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FAO Falklands 82 veterans


Thedelldays
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Cheers Jamie.

 

The skipper of the Conquerer, the sub which sank the Belgrano, was Cmdr Chris Wreford-Brown. I served under him on the Cornwall direct from build, and can honestly say he is a complete gentleman and one of the nicest men I ever worked for.

 

The main trajedy from the Belgrano incident, and the reason that so many died, was that it was being escorted by 2 Type 42 destroyers (which Britain sold to the Argies the previous year) who were deliberately not targetted (torpedoed) so that they could render assistance to the crew of the sinking ship. However, they turned tail and fled as quickly as they could - thus the durvivors had to wait for RN ships to pick them up, a delay which meant many more drowned than would have had their compatriots done the right thing.

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Cheers Jamie.

 

The skipper of the Conquerer, the sub which sank the Belgrano, was Cmdr Chris Wreford-Brown. I served under him on the Cornwall direct from build, and can honestly say he is a complete gentleman and one of the nicest men I ever worked for.

 

The main trajedy from the Belgrano incident, and the reason that so many died, was that it was being escorted by 2 Type 42 destroyers (which Britain sold to the Argies the previous year) who were deliberately not targetted (torpedoed) so that they could render assistance to the crew of the sinking ship. However, they turned tail and fled as quickly as they could - thus the durvivors had to wait for RN ships to pick them up, a delay which meant many more drowned than would have had their compatriots done the right thing.

 

Come on, we all except that if we are in a squadron and one gets torpedoed then the rest will scatter.

 

Not going to go stop to pick up survivors with a hungry sub about, that's a sure fire route to having more men in the water and more ships on the bottom.

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I've never understood the controversy surrounding the Belgrano thing, who cares wether it was outside the exclusion zone or not - we were at war, sinking ships is what you do.

 

I also don't get why we didn't take the war to Argentina, we should have been bombing Buenos Aires.

 

I see no reason to go blowing up innocent civilians just because they had a complete nut job as a leader. The Falklands was just a diversion to try and boost public opinion because Argentina was in the toilet ecconomically. Can you imagine if we'd gone into Iraq with Bush and Blair saying "we're going to bomb the sh*t out of the guys in Baghdad". There'd be outrage.

 

Agree about the Belgrano. If you're in a war, you're in a war. You can't just turn your arse to the enemy and claim innocence.

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I'd love to know exactly how General Pinochet helped us. It's all shrouded in secrecy, but Lady Thatcher certainly felt we owed him a debt of honour for his assistance. General Pinochet must have been a crucial ally and as such saved many British lives.

Edited by dune
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I see no reason to go blowing up innocent civilians just because they had a complete nut job as a leader. The Falklands was just a diversion to try and boost public opinion because Argentina was in the toilet ecconomically. Can you imagine if we'd gone into Iraq with Bush and Blair saying "we're going to bomb the sh*t out of the guys in Baghdad". There'd be outrage.

 

Agree about the Belgrano. If you're in a war, you're in a war. You can't just turn your arse to the enemy and claim innocence.

 

I didn't mean we should have carpet bombed civilians, more take out military targets, torpedo their ships in dock or try and get the people in charge.

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We didn't need to sink their ships. As soon as they knew that we had hunter/killers in the area their fleet didn't leave port.

 

Yeah but if we sent our hunter/killers and some bombers to the Argentina mainland to destroy what they could in dock it would send a clear message to the Argies and speed up their surrender.

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I've never understood the controversy surrounding the Belgrano thing, who cares wether it was outside the exclusion zone or not - we were at war, sinking ships is what you do.

 

I also don't get why we didn't take the war to Argentina, we should have been bombing Buenos Aires.

 

Both for the same reason: the Reagan administration wouldn't allow it. Whatever the truth, the sinking of the Belgrano had to be justified as an attack on a Falklands-bound aggressor to satisfy the Americans. The order handed down to Thatcher was that not a shot should be fired on the Argentine mainland. And it wasn't (a botched SAS operation against a Super Etendard airstrip notwithstanding).

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Yeah but if we sent our hunter/killers and some bombers to the Argentina mainland to destroy what they could in dock it would send a clear message to the Argies and speed up their surrender.

 

We had no bombers with the range to bomb Argentina and no bases in South America. The Harrier didn't have the range and would have put the Carriers in range of the Argentina Air Force if we had attempted it. The focus was to take back the Falklands, to do that the carriers needed to stay out of range of Argentina and in range of the Falklands. Missiles were unacceptable politically because we were getting help from the US and France.

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Comms Techs. Some old ones may, or may not, post on here. :suspicious:

 

I think probably more GCHQ and probably a few 14 Sig Regt (EW) may have been involved here - they may not see you - but you can be sure they will bloody well hear you...!

 

The problem with such units is that, because their work is shrouded in secrecy, many commanders on the ground don't actually know the full value of the services they can (and still do) provide.

 

http://www.thisisgloucestershire.co.uk/Silent-listener-lifts-lid-Falklands-War/story-12969463-detail/story.html

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Come on, we all except that if we are in a squadron and one gets torpedoed then the rest will scatter.

 

Not going to go stop to pick up survivors with a hungry sub about, that's a sure fire route to having more men in the water and more ships on the bottom.

 

I think you mean 'accept' not 'except' (I was always under the impression that CT's needed to be good at languages - ;) ).

 

Scattering is one thing, running away as fast as you can instead of trying to engage the enemy and saving the lives of your comrades is something else.

 

I am an ex-TAS rate so probably have more of an understanding of underwater warfare than you (I left as a CPO(S)).

 

If you would rather just run and leave others behind I am glad I never had to rely on you watching my back!

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I think you mean 'accept' not 'except' (I was always under the impression that CT's needed to be good at languages - ;) ).

 

Scattering is one thing, running away as fast as you can instead of trying to engage the enemy and saving the lives of your comrades is something else.

 

I am an ex-TAS rate so probably have more of an understanding of underwater warfare than you (I left as a CPO(S)).

 

If you would rather just run and leave others behind I am glad I never had to rely on you watching my back!

 

Left as a PO(EW) and spent many a year on towed array frigates out of Guzz as a LS(EW) so I'm quite comfortable about how it all works thank you, having lived down the TAS messdeck and done plenty of quite patrols up north.

 

As a TAS APE you'll know that survivors wouldn't even be considered until the target has been prosecuted or the area considered secured. It's the risk we all took.

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I'd love to know exactly how General Pinochet helped us. It's all shrouded in secrecy, but Lady Thatcher certainly felt we owed him a debt of honour for his assistance. General Pinochet must have been a crucial ally and as such saved many British lives.

 

Weren't we using Chilean bases both for covert sabotage ops inside Argentina and refuelling for ground attack aircraft other than Sea Harriers and GR3 Harriers??? Didn't know it wasn't common knowledge :smug::smug:

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Left as a PO(EW) and spent many a year on towed array frigates out of Guzz as a LS(EW) so I'm quite comfortable about how it all works thank you, having lived down the TAS messdeck and done plenty of quite patrols up north.

 

As a TAS APE you'll know that survivors wouldn't even be considered until the target has been prosecuted or the area considered secured. It's the risk we all took.

 

Exactly my point. They didn't even attempt to do this. They just turned tail and ran.

 

Towed Array was my baby. I was one of the first 20 (surface fleet) passive rates. Did trials on Lowestoft of all the various forms before it was accepted into the fleet. Then Leanders, 22s and 23s. The only sea-time I had which wasn't on a TA frigate was my last draft, as XO of a P2000.

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