comments section of a video dealing with the Falklands War will show hundreds of your countrymen raving and ranting about how the islands are Argentinian (which they never were), and how they should be taken back; that would constitute reason for saying that the Argentinian population is not cool with it. Which is a bit sad; raving nationalism is never positive. And while they may not represent you, they are what is seen.
Love this !! I’ve got my patch on order now :)
For some reason even as a young guy living in Los Angeles I was aware of the yomp. When I look at people suffering and I seem to be able to feel what they're feeling, this was confirmed many years later when I did Ruck marches with not only the standard rucksack but extras, I'm the big guy so I can take it. And the amount of weight that those guys were carrying was in many cases the biggest common injury experienced. I'm surprised that didn't come up more but perhaps it was exaggerated ?
I met Sir Rex Hunt one evening at a hotel bar in Stratford-upon-Avon back in '99 - he had some very interesting stories to tell. We closed the bar together......
As I watched you Yom- across the island, I kept hoping to see you with a flag poking from your bag.
Also: LOVE the ‘penguin brutality’ theme. I suspect the patch will become popular with 3 Commando vets.
Many thanks Ian and commenters, really enjoyed this perspective..👍
The Penguin T-shirt and patch are on their way 🇬🇧👍looks fantastic
Yup got mine ordered too 😁😁
Years ago I was on exchange with 2 Para. We did a series of exercises in Wales at Sennybridge....the weather was the most wet and miserable I have ever been in my career. I am confident this experience was integral to the Paras and Commandos skills in the Falklands.
'When is the Parachute Regiment ever going to fight in anywhere like Brecon?' Jan.82 question to the Adjutant from a Coy Comdr and Int.Offr who thought other training areas more relevant to 10 Para's NATO role. Well intentioned but misguided, shall we say
And yes, you're right
Sunny Senny!
300 Weatherby Magnum is a damn good long range round. Very similar to 300 Winchester Magnum, another popular sniper round. There are several popular wildcat rounds in the long range shooting community today that are based on the 300 Weatherby.
These Falklands videos are great! Informative, and entertaining. Looking forward to the future ones.
We carried as much ammo as we could carry. My day sack was just toppers and weighed close to a full bergan weight. The big take away is train to carry a lot of weight which we did so no biggie. 5 Bde not so.
I served a year's tour 'Down South', in the 90's. I loved it! I flew all over the islands and did visited the battle sites - obviously. I also visited all the pubs in the town, also obviously 🙂
I seem to remember that the locals tolerated Argie visitors so that they may visit the war graves in the cemetery.
No British Soldier I ever knew - myself included, who would fire over a parapet whilst ducking as you demonstrated. That sort of behaviour, in training, would have made your bollocks ache - severely.
'The Red and Green Life Machine' was unique as it was the only hospital, at the time, that never lost a patient during the conflict. If you arrived breathing - you survived.
Anyway, thanks for the tickle of the nostalgia muscle.
On 'Improvised Vehicles', you missed 'Task Force Trudi', if you regard re-purposed civilian vehicles as falling within that bracket.
TF Trudi was the informal name given to the group of locals who used farm vehicles to augment logistics for the British forces.
It's named for Trudi Morrison (now McPhee) who organised and led the 22 islanders. This group also used their local knowledge to take part in night reconnaissance patrols.
An excellent, informative, and even-handed, Q&A session. Thanks.
For anyone looking for other content on the Falklands war, Id highly recommend the timeline documentary, it’s available here on youtube
And for anyone looking for the Britishest of British war documentaries, look up "Operations Black Buck Falklands' Most Daring Raid" in the TH-cam search bar for the funniest documentary on what was, up until the GWOT, the longest bombing campaign in history, Operation Black Buck.
It's got everything! 10 pound pocket calculators! Bits of bicycle chain! Bacon sandwiches! Chariots Of Fire!
"Monty Python couldn't've planned it better..."
It is just so nice to hear you talking, Ian. I wondered why I became so interested in weapons after viewing your videos a few years ago, but here you have me fascinated by the Falklands. I seriously think you could talk about anything and I'd sit and listen engaged to what you say.
thanks for another informative and entertaining video
Thanks for pulling this together. Good video!
Chris Thrall has a series of interviews on his channel. He's a bit out there, but he's done a brilliant job of documenting the stories of a diverse group of veterans
Argentinian here. Excellent video and thank you very much for the objectivity put into it.
- Regarding ground-based anti-aircraft missiles: indeed, on both sides they were quite inefficient: The Rapiers, I understand, shot down only one plane (Lieutenant Bernhard, Mirage V Dagger on May 24). The ones that were better were the Stingers that the SAS had unofficially, shooting down at least one Pucará and one Aermacchi. On the Argentine side, 2 Harriers were shot down with missiles, one with a Roland missile near the capital and another with a Blowpipe near Puerto Howard.
AR-15: The Argentine special forces also used them, but mixed with FAL.
In relation to the mines and the penguins, in a nature TV program hosted by Lorne Greene in the 80s, he said that in fact the mines had improved the lives of some penguins, since the area had been fenced off and the sheep did not enter. , which prevented their nests from being trampled.
- The other naval anti-aircraft missile is the Sea Wolf (quite effective against our planes, but not against Exocet missiles). And in the comments people forget the Seaslug anti-air missile.
- The Mark V, 300 weatherby magnum, belonged to a special forces doctor (Captain Hugo Rainieri) and a hunter in his private life.
One of the few adaptations (besides the Exocet "transplanted" from the ships) was the "Missile Tractor" was an agricultural tractor, on which a 70 mm rocket launcher (19 tubes) extracted from a damaged Pucará was placed on top.
Greetings from Argentine Patagonia.
When I heard about the Wetherby I wondered if the owner got it back.
@@myparceltape1169 According to the same doctor, when the surrender occurred, he broke and folded it using a heavy stone and threw the remains into the water.
Obviously the English would not have allowed him to bring the rifle on the SS Canberra.
@@bulukacarlos4751 Thank you.
I had hoped it might be returned separately.
@@myparceltape1169 I was half expecting it to turn up in the hands of Jonathan Ferguson at the Royal Armouries.
Regarding what you said about the British Rapier surface-to-air batteries being ineffective. According to Chief Petty Officer Rich Edwards, Royal Navy, he claims that the Royal Air Force forgot to bring their Rapiers' test equipment with them down to the Falklands. This meant they couldn't calibrate the batteries to work properly, and they seem to have only discovered this after they landed in San Carlos. It apparently took over a week to sort it out this oversight, so long after the Battle of San Carlos was already over, when they needed the air cover the most. He also agrees with your assessment that the Sea Wolf was quite effective, "really effective" in his words. Interestingly, he doesn't mention the Sea Slug, but he wasn't impressed with the Sea Cat which he claims was flown remotely be a pilot. Apparently, HMS Fearless fired a years allowance of Sea Cats on the first day at San Carlos alone so the hit rate must have been quite low.
If you're interested in reading this up for yourself, it's on Page 98, Goose Green by Nigel Ely, a British paratrooper turned SAS operator who served in the war whilst still a paratrooper. The book is mostly centered around 2nd Battalion, the Parachute Regiment, or 2 Para, in short, and the Battle of Goose Green, but I thought I'd give my source anyway, just in case you wanted it.
11:50 during the occupation an islander had a heart attack. When his son went to get help on his motorbike, he was fire on and had to flee, unable to get the medical help they needed.
Patch arrived today. Delivery time Finland to UK was amazing. The patch is fantastic
27:37 This only works for grenades with a running motor on the trajectory, such as the RPG-7 grenade. In LAW, the motor burns out while the grenade is in the launch tube and the windage adjustments are similar to those in small arms.
Surely the wind would still affect the fins on the rocket in the way Ian described?
As I wrote, only for rockets where the engine works on the trajectory. Then the wind will deflect the tail and the rocket will turn around the center of mass against the wind and the engine will push it in this direction. If the rocket flies by inertia, like in many disposable grenade launchers, then the wind will simply blow it away in the same direction.
@@ВадимЯщук-к6д Okay I understand now. Thank you for your explanation. I take it you have personal experience of this?
@@Bobario1 Yeah, although not much.
Great to see you covering the Falklands Ian, seeing you walking the ground was awesome. Although I see the kit I was issued with behind glass now in museums even I wasn't old enough for the Falklands War. I remember being glued to the news reports each night back in 1982, by 1983 I was 16 & joined an Infantry Regt. A truly fascinating book on the war is the After The Battle series 'The Falklands War, Then & Now' by Gordon Ramsey. Keep up the great work!
"And whatever else you do soldier, don't piss off the penguins!" 🤣
I am a new subscriber. Glad you're covering Falklands content. Lots of love
I've watched lots of documentaries about the Falkland islands war and unlike most wars in the last 50 years this involved the Navy Air force and army against two first-class militaries. It was pretty intense.
I wonder if land is expensive there?
I'd say it depends where you are from if you get paperwork.
Short answer, Yes. Long answer, Yes even if you can get someone to sell some to you.
Which would be the first class militaries? You mean the Argentinian forces?
top6ear@@top6ear Be interesting to see the answer to the question on which were the top class militaries. Was it the Army or The Royal Navy or the RAF ?? In those days we had for a short time a prime minister that was happy to support her forces AND Sam Fox.
@@petliakov9906😂
"The sheep would occasionally walk on a anti-personnel mine… that was usually a problem for the sheep." 🤣 I love the understatement here, lol. Great video! I honestly didn't think I would enjoy this kind of content, but I am very happy to be proven wrong. Please do more Q&As! Also, lamb mac & cheese sounds delicious!
Among the curious stories about weapons are two Argentine commandos who were both also doctors and designated marksmen and BOTH used the weatherby mkv 300 wby magnum with daylight german made weatherby hunting scope they didnt have so much 300wby ammo so Ranieri also carry on his back one ar15 with a bag with 700 rounds
. Also Lieutenant Vazquez who defended San carlos used a smle. Enfield.
In each platoon there used to be some 1909 Mauser rifle but they were not used.
Sergeant Colemil used a captured British fal that had a night sight and was able to maintain his position thanks to it.The 601 commandos had some steyr aug that had come in the sk105 tanks trade but it was not a weapon to their liking, perhaps due to the difficulty of obtaining ammunition. Most argentina submachine guns didnt saw action, nor some shotguns as the bullpup high standard 10
Thanks for putting out such an informative video. I recently watched the movie "That Christmas" and knew enough to pick up on the subtle (at least to an American like myself) reference to the Flaklands War in one character's backstory. It made me realize, though, how little I knew beyond some broad strokes about air and naval battles. Thanks for filling in some missing pieces.
2025 just became instantly better than 2024 with the news the Q&As are coming back. Please please keep them long format. Woooo
Right? This video is awesome.
Thanks for doing the documentary and q & a Ian, great stuff as usual. Sea Dart if I remember correctly was an anti aircraft system deployed on the type 42 destroyers, with Sea Dart (WWII line of site system) and Sea Wolf (radar controlled system) used on board the ships for anti aircraft and anti missile use. Inserted as a stoker on Leander Class Frigates during this period, but hopefully a Gunner from this period will be along to set the record straight.
Cheers mate.
I heard this war was so bad that some veterans could no longer sweat
Just the one and He's a complete Tit; but fair is fair he was called and served. Not that that gives him a free pass afterwards, but he could have had 'Bone Spurs' or something to get him out of it.
This condition was limited to ‘small bean regarders’.
It's also related to a condition where you distinctly remember oddly specific events and places 🍕
Why are people making references to trauma amongst references to Diddy behavior?
That war also exposed an overlooked situation. French Exocet anti ship missiles were not programmed into threat assessment in the electronic systems by the Allies of the French, and one British ship, HMS Sheffield was hit and mortally wounded. All electronic signatures from weapons by any combatant are registered now as potential threats.
Overrated. Most of the ships were sunk by bombs.
Glamorgan wasn’t lost. She took damage but was able to return home. Her damage control teams did wonders.