The SITREP Podcast Presents: OPS Center Episode 6 The Falklands Air Operations

May 10, 2019 by stvitusdancern

Welcome back warriors! It is time to jump in the cockpits and strap in for some air to air combat over the Falkland Islands. Who will come out on top? Join Oriskany as he guides you through the air operations that took place during this conflict.

Was this war won in the air or on the ground? You decide.

How would you play out this pivot able conflict?

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bobcockayne

6 years ago

Thanks James a very pleasant interlude listening to this on a rainy friday afternoon

oriskany

Reply to bobcockayne

6 years ago

Thanks for the post, @bobcockayne – and send some of that rain over here. It was past 90 degrees at 10:00 AM this morning!

Glad you liked the episode. Next episode we get into the seaborne operations, which, honestly, is really more air battles as Argentinian aircraft try to hit British ships, and British Harriers and air defense systems try to protect them. Meanwhile, British landings take place at San Carlos and Fitzroy, kicking off the ground battles we’ll see in Part 04.

bobcockayne

Reply to oriskany

6 years ago

Brings back memories , Only been out of RAF two months when it flared up, my old unit 399 signals had operation Bully Beef according to a mate still in at time, wonder what that was ref too!
Strangely enough I had rejoined the Napoleonic Association at time and was helping refurbish the carriage of a 4pdr smoothbore cannon whilst listening to the radio broadcasts. A remember a member of the English Civil War Re-enactors Sealed Knot announces ‘We are at war Gentleman’ on the news of the Sinking of the Belgrano at WMMS.
And remember the haunting radio broadcast of the 1st Harrier raid, I cant give nos for security reasons but I counted them all out and all back.

oriskany

Reply to bobcockayne

6 years ago

Interesting, @bobcockayne – the only reference I can find regarding “bully beef” and the Falklands is the infamous news blackout where media was shut out of the loop even more so than most wars. They basically had one film shot of bully beef being unloaded from a British supply ship that was shown dozens of times, it was practically all the video pool some media networks had to work with. Being a signals unit, could your friends have been involved in media access control and were having a joke?

Yeah, there’s a lot to say about the Belgrano. We’ll definitely get to it in Part 03. As always, Ops Center will strike to remain as impartial as possible about that, and present both sides of that incident. That really was a point of no return.

The first Harrier raids to my knowledge would be Royal Navy FRS1 Sea Harriers off of HMS Hermes and Invincible on Port Stanley Airport, follow-up raids after Blackbuck One at dawn of May 1, 1982. There were also a few scraps against Mirage III EAs that day.

According to my sources, a total of six Harriers were lost in that war. Zero in air-to-air combat, two to ground fire, one in an accident on launch, one literally slid off the deck of a carrier in an ice storm, and two vanished in mid-air from air search radar and were never seen again. It is 99% assumed this was a mid-air collision far out at sea, the two Harriers were very close at the time.

There’d be a lot more lumps in the seaborne and ground ops phases of this conflict, as we’ll see in Parts 03 and 04.

bobcockayne

Reply to oriskany

6 years ago

@oriskany ‘Operation Bully Beef’ is probably officially still under one of the 25/50 year secrecy rules as ‘Smurf’ my old mate only knew about it as he was still in C flight barrack as they hadn’t been able to move him after he lost his security clearance ( he’d gone on date with a Girl he thought was from Munich but was actually from East Berlin!) RAF Digby was not part of NATO but was is part of GCHQ/NSA,26 signals was another at Tuefelsberg Berlin, where we were part of USAF operation.

oriskany

Reply to bobcockayne

6 years ago

I’ll say this much, @bobcockayne – so far these Harriers have proven pretty tough to shoot down in AirWar C21 for my Mirages and Daggers. So far, the best approach seems to be a high-speed closure (These Mirage III EAs can push 1000 knots at combat altitude). You gotta get close, and fast, so these Harriers don’t launch too many of their all-aspect AIM-9L Sidewinders at you while the range closes.

Immelmann maneuvers are risky, but they (a) dump that excess speed, and (b) if successful, allow the pilot to complete the maneuver in any facing. The trick I was missing in the live stream game with Gianna was that a SUCCESSFUL Immelmann can move UP TO half your current speed (not the whole half if you don’t want), then drop down in any facing desired. So I kept overshooting unnecessarily. This is a good way to get guns on the Harriers, which are really the Mirages’ only hope (forget those French R.550 Magics). These Harriers are fragile, just three points of gun damage and their vMAX drops from 13 (650 knots) to 7 (350 knots). Anything in excess of that and they literally fly apart.

So if the Argentinians can get one good guns phase, the British lose pretty quickly.

But it’s getting that gun phase …

That, and I want to see what the far more maneuverable Argentinian Skyhawks can do. 😀

pslemon

6 years ago

Another great episode. I remember hearing about the Exocet missile all through the 1980s. It wasn’t just the British that had trouble with them. There was an American ship hit once too, right?

oriskany

Reply to pslemon

6 years ago

Yep, @pslemon . USS Stark, a US Navy frigate, was hit by not one but TWO Iranian Exocets in the Persian Gulf in 1987. These Exocets actually exploded, unlike the one that hit HMS Sheffield (we’ll get into this in Part 03 of the series). Yet the Stark, a smaller ship, did not sink. Honestly, the US Navy had learned a lot from British experience in the Falklands War and underwent a crash program in the mid 1980s to toughen up their warships against SSM, ASM, and cruise missile attack. So USS Stark was a lot more prepared than the less fortunate HMS Sheffield.

But yeah, the Exocet was something of the “maritime boogie-man” of the 1980s. With incidents like the Stark, Sheffield, Atlantic Conveyor, and others, navies all over the world were worried about them. They even get a mention in the movie Top Gun, when their “presence” on the so-called “MiG-28” (don’t get me started) is a big part of the threat that leads to that last big dog fight.

gladesrunner

6 years ago

Great Episode! Canair combat…or even better, naval combat’t wait to see more

oriskany

Reply to gladesrunner

6 years ago

Thanks, @gladesrunner – The system we will use for that will be “Naval Command” by Rory Crabb. Still seeing how much work is involved with making that game actually work. I hope to have some demo games hopefully running on Twitch this weekend (Sunday)?

No grass grows under these feet … 😀

grimwolfuk

6 years ago

Another Excellent Episode Jim

oriskany

Reply to grimwolfuk

6 years ago

Thanks very much, @grimwolfuk

zorg

6 years ago

a great report James.

oriskany

Reply to zorg

6 years ago

Thanks very much @zorg! 😀 😀 😀

ironshield

6 years ago

Another cracker of a podcast Jim looking forward to listening to the rest.?

oriskany

Reply to ironshield

6 years ago

Thanks very much @ironshield ! 🙂 Next episode is Naval Operations (we’re running a live game if “Naval Command” this evening) and we’ll wrap up with Part 4 / Ground Operations.

Thanks for the kind message!