any wrecks worth mentioning re: falklands war of the 80"

[tom d. friedman]

tulio, i'm sure you could contribute to this new thread big time!!! granted the conflict was over within a week, but there were some air engagements between the argies & the brits, namely the exocet missile that the argies launched, thus sinking a rn ship. the argies also had a respectable air force from what i recall. french mirages, & a plane with a t tail, twin engined prop.... a pugara?? if spelled right. if i'm correct on that i'm some time away from alzheimers disease to remember that after this long!!!! the harrier was certainly a stand out at that time!!! the pissing contest between the 2 countries is long forgotten, but was really not that long ago. best, tom

Last edited by tom d. friedman on Mon Nov 21, 2005 8:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[tom d. friedman]

wow!!! you mean i remembered the name of the argie bird??? if i recall it was of their own design. good looking in my opinion too. i think it was a light ground attack bird like our ov-1 & ov-10 vietnam era.

[RickH]

Tom, you were close. They are Pucarra's.

There was talk of F-4 Phantoms taken down and based at Stanley after the war. I think they were some of the Navy aircraft that were sent to GB. I was told that when they pulled the Squadron they just dearmed the seats, closed the cockpits and walked away as they were phasing the Phantoms out at home.

[tom d. friedman]

close spelling, but no cigar. i guess i can't claim the car & luggage!!! now back to bob barker.

[FAH 619]

Tom:

Indeed an interesting subject! Several Arg "Pucaras" are on display in different UK Museums. As the British said "They came in flying madly over us".

The picture shows the poss Arg A-4 Skyhawk # C-240 that sunk the HMS Sheffield near Port Stanley. C. June '82. Photo Che JNP via C/W.com

Last edited by FAH 619 on Tue Nov 22, 2005 6:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[RickH]

Looks like I missed it too Tom, thought there were two Rs.

[tom d. friedman]

i forgot that the argies used the skyhawk, & never knew it was responsible for sinking the brit boat with the exocet. i thought it was fired from a mirage. i think the mirage was their front line fighter. the incident sure stirred up world headlines then!!! that i remember!!!!

[RickH]

Upon further research , the F-4s were not based at Port Stanley but at RAF Mt. Pleasant there were 4. They carried a Maltese cross on the tail and were named Faith, Hope, Charity, and Desperation in honor of the Gloster Gladiators of Malta fame. They were replaced by Tornadoes in 1992. The aircraft were Britch F-4 FGR Mk 2s. The 15 US Navy Js were purchased to take up the slack in the UK when the RAF models were sent down south.

[RMAllnutt]

I love the way you guys refer to this conflict so glibly, as if it had no consequences.

The Falklands/Malvinas war took almost three months from beginning to end (not less than a week), and there were nearly two months of heavy fighting. Well over three thousand people from both sides lost their lives. It is not a "forgotten" war by any account in England, or Argentina, I can guarantee you that... you only have to witness the ferocity with which England and Argentina play soccer against each other when they meet on the world stage to understand that.... believe me when I say that a lot more than soccer is on their minds.

There were several dozen aircraft losses on the argentinian side (mostly sky hawks and mirages). Many of these losses were due to pilots running out of fuel, or not being able to stand and fight because of the very limited loiter time (due to fuel issues). The argentinian pilots acquitted themselves extraordinarily well all things considered, as they sank six ships HMS Ardent, Sir Gallahad, Sheffield, Antelope and Coventry, and the Cargo ship Atlantic Conveyer. They were incredibly brave, given the very high odds against them, and the skill with which they managed to penetrate the naval defenses. Our harrier and sea harrier pilots did very well too, and didn't lose any in air-to-air engagements, although 8 harriers were lost (three due to non-combat accidents). The argentinians lost two ships, the General Belgrano with heavy loss of life (former USS Phoenix) and a submarine.

The land battles on the islands themselves were some of the most ferocious of modern times. Since the brits were heavily outnumbered, and did not have much artillery support, much of the actual combat was at the hand-to-hand level. It was incredibly costly for both sides. Two victoria crosses were awarded, posthumously. They don't just hand those medals out.

So guys, when you refer to that "little" war again, perhaps you will be a little more thoughtful about the manner in which you speak of it. It was a very serious affair for many of us on both sides out here.

Richard

[Manonthefence]

Well said Richard. How would you guys like it if I refered to Vietnam as a little pissing contest?

[Manonthefence]

Rick

The Phantoms were based at Port Stanley for a while before MPA was built; they had to use the RHAG each time the landed on the PSP extended runway. They were the British FGR.2 variant which was designated the F-4M by McDD. Eventually they were replaced by the Tornado F.3 which still serves there today.

The four Phantoms there were scrapped on site with the exception of one aircraft which remains on display as do I believe a Pucara, a UH-1 and a Turbo Mentor which were left when the Argentineans left.

Tom

The A4 didnt carry the Exocet but the Super Etendard did. It was one of these aircraft that sunk HMS Sheffield and the Atlantic Conveyor. The A4 had some success against our ships in San Carlos Water using Iron Bombs. The Argentinean Pilots earning great respect for there skillful very low level attacks.

Ultimately though, the good guys won but as Richard says, its gives a bit more edge to the Football matches now.

[Tulio]

"The picture shows the Arg A-4 Skyhawk # C-240 that sunk the HMS Sheffield near Port Stanley. C. June '82. Photo Che JNP via C/W.com"

The Type-42 destroyer HMS Sheffield was sunk as a result of an attack carried by a Super Etendard, which fired an Exocet missile
that hit the warship, and not by an A-4.

Besides the Sheffield and the Atlantic Conveyor, there were other British warships either sunk or damaged by Argentinean aircraft; I recall the following:

HMS Ardent
HMS Sir Galahad (RFA, I believe)
HMS Antrim
HMS Glamorgan
HMS Antelope
HMS Coventry


Now, for a little bit of data on Argentinean
Aircraft in the Falklands:

(This comes from memory, OK? Not the most reliable source, and from the very limited information that I have with me in my computer.)

Back in 1998-1999, I wrote a series of three
articles on the "small" airplanes employed by the
Argentineans, including the Pucaras, the Aermacchi MB-339As and the Beech T-34C Turbo Mentors. These were published at www.laahs.com

Those articles are back home in Texas, and I will be glad to share them with anyone interested. There are many factual errors in my research, given the scarcity of material available to me
back then, but the articles are still a good source of data.

The war lasted more than a week, from April to late May (again, dates are off my head, no certain source) or early June, during the harshest part of the Austral winter season.

The sequelae of the conflict lasts up to this day, with tentative contacts being made by British and Argentineans; as a direct result, the military rule in Argentina ended, and a succesion of
civilian governments took root.

Too many people died on both sides, so that the Argentinean generals could have their ill-planned war and so that Margaret Thatcher could show to the world that she was indeed, the "Iron Lady."

The true grit of pilots and aircrew were shown to the world, both British and Argentineans performing under appalling conditions and
at great distances from their land bases in the case of the Argentineans.


Aircraft:

A Prefectura Naval Argentina (Coast Guard) Short Skyvan, was lost over the Falklands.

There were of course, the staggering losses suffered by the heroic A-4, Dagger and Pucara pilots, against a better armed and trained
enemy, but with the Argentineans valiantly pressing their attacks on, despite overwhelming odds against them.

Several Argentinean aircraft were damaged during landing accidents, but the groundcrews managed one way or another, to bring them back
to life; the same was true for those aircraft returning with battle damage.

When the conflict was over, several airframes were left around the islands, and the Brits took with them, as war trophies, several Pucaras, at least an Agusta 109, a Chinook, and whatever was left, was either placed as a gate guardian at Stanley, at the Governor's residence, and also moved to a bombing range.

One of more of the Pucaras were assembled out of parts, and the airplane was briefly operated by the RAF (Boscombe Down) and evaluated, and afterwards the remnants of these and the other
Pucaras, went to British museums, and at least to one individual owner.

The following is an outdated tally of the Pucaras in the UK:

A-515 Cosford Aerospace Museum, Cosford (U.K.) Jul 1998 Wore RAF serial ZD485 briefly.

A-517 (G-BLRP) Somewhere in Witney, Oxfordshire (U.K.) 1995 Last known owner Rod J. H. Butterfield.

A-522North East Air Museum (U.K.) May 1999 RAF maintenance number 8768M allocated, former FAA museum at Yeovilton.

A-528 Norfolk & Suffolk Aviation Museum, Flixton (U.K.) Nov 2000 Undergoing restoration.

A-533 DERA Boscombe Down Museum (U.K.) Apr 2002 Nose only.

A-549 Imperial War Museum (U.K.) Mar 2001 Falklands exhibit, hangar 3.

I have one photo by Ian Howatt, showing the burnt remains of one of the Argentinean Army's CH-47 Chinooks destroyed during the conflict.

T-34Cs:

T-34C-1 "1-A-412" was dumped at the Rabbit Range, and used as a target.

This T-34C was one of several aircraft destroyed and or / damaged during the D-Squadron SAS raid on "Isla Borbon" (Pebble Island), including T-34s, and Pucaras.

The Aermacchi MB-339As:

These were the only Argentinean jet aircraft to be based in the Falkland Islands, and were limited in their capabilities due to the length of the runway at Stanley, the many mechanical and electrical problems they encountered, and to the bombing raids by RAF Vulcans, Harriers and naval gunfire.

5 Aermacchi MB-339As were lost during the conflict:

s/n Serial Unit Date lost

0764 4-A-113 1a Escuadrilla de Ataque May 3, 1982

0765 4-A-114 1a Escuadrilla de Ataque May 28, 1982

0761 4-A-110 1a Escuadrilla de Ataque June 14, 1982

0763 4-A-112 1a Escuadrilla de Ataque June 14, 1982

0767 4-A-116 1a Escuadrilla de Ataque June 14, 1982 (Shrapnel damage)

Three MB-339As plus a large cache of spare parts, are stored in the Houston, TX area. I have seen and photographed these aircraft, as far back as 1,999.

Off the top of my head, I remember 4-A-118,
and I believe 4-A-115 and 4-A-111 are the other two.

For a while after the war, the Brits were actively working to build a new airport in the Falklands (Mt. Pleasant??), and had F-4K (IIRC) Phantoms, later replaced by Tornadoes.

BOOKS:

Mushroom books (www.mmpbooks.biz )has published a book on the

Pucara, written by Phil Cater,Sawtry,Cambs and Ricardo Caballero (Buenos Aires).

Documentary Sources:

The Battle for The Falklands. M. Hastings & S. Jenkins. Ó1983 by Max Hastings and Simon Jenkins. W.W. Norton and Company, Inc. New
York. ISBN 0-393-30198-2

Falklands. The Air War. R. Burden, M. Draper, D. Rough, C. Smith,

D. Wilton. Ó1986 by R. Burden, M. Draper, D. Rough, C. Smith, D. Wilton. Arms and Armour Press, London. ISBN 0-85368-842-7

Latin-American Military Aviation. By John M. Andrade. 1982 by Midland Counties Publications. Leicester, England. ISBN 0-904597-31-8 .

T-34 Mentor in action. Aircraft number 107, Squadron Signal Publications. Lou Drendel, Illust. By Joe Sewell. 1990 by Squadron Signal Publications, Carrollton, TX. ISBN -89747-249-7

Air International, Vol. 23, No. 6, December 1982. By Fine Scroll Limited, Leicester, England. ISSN 0306-5634

Aircraft Illustrated, Vol. 16, No. 9, September 1983. By Ian Allan Ltd., Terminal House, England. ISSN 0002-2675


There are several excellent sources of information on Argentinean aircraft, published by Jorge Nunez-Padin, Javier Mosquera, Vladimiro Cettolo and another gentleman whose name regrettably, I cannot recall right now.

You can contact Jorge Nunez:

marauder@satlink.com

The books are great quality, many color and B&W photos, and they have English text, too. They go for about $15.00 each, and they usually come with a free, never published photo of an Argentinean aircraft.

www.fuerzasnavales.com is also a great source (albeit in Spanish only) for data and photos.

www.malvinasargentinas.com is also a very good site.

Saludos,


Tulio

Last edited by Tulio on Tue Nov 22, 2005 7:56 am, edited 2 times in total.

[Dave Homewood]

Hear hear Richard. I could not believe the utter rubbish I was reading as I read down this thread. Absolutely no respect. I sincerely think a retraction or apology for comments made is in order here.

It was a terrible conflict for those involved with consequences that still affect many veterans and families today.

I have met veterans of the Falklands campaign and some are just as f*cked up by it as those whoi've suffered through other conflicts such as Vietnam.

For many, war is a step into utter hell that they never step back from. It's not the stuff of comic books and model kitsets.

Never, never be flippant about war!

[Manonthefence]

Tulio

Falklands, The Air War is the definitive book on the subject!

[Amado Aguiluz F.]

Battle of the Falklands - Air Forces, Osprey Publishing Ltd., ISBN
0-85045-493-X (with a Land Forces and Naval Forces sections), is another good source of information with lots of photographs.

Cheers,

Amado