Strange the deck is awash with the charges like that. I thought cloth bags were used for guns of this size, rather than brass cartridges
I am not sure if it was brass, is more like a charge container.
http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_6-47_mk16_pics.htm
The Ship in Naval base.
Could be, never seen that sort of container on a ship before either.
The cruiser also mounted some Seacats AA missiles since 1968.
Didn’t she lose a lot of armour too?
I’m sure she had her armour belt and torpedo bulges removed.
Interesting - would torpedo bulges have stopped her going down in 1982?
Probably not, she was an old lady and crewed mainly by conscripted cadets with little or no real training.
Many couldn’t even work the signalling devices in the life rafts.
One of the torpedoes that hit her, pretty much vented the bow area to sea, she was sailing at a leisurely 10 knots at the time and not prepped for battle. Doors were open and most of the crew stood down.
The second hit between the two largest compartments on the ship. Once the boilers in these rooms started exploding, as the cold sea water hit the red hot boilers, the crew could do very little.
Added to this was the fact that this torpedo also cut power to the whole ship. This is why no distress call was ever made by radio. The Destroyers didn’t know she was doomed, and couldn’t see the flares and lights that were frantically calling for assistance. They, lacking any serious ASW equipment, sped off and did not engage the Submarine.
Although she was steaming AWAY from the Falklands this was only after the Argentines had decided conditions were unfavourable for an attack. She was steaming towards Argentina, but not to Argentina. The Captain was awaiting further orders.
Of the three groups of ships, only the 2nd flottila (centred around the 25 de Mayo carrier) engaged the Royal Navy en route to the Falklands. Mainly becaues of bad coordination.
The Argentine government were aware taht the British could strike ANY military vessel ANYWHERE, ANYTIME in the world. But this was not passed on to the Capt of the Belgrano. It is this part of the British warning to the Argentines and the set up of the exclusion zone that centres the whole arguement.
The torpedos were WW2 vintage design, and so was the Belgrano. She had been at sea for 50 years, and was only given an annual refit, which was cut short in '82 to provide work men for the rest of the fleets refits and repairs etc.
It is odd that the key attack on Britian (regarding the sinking) is that
This was AFTER an intended attack had been canceled, that she would have taken part in. QED she was a threat.
On the 23rd April 1982 the following message was passed, via the Swiss Embassy in Buenos Aires, to the Argentine government.
In announcing the establishment of a Maritime Exclusion Zone around the Falkland Islands, Her Majesty’s Government made it clear that this measure was without prejudice to the right of the United Kingdom to take whatever additional measures may be needed in the exercise of its right of self-defence under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter. In this connection Her Majesty’s Government now wishes to make clear that any approach on the part of Argentine warships, including submarines, naval auxiliaries or military aircraft, which could amount to a threat to interfere with the mission of British Forces in the South Atlantic will encounter the appropriate response. All Argentine aircraft, including civil aircraft engaged in surveillance of these British forces, will be regarded as hostile and are liable to be dealt with accordingly.
Interviews conducted by Martin Middlebrook for his book, The Fight For The Malvinas, indicated that Argentine Naval officers understood the intent of the message was to indicate that any ships operating near the exclusion zone could be attacked. Argentine Rear-Admiral Allara who was in charge of the task force that the Belgrano was part of said, “After that message of 23 April, the entire South Atlantic was an operational theatre for both sides. We, as professionals, said it was just too bad that we lost the Belgrano”.
After hostilities broke out on May 1, 1982, the Argentine carrier attempted to launch a wave of Skyhawk jets against the Royal Navy Task Force after her S-2 Trackers detected the British fleet. Poor winds prevented the heavily loaded jets from being launched.
It is important to remember that the crux of the whole Argentine plan, to retake the islands, revolved around one thing. They owned them, keep the British away, until the South Atlantic winter and then hope they got to keep them by the time Spring came. After discussions.
To say that the British scuppered the peace process, after the Argies took the Falklands through aggression, not just lethargy on the British part. And attempted to engage the British Task Force whilst they were on route.
From http://www.bobhenneman.info/belgrano.htm
The Argentine Navy launched an ambitious operation, to project their power around the Falklands and perhaps even catch the incoming British task force and take it under attack before it was ready. Task Force 79 was formed, and disposed into three groups. Task Force 79.1 was the carrier 25 de Mayo, while 79.2 was her escort of two British built Type 42 destroyers, Hercules and Santisima Trinidad. Force 79.3 was the Belgrano and two escorting destroyers, and Force 79.4 consisted of 3 frigates. Force 79.4 sailed South of the Falklands, where it played no part in the following week’s events, and was recalled to base May 2.
79.1 & 2 sailed north of the Falklands, where they found nothing but misfortune. First, Santisima Trinidad’s Lynx helicopter crashed. Then the force was detected by a British Sea Harrier (no 801). Hercules attempted to launch a Sea Dart missile against it, but the launcher would not fire so the Sea Harrier escaped unscathed. Finally, 25 de Mayo was unable to launch her Skyhawk attack planes to locate and attack the British, as the carrier was too short to operate the aircraft without a significant head wind, and it was an unusually calm day in the South Atlantic. Having been discovered by an enemy they could not themselves locate, the Argentine Navy called off the operation and turned for home.
So the British are bad because they got the drop on the Argies? I take it the Argies would be holding themselves to such charges of scuppering hte peace process had they managed to shoot down the Harrier or actually got an air attack in the air to engage the British Task Force.
Found on another webforum.
Found this: scotlandonsunday.scots…=660082007
[quote]My part in sinking of the Belgrano
A REMARKABLE first-hand account of the hours leading up to one of the most controversial episodes of the Falklands War has emerged from a Scottish police constable.
Steve McIntosh was a 17-year-old Royal Navy submariner when he helped hunt down and torpedo the General Belgrano, an action that cost the lives of 300 Argentinian sailors and remains hotly debated 25 years later.
McIntosh, now a community beat officer with Strathclyde Police, was in the control room of HMS Conqueror, the submarine that sank the Belgrano, working in the key role of contact evaluation plotter.
The veteran, in what is believed to be the first personal account of events leading up to the attack, makes a number of extraordinary revelations, including:
• HMS Conqueror was earlier in position to sink the Argentinian aircraft carrier Veinticinco de Mayo - a mission that could have shortened the war - but the British government refused permission to engage;
• The submarine tracked the Belgrano for a week, unsuccessfully seeking permission to fire on several occasions before they were finally given the go-ahead on May 2, 1982;
• The crew’s initial euphoria at sinking the Belgrano turned to horror when it emerged Argentinian support ships had fled, leaving sailors to drown;
• The captain of HMS Conqueror, Commander Chris Wreford-Brown, led his crew in a service to pray for the enemy dead only hours after two of their torpedoes had ripped the Belgrano to pieces.
Worth reading in full.[/quote]
Not sure how sinking the carrier would have had any differing effect on the war. She never left port after the Belgrano was sunk anyway, I would say that had the carrier gone down she would have had the same effect on the Navy. Without the political bullsh1t, seeing as she had attempted to engage the taskforce, and was within the TEZ.
As mentioned before, the Argies had been trying to draw their swords for quite some time prior to the sinking. It appears, if true, that the British trying to keep the peace far more than the Argies.
The fact that the gennys (and the aux gennys) were out of action should have had no effect on the txion of a distress signal or message.
Military ships are also required to conform to SOLAS, and until 1999 carried MF Tx/Rx eqpt for this purpose in addition to their own mil rdos, plus similar eqpt for use in the liferafts.
As a back-up to the ship’s own ac power, an array of lead-acid batts were required to be maintained and an accuate log of their SG, voltage and charge rate kept.
These batts were easily sufficient to ensure that the distress signal (12 x 4-sec dashes with 1 sec intervals) and the distress message (locstat, c/s, name of vessel, situation and type of assistance reqd,) could be sent, and distress traffic carried out as long as is possible.
Should a SOLAS representative have applied to board a ship, merchant or military, they were always permitted to do so, and if the batt array failed inspection the vessel would not have left that port.
Huge fines and loss of competency certs for the skipper & Rdo Offrs or w/ops concerned always ensued.
Both Aldis and maroons were used to attract attention to the ship, so it seems beyond credibility that Capt Bonzo forbade the txion of distress signals/messages on mil or civ freqs, therefore I can only surmise that the reason neither were sent is due to one of the following:
It would be interesting to interview those responsible for the lack of comms, as had the other Argentine ships made it to the liferafts more quickly, many fewer men would have lost their lives.
Nice links.
Didn’t she lose a lot of armour too?
I’m sure she had her armour belt and torpedo bulges removed.
The armor was nor removed being an integral part of the ship s hull. , probably without that the ship would sunk faster than she did. Ithink it was soem between 127-140 mm in the thicker section.
• The crew’s initial euphoria at sinking the Belgrano turned to horror when it emerged Argentinian support ships had fled, leaving sailors to drown;
Horror ? and who said the crew feels horror ? :roll:
The cruiser in the Ushuaia port, Tierra del Fuego april 1982.
Steve McIntosh.
To bulk out Cuts reply to panzerknacker, the horror of the crew is said by Steve McIntosh.
[quote]Steve McIntosh was a 17-year-old Royal Navy submariner when he helped hunt down and torpedo the General Belgrano…
McIntosh, now a community beat officer with Strathclyde Police, was in the control room of HMS Conqueror, the submarine that sank the Belgrano, working in the key role of contact evaluation plotter.[quote]
He is the provider of the above quote, and the claim of horror.
It is quite probable that they experienced horror, bear in mind that the RN have quite a tradition of rescuing ones comrades, even if it does put your boat in danger. Something only ever not done, in the Atlantic war by the Convoys.
They were not expressing horror at their torpedoing, that is something that is part of their job. But horror at teh two excorts hitting the gas and not stopping till they ran up the beach in Argentina.
Currently seeing if I can track down info, but the removal of torpedo bulges wouldn’t be that hard, and they are not part of the ships structure. The 5in Armour belt would be harder, but would still be possible.
Cuts ref the batts. I found it hard to understand how a war ship could suffer such catastrophic damage from just one torpedo, but if you factor in that she was mainly crewed by conscripts then the maintainence of complex equipment may have fallen lower than standard.
Likewise, she was an old girl and her annual maintainence period in '82 was cut short.
17 years ? that is young, I undestand the “horror” in such young man, but honestly i cannot visualize (and I could be wrong) a experienced RN crew crying about sinking a enemy warship, as you said is their work after all.
The destroyers escort behavior had 2 lectures.
A) Cowardice, leaving the surviving men at your own.
B) Common sence, helping the crew would make them sitting ducks for the HMS Conqueror.
I really cannot decide between both.
I could visualise it Panzerknacker. Just because a job is done, doesn’t mean that it can’t be regretted.
The Boers at Spion Kop openly wept for the British soldiers they had slaughtered in the battle. As the bodies were huddled together in pathetically shallow trenches.
What is done in the heat of battle, is not always celebrated.
The 17 yo in this case may well have believed the Destroyers would pick up the crew of Belgrano. A submarine often departs sharpish after launching torpedoes, so the Destroyers could have turned around.
The deaths in the initial attack aside, the majority died in the rafts. Waiting for rescue, a fact that it would take days for a SAR op would have been well known to the crew of Conqueror.
Don’t paint the crew of the Conqueror as inhuman monsters because it suits your, or your countries needs. They are men, as many on this forum are.
That they carry out horrible deeds, doesn’t mean they relish them.
Did any of your soldiers not cry or be affected by the suffering they imposed?
From another forum (from 2004) http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/discus/messages/6937/87826.html?1110808428
Here are what some of my work colleagues say: (from a work intranet discussion)
"The comment that caught my attention, which I have never heard before in
previous documentaries, was that both Argie Groups received orders from
Fleet Command for them to reverse course and hold to the west of the Islands
(Cpt Bonzo stated that there was no reason given with the order - which is
somewhat fishy) it suggests to me that the Argies at HQ had intel that the
ships were about to be hit. What was the source? USSR or somewhere a little
closer?What a strange man this Cpt Bonzo?
“My Crew were well trained and very professional”…Mmmmmm
Why did the escorts have Sonar Off?
Why were all the WT doors/Hatches open?
Why were the ships not at action stations ?
Why did the DD/FF’s not notice when their 13000 ton charge suddenly
explodes, is lost on Radar/radio and disappears beneath the waves?
Why did the ships not hear the distress calls on 2182Khz from the Liferaft
radios?There is a lot of strange behaviour going on that has not been explained
(and probably won’t be)."
also from http://www.britishcouncil.org/learnenglish-central-history-belgrano.htm
Several hours after the attack on the cruiser, Royal Navy Lynx helicopters early on May 3 fired Sea Skua missiles at an 8004 ton armed tug (believed to be carrying a crew of about 50) and damaged another vessel after both had fired on British helicopters about 90 miles within the TEZ, north of East Falkland. The task force mounted an air-sea rescue operation for survivors.
Giving details of the attack on these two vessels, the Ministry of Defence described them as “ocean-going armed patrol craft”; one had been provisionally identified as the Alferez Sobral, in which event “she would, according to all the references, be armed with 40mm and 20mm guns”. Whereas British reports said that the vessel sank, the Argentinian Navy announced on May 7 that the Alferez Sobral had reached Puerto Deseado (in Argentina) but that eight people on board had been killed.
Following the sinking of the General Belgrano, the UN Secretary-General, Sr Javier Pérez de Cuellar, expressed deep concern on May 4 over the mounting loss of life in the Falklands conflict and called for the immediate implementation of security Council Resolution 502. Member countries of the European Community (notably France, West Germany and the Netherlands) expressed similar concern, while the Spanish Government warned Britain on May 2 that any broader military action would be a “grave historical error”. Both the Spanish Prime Minister, Sr Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo, and King Juan Carlos of Spain offered to mediate in the conflict in early May.
Or from a Time magazine report.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,923192,00.html
Sinking Prestige A self-inflicted disaster
No single episode in the 74-day Falklands war so upset world opinion as the seemingly heartless British sinking of the Argentine cruiser General Belgrano, in which a total of 321 Argentine sailors perished.
For Britain, the episode was a monumental public relations disaster. Ironically, TIME learned last week, the damage to British prestige was largely self-inflicted—a direct result of the Ministry of Defense’s penchant for supersecrecy. Soon after the Belgrano was hit, London sent a top-secret communication to the Argentine high command in Buenos Aires assuring it that the Belgrano’s two escort vessels would have free passage to begin rescue operations.
Despite the signal, the Argentines allowed a fatal day to pass before returning to the scene. A high Argentine naval official says that the destroyers were too far away, and the seas too rough, to permit a speedy rescue—explanations the British dismiss. For reasons unknown, the British Defense Ministry decided to keep silent about the secret message. Said a British intelligence source last week: “Those bloody fools threw away an ace card to satisfy their appetite for secrecy. As a result we were denounced as killers.”
From http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,921199-3,00.html
The British government’s explanation was that on April 23 it had warned that any Argentine ship or plane representing a clear threat to the fleet would risk an “appropriate response.” The dangers of broadening the war, British officials asserted, had to be measured against the risk of allowing the Belgrano to train its impressive firepower on the British task force. As Prime Minister Thatcher told the House of Commons, “The worry that I live with hourly is that Argentine forces, in attacks both naval and air, will get through to our forces.”
The Argentine reaction to the Belgrano’s sinking was heated. At first, Buenos Aires said that Britain’s announcement was “a lie” and part of a campaign of “psychological warfare.” The next day, however, Argentina conceded the ship’s loss and denounced the attack as a “treacherous act of armed aggression.”
As well as the Belgrano, the Argentines announced—mistakenly it turned out—that yet another navy vessel had been lost. According to Buenos Aires, a dispatch ship, the Sobral, had been fired on by British missile-carrying Lynx helicopters as it searched for a downed Canberra bomber crew within the 200-mile zone. The British said that the Sobral and another Argentine boat had been hit and at least one sunk. A day later, the Sobral limped back into the Argentine port of Deseado with eight dead crewmen.
I love all this “rule for us, rule for you” business. Sinking a cruiser, whilst at a heightened state of near war if not actual war is seen as a “treacherous act of armed aggression” but attacking Moody Brooks Barracks with Willie Pete, mortars and MG stop groups completely out of the blue isn’t?
That and the fact that the Argentines seem, repeatedly, to not pass on important information. ie the fact taht the Belgrano would still be viewed as a target, and that the destroyers could return for survivors.
You made the post and you aswered yourself 1000y :shock: , I already said in other thread that the the sinking of the cruiser was not unjustified.
Don’t paint the crew of the Conqueror as inhuman monsters because it suits your, or your countries needs. They are men, as many on this forum are.
Ha, ha, ha… my godness, what a sindrome, 
describe wich part of my post “I paint” the british seamen as monsters. You are too tense, I suggest that get relaxed a bit.
Cuts ref the batts. I found it hard to understand how a war ship could suffer such catastrophic damage from just one torpedo, but if you factor in that she was mainly crewed by conscripts then the maintainence of complex equipment may have fallen lower than standard
It was hit by two torpedos, one in the machine room and the other ahead the first turret.
I still find the lack of a distress signal very odd.
As I said earlier, there seem to be only four possibilities:
Whats your take on it ?
Panzerknacker
The two torps hit the bow, and one in the bulkhead between two engine compartments. These are the largest areas on the ship.
The first was far for’ard, and didn’t damage much in the way of ships systems, although did vent the bow to the sea.
The second vented the boiler room. This caused massive explosions as the boilers cooked off, when the cold water hit them, and at some point severed the power.
What neither Cuts or myself can figure is…
Why just two torpedos brought a WW2 vintage Cruiser to a complete power down?
The radio room has auxilary batteries, mounted high on the ship, right next to the radio room. These were not damaged, yet no distress call? Power was lost to the ship, yet there are other aux power supplies. Even aux diesal generators, away from the engine room.
Likewise, why were teh distress flares and signal lights (that seem to be still working) not seen by the destroyers?
The reasons from the Argentines, that the Destroyers were too far away? They had sailed away, so surely they could sail back in equal time. Sooner than it would take to sail from Argentina, for sure.
Just two ?
I am far to be a naval expert but I think 2 x 21 inch torpedos are a very heavy damage.
Respect to the other question… no idea, you are asking the wrong guy.
Did any of your soldiers not cry or be affected by the suffering they imposed?
I dont know the cases of the soldiers but being pilots all the men who sink british ship the aswer is no.
None of them has clam to be “horrofied” by the result of his combat mission. I know a case recently wich one of the A-4 pilot who attacked the HMS Sir Galahand meet one of the badly burn british soldiers, but I didnt hear him talking about horror.
I am not a Naval expert either. But it is my understanding that the two torpedoes used would not have wrecked the whole ship. Pictures of the ship in her death throes show very little if any damage to the top of the ship.
Power WAS found to traverse one turret at least (common practice to stabilse briefly a capsizing ship).
The ship was lost due to poor drills in the run up (ie she was not rigged for battle, water tight doors were left open and many crew were off duty) and what can only be ineffective damage control afterwards. There are accounts that damage control in the boiler rooms (the two largest compartments of the ship) were practically non existant after the boilers began to cook off.
Likewise in the bow, 10 kts going forward surely = 10 kts worth of water flow going in through the bow.
The torpedoes could not have damaged the superstructure of the ship, thus the radio shack shouldn’t have been damaged, nor should the emergency radios.
I also speak from a small experience, Thanks to the Andy, of training in various damage control skills from HMS Raleigh and Excellent. Also a bit of dunking in helicoptors.
see here for a insight…
