Here is the A.R.A S 32 “San Luis”, a 209 calss sub, active in the Malvinas
during the war, transport of the Tactical Divers force in April 1 1982. :arrow:
Condor, some corrections:
The ARA San Luis wasn’t the transport of our tactical divers in the Operation Rosario, it was the Guppy class ARA Santa Fe. This submarine was put out of service and then sunk in battle at the front of the Georgias islands on April 25th.
submarine ARA Santa Fe
The ARA San Luis operated in battle, attacking and being attacked at least four times, when the submarine tried to attack enemy blanks, but the guided system of the torpedos failed at the four tryings. The crew ensured that at least four times they launched torpedos agaisnt british ships. Nowadays in service.
submarine ARA San Luis
The other argentine submarine in service, the ARA Salta, U-209 class, made too much noise to be in battle because a failure of it powerplant. So, it was used only to patrol the argentine southern sea. Nowadays in service.
submarine ARA Salta
Only to add info, nowadays the Argentine Submarine Fleet is formed by 4 submarines, the two U-209 used in the South Atlantic War (one of them is used as a reserve submarine), and two TR-1700 class submarines, to most, the best non-nuclear submarine in the world. They are the ARA San Juan and ARA Santa Cruz.
submarine ARA San Juan, TR-1700 class.
(As you can see the tradition of the Argentine Navy sais that all the argentine submarines would be named with an argentine place/territory that starts with the letter S.)
Argentine fleet:
*U-209 ARA Salta
*U-209 ARA San Luis (res)
*TR-1700 ARA San Juan
*TR-1700 ARA Santa Cruz
Can confirm AFA Santa Fe was hit by a AGM possibly TOW from a British heli, on Georgia.
The ARA Santa Fe was a submarine in the Armada Republica Argentina from 1971 to 1982.
The submarine was built during World War II by the Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics and was launched on November 19, 1944. Commissioned into the US Navy, and named USS Catfish (SS-339), the submarine entered service in March 1945. As Catfish the submarine took part in the closing stages of the Pacific war against Japan. Afterwards she served in the US 7th fleet in the Pacific Ocean seeing service in the Korean War. In 1971, Catfish was decommissioned and sold to Argentina where she was renamed the ARA Santa Fe.
In 1982, the Santa Fe took part in the Falklands War alongside the ARA San Luis, the only two submarines in the Argentine Navy. The Santa Fe supported the Argentine invasion of South Georgia by landing marines on the island and stayed on station in the area as a large British task force approached the South Atlantic.
On April 23 the Royal Navy ships, HMS Brilliant; HMS Antrim; HMS Plymouth; and the ice patrol boat HMS Endurance were sent to retake the island of South Georgia with a detachment of Royal Marines and Special Boat Service commandos. The threat of Santa Fe forced the British ships to keep a distance as they landed troops on the island.
However the Santa Fe was spotted by Wasp helicopters from Endurance and a Lynx helicopter from Brilliant. Between them the helicopters attacked with torpedoes and AS-12 missiles. Santa Fe was damaged badly enough to prevent her from submerging. The crew abandoned the submarine at the jetty on South Georgia and surrendered to the British forces.
Later the Santa Fe was scuttled by the British.
Retrieved from “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARA_Santa_Fe”
Aerospatiale AS-12, in your post said it … 8)
However the Santa Fe was spotted by Wasp helicopters from Endurance and a Lynx helicopter from Brilliant. Between them the helicopters attacked with torpedoes and AS-12 missiles. Santa Fe was damaged badly enough to prevent her from submerging. The crew abandoned the submarine at the jetty on South Georgia and surrendered to the British forces.
The helicopters, a Lynx and a Wasp (possibly a third helicopter reached the place and supported the attack, as argentine sailors remember), attacked to the submarine with torpedoes, antisubmarine profundity charges and a missile AS-12 filoguided, launched from the Wasp helicopter. It didn’t exploded, but pierced the tower of the submarine, and an argentine sailor lost his leg in that attack.
The argentine defence was a joint firing of 7,62mm rifles and machine guns. That defence did that the helicopters started a temporary retreat, but then the battle become useless, the submarine was lost.
On April the 26th, a group of 17 argentine sailors tryed to sink the submarine, and a british guard recognized their intentions and killed one of them. All the 76 survivors plus the argentine marines based on the islands were repatried days later.
some pics of the argentine submarine, after the battle.
http://miarroba.com/foros/adjuntos.php?accion=download&fileid=496926&foroid=914416&rand=1416942
Trying to be carried to Britain
http://miarroba.com/foros/adjuntos.php?accion=download&fileid=496925&foroid=914416&rand=3646012
Sunk and useless in the dock, which became useless too by the weight of the submarine.
1000, there weren’t only two ships covering the Georgias on April 24th and 25th.
The polar ship HMS Endurance, the destroyer HMS Antrim and the frigates HMS Plymouth and HMS Brilliant were there.
I took the testimony of an argentine crew member of the Santa Fe, who said that first arrived two helicopters and then a third.
Okay, my knowledge is a bit scratchy on that.
But only two helis were sent.
I’m afraid your Argentine colleague is correct, the ARA Santa Fe was initially damaged in a depth charge attack by a Wessex 3 from HMS Antrim. This left the submariane unable to submerge it was subsequently attacked by a wasp using AS-12 and a Lynx using torpedoes. The Wessex was piloted by Ian Stanley who had earlier rescued the SAS from the Fortuna glacier.
I make that 3.
EDIT
I see the reference to the San Luis, San Luis made two attempts to attack British ships. Fortunately for the British, the torpedoes that the Argentines had needed servicing and all malfunctioned.
It was also recently revealed that HMS Splendid had tracked ARA Veinticinco De Mayo within Argentine coastal waters. She was eventually given permission to sink her but the Rules of Engagement required visual ID first. When Splend came to periscope depth it was foggy and they didn’t have the visibility.
Sorry but you are both mistaken.
The aircraft involved were
Wessex 3 from Antrim - depth charge
Wasp 434 from Endurance - AS12 x 4 (from 3 attacks)
Wasp 435 from Endurance - AS12 x 2 (from 1 attack)
Wasp ??? from Plymouth - AS12 x 1 (ditto)
Lynx ??? from Brilliant - Mk46 torpedo
Lynx ??? from Brilliant Strafing using GPMG 7.62
I was flying 434.
HWB
Hi and welcome to ww2incolor. Thanks for correcting it, the details on the attack are quite contradictory in the published accounts.
Thank god she didn’t sink it.
Apart from the tradgic loss of life, which would indeed be tradgic in hind sight, as the Argentine Navy never left port again after the Belgrano.
But the Argentines would have probably gone berserk about war crimes or something.
This was actually before the Belgrano, it was why the British made the 23rd April warning to the Argentine Navy.
That would have probably been seen as even more heinious.
I mean…
You invade someone elses land, and then they have the cheek to start sinking the pride of your Navy and sticking bayonets in your soldiers!!! So rude. 
MoD is becoming more open thanks to the FoI Act and has released a stack of documents recently related to the Falklands. Yesterday this included BoI into the death of Felix Artuso. What it reveals is a series of errors and misunderstandings in a time of high tension that led to the shooting of Felix.
http://www.mod.uk/NR/rdonlyres/DE1E82CD-AC14-41C2-A213-D66DBA990ADE/0/boi_deathofpow_felixartuso.pdf
Interesting document, unfortunately several paragraphs with “XXXXXXXXX”
It said that five shots were fired against Artuso…much more than I tough.
LR
Thanks. I’m not sure which published accounts you are referring to but Op Paraquat gives a fairly accurate account although his timings are wrong - according to my log book written at the time…
HWB
Britains small wars is usually pretty accurate and that was my first port of call. As far as I recall it didn’t include the details you described, I did look at the Channel 4 book as well but as I’ve found it contains numerous errors I don’t trust it too much. I also looked at Sandy Woodward’s book and a few accounts on the web.
To be honest I’ve never come across an account written by the people involved, so I’d be very interested in an eye witness account.
Since when did british government act according any ethic rule: they sank the ARA Belgrano outside the exclusion zone they announced themselves. Brits are shits!! So are their NATO allies, who helped them. And the chilean (Pinochet) government which gave intelligence, air bases for british reconnaisance Canberras, and by menacing our borders, prevented us to send to Malvinas our best troops equipped for winter warfare. Instead they had to be deployed on the Andean border.
Check your mailbox!
prevented us to send to Malvinas our best troops equipped for winter warfare. Instead they had to be deployed on the Andean border.
Morale of this story (and one the present UK government has not grasped)
Do not go to war when you are not equipped or manned properly to do all the duties required.