CHAPTER 23 – BATTLE FOR THE FALKLANDS
11:35 (South Atlantic Time)
Thursday, April 29, 1982 ‘C’
Navigation bridge of the nuclear battleship HMS VANGUARD
Flagship of British Task Force 317, Operation Corporate
320 nautical miles north of the Falklands, South Atlantic
Rear Admiral Sandy Woodward was looking at the sea from inside the navigation bridge of his flagship, the nuclear-propelled battleship HMS VANGUARD, when a duty bridge officer presented to him a telephone receiver.
‘’The combat information center for you, Admiral.’’
‘’Thank you!’’ said Woodward before taking the receiver and speaking in it. ‘’Admiral Woodward!’’
‘’Admiral, this is Commander Bisley, in the C.I.C. We have a confirmed Argentinian EC-142T long-range patrol aircraft trailing our task force from the North. Unfortunately, it is staying just outside the radius of action of our SEA HARRIER fighter jets while shadowing us with its radars. The Argentinians now know that we are coming and in what numbers, sir.’’
While that piece of news displeased Woodward, it didn’t surprise him. The Argentinian Air Force was known to possess good numbers of American-made aircraft that, while not top of the line anymore, were still effective. One of them was the Fairchild EC-142T, which had served in World War 2 as an electronic reconnaissance and patrol aircraft. In those roles, the EC-142T had proved extremely efficient at the time, being well in advance of anything else in service then. It had eventually been replaced in American service by the RC-152 jet aircraft and relegated to secondary roles, but a number of them, being surplus, had also been sold to various Latin American countries which had signed the American-sponsored Rio Treaty of 1947, of which Argentina was part. On top of buying eight EC-142T upgraded with more modern radars and radios, Argentina had also bought in the last decade a number of American-produced jet aircraft, including the F-10 FALCON supersonic fighter and the A-3 THUNDERBOLT II attack aircraft, two types of jet combat aircraft that could seriously hurt his fleet. Even worse, the Argentinians had also bought American air-to-air and air-to-surface missiles dating from the same generation, missiles which had by now been superseded in American service by newer, better missiles. Some three decades ago, those missiles had proved murderous against Soviet, Chinese and also British forces in various wars and terrains of operations. Woodward’s pious hope was that the newer British electronic warfare equipment would prove to be able to jam or decoy the guidance systems of those old American missiles. He then looked at the two forward gun turrets of his flagship, each housing two fifteen-inch guns. As originally planned when the VANGUARD had started to be built during World War 2, it belonged to the KING GEORGE V class, which had three turrets carrying a total of ten fourteen-inch guns. However, the course of the war had slowed down its construction. Then, after peace had been declared, there were plans to save money by using instead four fifteen-inch gun turrets which were surplus. At about the same time, London had decided to use its new nuclear technology, stolen from the data files from the future which had belonged to Nancy Laplante, to turn the VANGUARD into a nuclear-powered ship and also to add missile systems to it. While there had been a lot of British pride on display when it was finally commissioned, the HMS VANGUARD was in reality a sort of Frankenstein creature, mixing old and new technology into a concept, that of the battleship, that was clearly past its prime. Still, it had been retained in service despite objections from many sides, mostly because it possessed superb flagship facilities. Those command facilities, rather than its big guns and missile battery, had made the VANGUARD a natural choice as flagship of this task force. Thus, it was now up to Woodward to make the best out of it in its first use ever in a shooting war.
‘’Start planning an anti-submarine search grid ahead of us, Commander. The Argentinians may well use the information from that EC-142T to direct one or more of their diesel submarines into an ambush position near the Falklands.’’
‘’Understood, sir! I’m on it!’’
Putting down the telephone receiver, Woodward reflected mentally on his mission. He was now in command of a fleet of 33 combat and support ships and of three nuclear attack submarines, the most Great Britain could muster at such short notice, with the mission to retake the Falklands and also the South Georgia Islands, which had been taken as well by the Argentinians. To do that, he could count on two aircraft carriers: the nuclear-powered ARK ROYAL, the pride of the Royal Navy; and the conventional HERMES. He also had with his fleet a brigade of Royal Commandos, transported into the hastily requisitioned ocean liner SS CANBERRA. More troops would follow in the weeks to come. However, his biggest worry, after Argentinian submarines, was his fleet’s inferiority in terms of airpower. While the Argentinians could count on over 120 moderately modern jet combat aircraft, including supersonic fighters, his two aircraft carriers only carried a total of 42 HARRIER and SEA HARRIER VTOL{25} jet subsonic fighter-bombers, plus twelve Blackburn BUCCANEER carrier-launched light bombers and a collection of helicopters, but no supersonic aircraft. Now, destiny was going to show if those hastily assembled assets were going to be enough to do the job.
Looking at his watch, Woodward decided to go have lunch while things were quiet and left the bridge. He however went to the officers’ wardroom rather than to his dining cabin, as he wanted to discuss the coming campaign with some of his senior officers while eating. On arrival at the wardroom, a steward promptly led him to his personal table. As he sat down, he saw that the television set in one corner of the compartment was set on an American news channel, thanks to satellite retransmission, with a commentator talking about the conflict about the Falklands. That reminded to Woodward the bitter fact that Great Britain had yet to launch a single person in space and had not even been able to itself place in orbit its own satellites. The problem there had been money, like many other things in Great Britain. The last three decades had been quite rough on the British economy, with the gradual loss of its empire hitting the country hard. It had also suffered severely in terms of national prestige around the World, something that had impacted on British exports and further hurt its economy. Woodward’s bitterness was compounded by his belief that much of that had been self-inflicted wounds. Too many arrogant or incompetent British politicians and governments had denied the reality of a shrinking empire and had behaved as if Great Britain was still a leading nation, ignoring the dazzling rise of the United States in both economic, industrial and technological terms. A certain young female American general had then brutally reminded Great Britain about reality, starting in 1953, when she had thwarted the British strategic plans concerning the Middle East and had shown that British made-aircraft were inferior to American-made aircraft. Then, that same female general had led a masterful space program, with that general becoming the first Human to orbit Earth. Now, the United States had a giant spaceship heading towards Saturn, while Great Britain was still cut out of space.
Woodward had time to order his meal and have it served when the American commentator switched subjects, going from the Falklands to the latest news about the U.S.S. PROMETHEUS. One lieutenant commander sitting at a nearby table shouted an order at a passing steward when the picture of General Ingrid Dows appeared on the television screen, as the American news commentator did a brief recap of her career in space.
‘’STEWARD, SWITCH THE CHANNELS, PLEASE. WE DON’T WANT TO WATCH THAT BITCH.’’
‘’BELAY THAT ORDER, STEWARD!’’ said Woodward at once, surprising everybody around him. The lieutenant commander who had asked for the TV channel to be changed gave a stunned look to his admiral.
‘’But, sir, that bitch killed a thousand British sailors off Israel in 1953 when she sank the HMS TIGER and she is still categorized as a war criminal in Great Britain.’’
‘’I am very much aware of those facts, mister, but I do not consider her as a war criminal. The HMS TIGER was sunk by Dows, who attacked our cruiser alone in her fighter-bomber, after our ship jammed the radars and transmissions of Dows’ Palestine task force during an Arab air attack against Dows’ airbase in Ramat David. She had previously warned us of the consequences if we did so but our leaders then decided to ignore her warning and we paid the price for it. You should study her tactics instead of berating her, mister: you could learn a lot from her.’’
An embarrassed silence fell in the wardroom as Woodward attacked his food, ignoring from then on the flummoxed lieutenant commander.
Seeing his intelligence officer enter the wardroom as he was about to finish his lunch, Woodward signaled him to come sit at his table. The tall, lanky lieutenant commander took the chair opposite his admiral as Woodward started speaking to him.
‘’Mister Jenkins, I am quite concerned about the threat represented by the Argentinian air force and especially by the American-made jet aircraft and missiles they possess. Have you received from London the necessary signals parameters and analysis on Argentinian radars and missile guidance systems, so that we could jam or decoy them if we come under attack?’’
Woodward didn’t like the embarrassed expression which then appeared on Jenkins’ face.
‘’Uh, no, Admiral. What we have is rather fragmentary and is also dated.’’
‘’Why? This electronic data is vital to us if we want to repel an Argentinian air attack.’’
‘’We don’t have it because London doesn’t have it, sir.’’ replied the intelligence officer, keeping his voice low. ‘’The Americans still refuse to give us technical information about the aircraft, missiles and radars they produced, including about the systems they sold to the Argentinians. I was told by London that our ministry of defense contacted the Americans at the start of this crisis and asked for that data but that the Americans rebuffed our officials, saying that the United States was going to follow a policy of strict neutrality in this conflict.’’
‘’But, the American systems and aircraft which were sold to the Argentinians date back by more than a decade. Some were sold over thirty years ago. You are telling me that we never got any detailed intelligence on those systems in all those years?’’
‘’That is correct, Admiral. Since the end of World War 2, which we ended by nuking both Berlin and a string of Japanese cities, the United States has cut all intelligence links with us and, to this day, we are still in their dog house, if I could say so. The fracas with General Dows, when we sent disguised commandos to attack her airbase in Israel and when the HMS TIGER jammed her radars during an Arab air attack on her base, was further compounded when, a few years later, we fired missiles against her spaceplane on two occasions, shooting it down over Australia in the second incident. I also believe personally that keeping General Dows on our blacklist cost us heavily in terms of any possible cooperation with the Americans, sir. As a result, the Americans continue to refuse to help us launch our own satellites in orbit and even ban British citizens from traveling to their orbital space station. To be totally frank, Admiral, I have to say that I can understand the Americans’ attitude towards us: we shot ourselves in the foot many times politically in the past decades and, as recently as three weeks ago, our government still refused a demand by the Americans to take General Dows off our list of wanted criminals.’’
It took everything for Woodward not to bang his fist on the table out of frustration and anger.
‘’Do these twits in London realize that this stupid bad blood towards Dows could cost us dearly if we prove incapable of jamming or decoying away Argentinians missiles and radars?’’
‘’Unfortunately, I don’t think that our politicians do, Admiral. As for our present situation, we will do our best to counter the Argentinians’ radars and missiles as they show up. We however will have to do that on the fly, learning about those systems while under attack by them. I frankly can’t promise total success then, Admiral.’’
‘’I see! Thank you for your candidness, Mister Jenkins.’’
‘’My pleasure, Admiral.’’ replied Jenkins before getting up and going to another table where three other senior officers were having lunch. Now alone at his table, Woodward mentally swore about the bloody-mindedness of his own government in this, as it was his sailors, soldiers and aviators who were going to potentially pay for those past political blunders.
16:39 (Argentina Time)
Saturday, May 8, 1982 ‘C’
Aircrews briefing room, Rio Gallegos Air Force Base
Rio Gallegos (806 kilometers from Port Stanley, Falklands)
Argentina
The aircrews from the Fifth Air Brigade understood at once that things were bad on seeing the somber expression on the face of their air group commander. Taking place behind the lectern placed in front of the rows of folding chairs of the briefing room, Colonel Carvalo made a map of the Southern Atlantic, on which both the southern parts of Argentina and the Malvinas{26} were featured, appear on the projection screen behind and to one side of him, then started to speak.
‘’Men, I have received some news from our upper echelons and they are not good. First, the British retook the South Georgia Islands on the fourth of this month and took out at the same time one of our submarines, the SANTA FE. Then, two days ago, the cruiser GENERAL BELGRANO was sunk southwest of the Malvinas by a British submarine. Our navy has reacted to that by recalling nearly all its warships back to port, including the aircraft carrier VEITICINCO DE MAYO. Its embarked aircraft will soon be redistributed around our coastal air bases and will thus operate from land only, something that will severely limit their range. Furthermore, one of our CP-142, which have been doing a superb job at trailing and shadowing the approaching British invasion fleet, was unfortunately shot down yesterday when a British HARRIER fighter jet using supplementary drop tanks managed to reach it despite of the distance from its carrier. Four more of our aircraft were also shot down by British fighter jets in the last few days as they were trying to attack the British fleet. Soon, the British will be close enough to the Malvinas to start landing troops on it via helicopters or amphibious ships. The moment is thus critical for our country, if we want to retain the Malvinas as part of our sovereign national territory. I have called you in this afternoon to announce to you that the primary mission of our air group has changed. From being ready to repel any possible Chilean invasion in the Patagonia region, we will now concentrate on hitting the British fleet and preventing it from landing troops on the Malvinas. If they ever manage to land soldiers, then our job will be to support our troops defending the Malvinas and to destroy the British ground units as well as their ships. As our first contribution to this new mission, we will launch a strike against the British fleet in the early hours of tomorrow morning. The F-10 fighters of this base will escort our A-60s and will engage any British fighter aircraft encountered, leaving us free to concentrate on the British ships. Our priority targets will be the British aircraft carriers and amphibious assault ships.’’
Carvalo then saw his deputy commander, Major Francisco Maradona, raise his hand to ask a question.
‘’Yes, Major?’’
‘’With what will we attack the British warships, Colonel? We have no air-to-surface missiles in our base inventory and no bombs heavier than 227 kilos. What we mostly have are unguided rockets, napalm canisters and cannon ammunition, which were fine for our previous mission but not the best for anti-ship strikes.’’
Carvalo nodded his head once to acknowledge the fact that Maradona was correct.
‘’We will use our 227 kilo general purpose bombs and both 127mm and 76.2mm rockets tomorrow. Since we don’t have air-to-air missiles for our A-60s, we will carry 127mm unguided rockets with semi-armor piercing warheads on our wingtip launch rails, while our wing weapons pylons will each carry three 227 kilo bombs. Our retractable 76.2mm internal rocket pods and our cannons will of course be filled for our morning mission. I realize that we won’t have the optimum kind of armament we would need for an anti-ship strike, but we will have to make do with what we presently have. Now, let’s review our mission parameters and meteorological conditions for tomorrow…’’
After some thirty more minutes of briefing, Carvalo dismissed his pilots for the night. As his men filed out of the room, Major Maradona went to him and spoke in a low but forceful voice.
‘’Colonel, this mission will be a near-suicide one! We don’t have the right armament to properly engage the British ships and we also don’t have any air-to-air missiles to defend ourselves against British HARRIER and SEA HARRIER jets. Furthermore, our pilots never trained for anti-ship strikes and practiced launching bombs only rarely during the past years, because of the scarcity of our bomb stocks. On the other hand, the British possess long and short-range surface-to-air missiles on their ships and have embarked fighter jets.’’
Carvalo gave Maradona a critical look before answering his objections.
‘’I realize all that, Major, but the future of our national territory is at play here. While we may not have much in terms of heavy or sophisticated armament, our A-60 multirole jets have a lot to offer us for this morning mission: they are fast, very agile, have a long range and are quite small, making them harder to hit for the British. I am confident that we will be able to hurt the British tomorrow if all our pilots give their one hundred percent on the mission.’’
Maradona understood the message in Carvalo’s last sentence and came to attention to salute him.
‘’We will do or die, Colonel.’’
06:24 (Argentina Time)
Sunday, May 8, 1982 ‘C’
Main tarmac of Rio Gallegos airbase
Argentina
Colonel Juan Carvalo, wearing his flight suit, G-suit, life vest and parachute and with his flight helmet under one arm, stopped for a moment to look fondly at his Cessna A-60A HORNET light multirole jet aircraft, which was now loaded down with bombs and rockets. When the first A-60As had arrived in Argentina after being sold by the United States to many Latin American countries in 1964, its most unusual looks had at first attracted skepticism from its future pilots. First of all, it was a small and very compact-looking aircraft and sported what was known as a ‘diamond box wing’, in which two pairs of wings with opposite sweep angles were linked together at their tips. In the A-60’s case, the wing tips were attached to two large, elongated fuel tanks which also supported the twin vertical rudders. When looked at from the front, that arrangement gave a most unusual aspect but, when looked at from under as it overflew ground observers, its shape made it appear like the bird of prey it really was. Another unusual feature of the A-60 was the huge size of its single engine in proportion to the rest of the plane. That engine, a General Electric TF-100-300 high-bypass turbofan similar to those seen on medium-sized jet airliners, while of large diameter, was also quite short in length and had the huge benefit of being very economical in terms of fuel consumption, on top of providing nearly eleven tons of thrust. Allied to the small frame and light weight of the A-60, the G.E. TF-100-300 gave the plane tremendous acceleration and climb rates which, when combined with its very low wing loading, made the A-60 able to use rough fields and to take off and land in less than 300 meters. Due to its two large wingtip fuel tanks and large fuselage tank, the A-60 also had an excellent endurance in the air. When Argentinian pilots, including Carvalo, had first flown in an A-60A, they had been conquered at once by its fantastic agility, acceleration and climb rate, which made it a joy to fly. It also had proved to be a safe plane to fly, thanks to its diamond box wing, which made it nearly impossible to throw the plane into an uncontrolled spin. That small but performant aircraft had also proved quite lethal as well, being armed with two powerful 30mm cannons and with a large, retractable belly rocket launcher pod which contained no less than sixty 76.2mm unguided rockets, two types of weapons eminently suitable for the missions Argentina had in mind for the A-60, the most important ones being counter-insurgency, coastal patrols and close air support. On asking questions about the A-60, Carvalo had discovered that its design had been directed by the same visionary who had designed nearly all the types of combat aircraft in service with the United States Air Force: General Ingrid Dows. During the more than seventeen years Carvalo had been flying in the A-60, he had learned to get the most out of this small but outstanding package. It may not possess the most advanced electronics and may not have the largest ordnance-carrying capacity around but he was certain that it could inflict some painful stings to the British.
Shaking hands with his ground crew chief after returning his salute, Carvalo then climbed into the cockpit and took place in the pilot’s seat, then started fixing his seat harness with the help of a mechanic. The other ejection seat in the cockpit, positioned directly to his right, was going to be empty for this mission. That second seat was meant to help the A-60 accomplish another important type of mission in Argentinian service: that of advanced combat pilot training. However, Carvalo was not willing to expose green, partly-trained pilots to the dangers of today’s mission and had ordered his few trainee pilots to stay on the ground this morning. Besides, a CP-142TM maritime patrol aircraft was going to precede his air unit and provide it with air navigation and ship targeting data, rendering the use of a navigator/observer on his A-60 redundant. Three minutes after climbing into his plane, Carvalo started his big turbofan engine and, after completing a pre-takeoff check list, started his A-60 rolling down one of the taxiways of the base, followed by the eleven other A-60As of his unit. The ten F-10C FALCON supersonic fighter-bombers which were meant to escort his A-60s were last in the line, in order to save their fuel by avoiding to have to fly circles around the base while waiting for the A-60s to be in the air. Six minutes later, all 22 Argentinian combat jets were in the air and turning eastward towards the Malvinas and the South Atlantic.
The jet formation first flew at a medium altitude and relatively slow speed through the gray, cloudy sky, while keeping radio silence. When he calculated that he was approximately 300 kilometers away from the Malvinas, Carvalo lit his navigation lights for five seconds before switching them off again, a pre-arranged signal that meant for his pilots to go down to near sea level, in order to evade British radars. The whole formation then gradually flew down to an altitude of a mere 200 meters above the sea, which was quite agitated, with high waves and strong winds. If any pilot crashed and fell into the ocean, Carvalo knew that he would not survive more than a few minutes before dying from hypothermia in the icy waters of the South Atlantic. Once within 200 kilometers from the Malvinas, Carvalo again made his lights blink briefly, ordering his pilots to go down further. Soon, the 22 jet aircraft were speeding over the ocean at an altitude of a mere eighty meters. Now concentrating on his flying in order to avoid crashing into the nearby sea, Carvalo listened carefully to his primary air frequency, in which the guiding CP-142TM was supposed to pass navigation and targeting data to him. The first such message, using pre-arranged codewords, was heard as his air unit was now sixty kilometers from the Western Malvinas islands.
‘’Tango Two to Rumble Five. Delta 230 and 180. Bucket 2.7, out!’’
That message, which would most probably mystify any British listening to it, meant that the CP-142TM had detected the British fleet, numbering at least 27 ships, at a heading of 050 degrees, which was the back heading to 230, and a distance of 180 kilometers from Carvalo’s formation. Making his navigation lights blink again for a few seconds to warn his pilots to prepare to change headings, Carvalo pointed his aircraft towards the Northeast and went further down to an altitude of fifty meters. His pilots, their nerve tense from flying so low in poor weather, followed suit.
Some eleven minutes later, the radar warning receiver set, or RWR, of Carvalo’s plane started beeping weakly, indicating that radar waves were being emitted to his Northeast but were still below detection threshold. By then, he was starting to sweat from the intense, stressful level of attention required by flying low and fast. Glancing at his fuel gauge, he saw that he still had plenty of fuel left for both his incoming attack and his return flight to base. The beeping gradually became louder, until the voice of the radar operator in the CP-142TM came again on the radio, sounding urgent.
‘’Tango Six to Rumble Five: KIPPER, KIPPER, KIPPER! DELTA 226 AND 82! DRUMBEAT, OUT!’’
The commander of the ten escorting F-10C fighters of the Argentinian formation reacted at once to that message by shaking his wings three times, ordering his fighter pilots to follow him and get ready for air combat. Next, he started to climb while turning slightly to the right, towards the incoming British aircraft detected by the CP-142TM. On his part, Carvalo stayed at his present altitude, speed and heading: his game was now to continue approaching the British fleet while his escort fighters engaged the British jets and, hopefully, distracted them from detecting the twelve A-60s. Starting a countdown on his aircraft chronometer, Carvalo nervously waited while the seconds passed by, hoping success for his escorting fighters. Some twelve seconds before the end of his calculated countdown, he saw to his right and above a brief ball of fire in the distance, followed by a thin trail of black smoke. However, he had no way to know if this was an Argentinian or a British plane burning on its way to a sea crash. At the end of his countdown, he switched on his nose multi-function radar, which had been off until now, hoping to detect the British ships and thus refine his heading for his attack. He felt his heart jump into his chest when a large collection of bright dots appeared on his radar screen: he had found the British fleet and was heading directly towards it!
‘’ALL RUMBLE FIVE CALLSIGNS, FROM RUMBLE LEADER: TARGETS DEAD AHEAD, DISTANCE 54! GO TO MAXIMUM SPEED BUT STAY LOW! ARM YOUR BOMBS!’’
Carvalo then pushed his engine throttle to maximum, making his aircraft jump forward and pushing him hard in his seat. He soon attained the maximum low-level speed of the A-60: 1,280 kilometers per hour, just above Mach 1, a speed and altitude at which it drank fuel like a thirsty camel. By then, his RWR’s beeping was strong and steady: the British radar operators most probably could detect him by now. As his eleven pilots accelerated as well, they also at the same time deployed into attack formation, fanning out of their original echelon formation. Praying that he would survive at least long enough to release his bombs, Carvalo stayed as low as he possibly could at his blazing speed but still had to climb by a few meters to avoid crashing into the sea. One of his A-60 pilots, being less experienced than Carvalo, then made a slight piloting mistake. That mistake was however enough to send him crashing into the sea, his aircraft disintegrating on impact. Ignorant of that tragedy, Carvalo pushed on, helped involuntarily by the British, whose radar emissions were now like beacons for the Argentinians’ RWR sets. Sweat was dripping profusely down Carvalo’s forehead when he finally saw the dark silhouettes of the first British ships on the horizon. Shortly after that, a black puff of smoke suddenly erupted in the sky ahead of him, quickly followed by another puff, this time to his left. He understood at once that those were British shells exploding as their proximity fuses were being activated by rising sea waves, which created a jumble of radar clutter false echoes. More than ever now, flying very low would be his salvation against British anti-aircraft fire. He thus pushed on while staying barely above the waves. His tactic paid off handsomely, with the British shells either exploding prematurely or passing over the Argentinian formation before crashing into the sea. As he finally was able to clearly recognize the type of ship directly ahead of him, a British Type 42 destroyer some seven kilometers away, he guessed that the British ship was most probably part of an outer defensive layer for its fleet. The aircraft carriers, the priority targets for Carvalo, had to be beyond that outer layer.
‘’ALL RUMBLE FIVE, FROM RUMBLE LEADER: IGNORE THE OUTER DESTROYER SCREEN! JUMP OVER THESE DESTROYERS AND DO A POP-UP AND DIVE MANEUVER AFTER THAT. REMEMBER: WE WANT THE CARRIERS!’’
On the Type 42 destroyer HMS GLASGOW, the task of the British anti-aircraft gunners turned from very difficult to nearly impossible when eleven Argentinian attack aircraft coming towards them at high speed and extremely low altitude suddenly started climbing quickly in the sky, their upward angular speed complicating the job of tracking them in their sights. One British gunner still managed to hit with his 20mm ca