Ramped Carrier Decks

Actually, properly planned manual mode bombing is probably more precise that doing it on the computer, IMO. And they should have been equipped with Escape Pac ejection seats - all of the TA-4's down in Kingsville were, and as I recall, the guys I know that went south to refirb A-4's rehabbed them to fatory spec.

Sounds to me like they used the A-4's as they were designed to be used and they perfomed effectively in that role - from what I understand, the A-4 was originally designed to be a one-way, low ingress, tactical nuke strike/attack aircraft. I'm not at all surprized that it would be effective in the anti-shipping role.

Reply to
Rufus
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Concur.

Reply to
Rufus

Speed can get highly over-rated. The Harrier can out accelerate and out climb just about anything I can think of (at least for short durations), and that's what really counts.

Besides, in a dogfight it usually the guy that can fly slowest and still have enough contol power to point his nose that is going to win. You don't want to arrive at the merge above your corner speed, and you definately don't want to arrive supersonic, or having dwelled there for very long prior to arrival.

Reply to
Rufus

Which is not bad attack doctrine, as I've been schooled. Re-attack only exposes you to more risk of being shot down - they know you're coming the second pass.

Reply to
Rufus

AND - a Sea Harrier has a radar, as I recall. An A-4 does not.

Reply to
Rufus

I knew a guy that found a P-38 in a sand dune in India...

Reply to
Rufus

FWIW Most post war assessments say it is a good thing the Argentine armorers were not as well trained as their pilots. I understand a number of British ships were hit by bombs that failed to explode. I believe there were also a number of Exocet hits where the warhead failed to detonate properly. The missile that hit the Sheffield did not detonate but the rocket motor was still firing and it set the ship on fire. Aluminum super structure will burn well if the ignition source is hot enough. Don't know if it was a glitch with the hardware or a failure in programming.

Bill Shuey

Reply to
William H. Shuey

If you ever play with weapons a bit you get to learn that most are only as good as thier fuses...poor training there can/will ruin an attack.

Reply to
Rufus

"William H. Shuey" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@starpower.net:

Read a wonderful book on the Falklands War. Seems the Argie pilots had balls the size of battleships. The A-4 drivers pushed in really close and frequently got good hits. It was the only way for them to deliver - any kind of altitude would get them seen on radar and make them vulnerable to AAA and missiles, plus no sophisticated bombing aids, just Kentucky windage. Problem was they wwre dropping so close the bombs weren't in the air long enough to arm. Apparently we (the US) knew the cause almost immediately but kept quiet in deference to our British Allies. Like Bill says they never did figure it out. The A-4 were in and out so fast they barely had time for observation and loiter was impossible due to fuel and hostile fire. There appears to have been little communication between the pilots, the mission planners and logistics/weapons types.

Seems a damn waste of really good and brave pilots, both poltically and technically.

Frank

Reply to
Gray Ghost

In article , HMS Lion wrote: Doing this lets you get rid of catapults -

Ho ho. Actually, the American contribution to the catapult is to take a perfectly good mechanical device and replace it with linear motors. As has been pointed out, catapults and angled decks are both UK inventions. Professor Eric Laithwaite experimented with linear motors in the 70's, perfected the principle, and got a prototype train running, so I am afraid you colonials got there behind the UK once again!.....

Just trying to set the record straight. N

Reply to
Nigel Cheffers-Heard

If you are interested, here is the obituary of the chap who invented the angled flight deck. Those were the days! N

------------------------ In 1951, Rear-Admiral Dennis Cambell, who has died aged 92, came up with one of those many British inventions that had to be taken up abroad before their value was appreciated at home. It was the angled flight-deck on aircraft carriers, which saved many lives and millions of pounds. At that time Cambell was in an administrative backwater at the Ministry of Supply, as a naval air liaison officer. Previously, carriers had to launch and land aircraft with catapults and arrester wires, while other planes waited at the end of the only deck. The damage when an aircraft falled to take off or land properly, as often happened, and ploughed into waiting planes, was very high. The Admiralty ignored him until US Navy officers showed keen interest in

1952. The first British experiments were made, with painted white lines, on the carrier HMS Triumph. But it was the Americans who fitted the first real angled deck on their carrier, USS Antietam, which, in 1955, let British Fleet Air Arm pilots have a go after three years of completely successful trials. The Royal Navy eventually took up the idea, which gave aircraft a clear run for take-off and landing. An incoming plane could abort a bad landing and go round again without endangering aircraft drawn up on deck. Only the British Harrier jump-jet, with its ability to land vertically, made it possible to dispense with the angled deck on the three Invincible-class carriers now in Royal Navy service. Britain consistently led the way in carrier innovations, starting with the first flat-top in 1918, but a measure of the country's fateful lack of interest in naval aviation was the fact that Cambell had to pay for his first private flying lessons with money borrowed from his father, before unfashionably volunteering for official training with the Royal Air Force, getting his wings in 1931. At this time relatively elderly American naval officers as senior as captains (and future fleet admirals) Ernest J King and William F Halsey - were lining up for pilot training to qualify for command of carriers. Cambell left Westminster School at 18, and then joined the Navy as a late entrant in 1925. Three years later, when his ship was refitting, he took his first flying lessons while on leave. He served in biplane fighters on Furious and Glorious, both of which had been designed as super-cruisers and converted to carriers. Six months before the second world war broke out in 1939, he rose to command a squadron aboard the new carrier Ark Royal. In September, before the war was a fortnight old, he led two other pilots into an attack on Fritz Lemp's submarine U30, which had sunk the liner Athenia on the first day of hostilities and had then been sighted shelling another ship in the North Sea. But these were early days in airborne anti-submarine warfare (ASW). Cambell's colleagnes were forced to ditch when their tailpianes were blown off by the premature blast from their own bombs. The unscathed U-boat took them prisoner as Cambell escaped. He won the DSC in 1940 for his work with Ark Royal (sunk in 1941), but had to stop flying because of arthritis, mysteriously cured when his appendix had to be removed in 1941. He served successfully as a test pilot until made Commander (Air) aboard HMS Argus, the oldest British carrier, heavily escorted while, ferrying fighters to besieged Malta in 1942. But only a few months later, he was reassigned as a test pilot after two others had died on trials of the experimental Blackburn Firebrand carrier fighter. He managed to fly one from HMS Illustrious, but the design was abandoned. Cambell's career continued ashore with a posting to Washington as naval representative on the British Air Commission in the US, acquiring American planes for British service. It was only after two post-war years at the Admiralty that Cambell went back to sea as commander (air) on the carrier Glory in the Far East. This was followed by a very different seagoing job, commanding a corvette used for ASW training in home waters, and then came the Ministry of Supply. After more than five years in various staff posts, Cambell was delighted in 1955 to take command of the brand new carrier Ark Royal, 50,000 tons and with angled deck, the climax of 35 years in the Navy. Yet, after only 18 months, Cambell returned to the Admiralty, first as director of naval air warfare and, finally, as flag officer, flying training. When he retired in 1960, he was appointed Companion of the Order of the Bath - and also received the American Legion of Merit for his simple, but revolutionary, idea of the angled flight deck. In retirement, Admiral Cambell worked as a director in helicopter sales before starting a travel agency for holidays in Turkey. He is survived by his wife Dorothy, whom he married in 1933, and their two daughters.

Rear-Admiral Dennis Royle Farquharson Cambell, sailor, born November

13, 1907; died April 6, 2000
Reply to
Nigel Cheffers-Heard

snipped-for-privacy@mchsi.com (Rufus) wrote in :

Yes, but it also meant the Argies would run out of fuel if they had to do any evasive maneuvering. IIRC more than one splashed on the way back because of this.

Reply to
Harro de Jong

Yes - that's a risk you run. But still not uncommon, as I understand things.

Reply to
Rufus

IIRC, at the ranges the Argentinians were operating at, even evading would have been suicide - not enough fuel to land after a successful evasion. Basically, the choice becomes one of three things - bail immediately, and hope the Brits you just bombed picks you up; evade, then bail when the fuel runs out and swim ashore; or eat the missile and go down with a bang. I imagine the original Kamikaze of WWII were facing similar choices - they were f*cked anyway.

SP

Reply to
Sebastian Palm

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