The air war.

Other Wars Falklands/Malvinas War
#201

Hello fellow co-forumers:)

I know I´ve been away from the forum for some time, I can assure you all that is was not due to “rest”… on the contrary, I had an long and difficult year full of family illnesses and problems from one side to the other…

In any case, I would like to wish you all a happy 2009, that the “efing” crisis will ease it´s effects soon and I look forward to more Malvinas/Falkland constructive discussion.

Enrique´s post appeared in the mail today and so I have read a couple of postas back to “warm up” and I found a question from Panzerknacker regarding the equivalences of military ranks and I can contribute a bit here…

QUOTE No idea how the rank vicecomodoro in translated in US or UK ranks./QUOTE]

Panzerknacker,

Vicecomodoro would be the equivalent to a US Lt. Commander, I think is also equivalent to a “Squadron leader” in the RAF but this last one I am unsure of as British ranks are somewhat different than the rest.

I think in the RN it would be a Lt. Commander too.

Cheers and happy 2009 once again

Pánzon

#202

Regarding first air atack with Vulcan , remember seeing on the screen between 5 and 6 ecos , later and in other forums different things have been said about this atack -

This is what I see : 5 or 6 ecos from 090 degrees , detected at about 70 NM hearding towards Stanley - Some of those ecos get lost at about 10 NM then comes the atack on the airport -

One version is that the Vulcan came alone and turn on Countermeasures when detected that it was iluminated by triple A ( If so that should have been with in range of triple A - about 10 NM for the survillance radar -and about 4 NM for the radar to adquire ) We saw that plane at about 70 NM

Another version said that Vulcan came only with one escort - But we had 5 or 6 ecos on screen -

So at this point , hard to say which is the correct version -

#203

Enrique,

Could it be that the multiplicity of contacts was due to ECM´s from the planes? I think that the fact that those contacts dissapeared at around 10 miles may point us to it… but I do understand radar technology is a complicated science and so I just want this to be taken as a “daring idea” under the cover of my ignorance.

Cheers,

Juan.

#204

Thank you Panzon , it is an option , but Vulcan states ( I am making a frerence to another Forum ) that they turn on ECM when iluminated by a Triple A system - This would only happen when they get with in range of the system , not at 60 or 70 NM away-Another thing is , would it be send alone with no escort ?
None of the Pilots from RN that we were able to ask were involved in this mission so they could not give us info on it -

#205

One possibility is that they didn’t know what the engagement range of the AAA system was. Even if the radar signal was reflected perfectly from the bomber, the strength of the radio signal measured by the bomber at 100 NM will be the same as that measured by the AAA system at 10 NM.

Another is that they were just being cautious and wanted to get the system warmed up and running in time. At an airspeed of 600 Knots, they will be travelling at 10 NM per minute. That only gives them a little over 5 minutes between when they turned the ECM system on and when they would have been within the engagement range of the AAA system - that really isn’t all that long, particularly if the ECM system was a legacy one from the Cold-War days when the Vulcans were expected to attack the Soviet Union.

Finally, as for being sent alone with no escort, when compared to the Argentinian fighters available over the Falklands the Vulcan’s performance is actually pretty similar. The Mirage III/Dagger is capable of being supersonic, but had very limited fuel reserves over the Falklands and hence would be limited to subsonic speeds in practice. The Vulcan was capable of cruising at transonic speeds all day long, so interception would be very tricky. Add in raid warning from the radar picket destroyers to tell the Vulcans if there were any Argentinian aircraft about, and the air threat is pretty minimal.

#206

Hello, and thanks for following up.

Another idea that comes to my mind is that “maybe” and I repeat MAYBE, altough I have read Vulcan 760 ( was it the tittle of the book?) and there was no mention to any type of escort, but…

If you were tracking or detecting multiple targets, would it not be possible that for a short period of time, and just in case there was a Mirage or two in the area the Vulcan flew with a few harriers as escort until range of AAA? Maybe, if they “ducked” under the radar horizon of your 44 it might have seemed as that those multiple targets just disapeared ?

I hope I am not speaking nonsense.

Juan

#207

Vulcan could have turn on ECM as far away as 70 NM , and show us 5 or 6 different targets when it was only one

Regarding low level on the final phase of the attack you are wright Panzon , with attacks that originated from the carriers , but came in north of Stanley behind the hills at very low level -

Now for those attacks that came in straight from the carrier heading due west towards the islands there was nowhere to hide , c 130 were seen as far as 13 NM when approaching at night at very low level - Ships were seen as far away as 22 NM when approaching for naval bombardment

Regards Enrique

#208

The Vulcan only used ECM in the final phase of the mission once they’d been acquired by the Fire Control Radar of the gun batteries. Can’t remember the name of the system but it was more sophisticated than the Red Shrimp system of the original Vulcan and was borrowed by the Buccaneer. It basically rebroadcast the transmissions of the Argentine radar to create false tracks.

There is a detailed description in Vulcan 607 by Rowland White.

Hello everyone, long time no see. I get an email from Panzon and drop by to find there’d been a lot of activity over the last couple of days.

In answer to the other question, the Vulcan bombed alone, it didn’t have a fighter escort.

#209

Thank you for the replay . if the case is what you have said , allow me to tell you what I had on Screen , and lets see if we can figure out what was going on -

five or six ecos on screen at about 70 NM at 090 degrees , approaching , some of those ecos lost at about 10 NM , I thought they had gone at very low altitude to avoid radar - Then comes the attack -
What did I have on Screen ?
At that moment - May 01,1982 before 0500 AM only 35 mm Skyguard Systems at airport , Roland was by Sapper Hill giving proteccion to the Radra which was on top of Sapper Hill -

#210

Panzerknacker,

Vicecomodoro would be the equivalent to a US Lt. Commander, I think is also equivalent to a “Squadron leader” in the RAF but this last one I am unsure of as British ranks are somewhat different than the rest

Sorry the late reply and thank you for your information.

#211

My pleasure Don Panzeknacker !

Juan.

#212

To the best of my recollection, the Vulcan approached the target at low level. At approximately 40nm from the Falklands she briefly popped up to scan with her ground mapping radar to confirm her position. The Vulcan relied on 2 INS salvaged from the VC10 fleet for navigation and after a long transit they needed to make certain of their position.

On confirming their position using the mountains east of Stanley, their RWHR warned them they’d been picked up by your radar and they went back to low level. I think they might have tried to spoof IFF as an Argentine aircraft. Other than that there was no electronic emissions whatsoever.

As it approached to the target it pulled up to 8000 ft for the bomb run, the Vulcan was locked up by Skyguard and at that point ECM was deployed.

TBH I’m not sure why you picked up multiple echoes, the Vulcan has a surprisingly small RCS for its size due to its wing planform. It did have 5 spikes on the frontal RCS from its configuration, so I guess that you may have confused the strong returns from various parts of the Vulcan airframe.

The same profile was used for the following raids with the height for the bomb run increased to 10,000 ft.

Does that help?

#213

Thanks , yes it does help . other options would be some Helos in the area were the Carriers were -
After that first attack , the following came much the same pattern -
Seen PAC at about 70/80 NM East of Stanley and always between 08/110 Degrees -

#214

Could you pick up the helos on anti-submarine patrol?

The only other fixed-wing aircraft aloft was a single Sea Harrier flown by Sharkey Ward.

#215

Allow me to tell you what I remmeber about Helos :

I did see every day ships approach shore for naval bombardment , the Helos that took off as spotters , you see them very clearly - I saw the ships at about 22 NM (when I was at Sapper Hill ) and about 16/18 NM (when at the second position -

I did see what I always suspected of a Helo , siting still at about 40/50 NM east of Stanley at 0901 Degrees , which I suspect was like an observer or control wich assure that the planes heading back from the islands were indeed British planes -

I did see all the Helo movements north and west of Stanley ( its caracteristic how a Helo will show up on your screen , compared to an airplane -

As far as seeing the Helos used as Sub Watchers I cann’t tell you certainly if one of the ecos seen for a short period of time was indeed a Helo , it could have been -

I did see every time C-130 Approached at very low level to land at night , those C-130 were seen at about 12/13 NM -

#216

Position of the Helo that I suspect was controling who was heading back to the Carriers - At 090 Degrees

#217

I hope we are all enjoying this exchange with this veteran, perhapas we are the firsts!

Pánzon

#218

I would imagine the helo you could see was the Search and Rescue (SAR) helicopter, the Sea Kings didn’t have a radar capability suitable to identify any inbound aircraft. Best defence in that respect was the Sea Harrier on Combat Air Patrol (CAP).

I’m kinda curious as to why the Shrike missions with the Vulcan were so unsuccessful, you must have been pretty keen to bag a Vulcan but your radar operators were so sharp they always shut the radar down.

#219

Now I understand why that Helo was there ( Search and Rescue )

Regarding Radars , there were two in the islands

ANTPS 43 Westinghouse , 3D Radar , 220 NM Range operated by Air Force with main mission of Guiding our planes into atack and guiding them out of harms way - This Radra had a Crew of about 50 , 3 PPI , enough personel to take turns operating

ANTPS 44 Alert MK 2 Cardion , 2 D Radar , 200 NM Range Operated by Triple A , this is the one I was in - In this radar I was the only trained operator in the islands , so no replacement -

Regarding Vulcan missions , the first ones were alerted to us by the crew of the Air Force Radar , why we were not shot or why they missed , some think just luck and the fact that all sorroundings had snow or water which reflected the Radar waves and could have misguided the missil-

#220

Mission , detect and track enemy airplanes , transmit to PCDA/CIC ( Air post command -
By chance we were able to track ships also -