“Not all 5 hit thier targets one ran out of fuel and hit the water. (in regards to exocet posting)”
I mentioned earlier that all 5 Exocet missiles, hit “something”. There was debate at the time about what happened to one of the missiles. There were reports that it had run of fuel and had hit the sea. There were also reports that, after burnout, but still travelling at high speed, it diverted from its course and dived to attack a large object on the surface, wreckage, ice flow, or a whale? Post burnout the missile has the capability to transfer lock to another target within range. We concluded that the missile had been launched at too greater range to hit the original target and post boost had acquired and attacked another target (unknown); however it wasn’t a “miss”.
“We now have more advanced harriers and Airborne Early Warning aircraft which we lacked during the first war, this means sea dart and other such missile and even fighters can be vectored in and killed at greater ranges.”
The few remaining FA2 Sea Harriers were retired from service last week. Of about 60 that were built 15 were new builds and 45 were rebuilt from the FSR1 Sea Harriers, which were used in the Falklands Conflict. The re-builds were suffering from corrosion and were running out of fatigue life and some of the new builds had already been damaged beyond repair. Due to a combination of cost cutting, poor performance in the Gulf (caused by the high temperature) and small number of aircraft available the aircraft was retired. (NB: The FA2 was based on the all-metal Harrier I). Recently the UK has agreed to sell 8 FA2s to India (essentially all the remaining serviceable aircraft).
The Joint Harrier Force with still be able to deploy Harrier GR7/GR9s crewed by RN & RAF pilots. (Note that this aircraft is based on the Harrier II and is similar to the USN AV8B). GR7/GR9s can carry two AIM-9L Sidewinders, but have no radar, hence just have a limited self-defence capability. (I.E. This does not offer the fleet protection from aircraft carrying anti-ship missiles launched from long-range).
The Harriers we can deploy now have less air-to-air capability than we had in 1982.
After the 1978 retirement of the carrier-based Gannet AEW.3 we relied on the Shackleton AEW.2s, which during the Falklands Conflict could not provide cover.
In 1982 we had to rely on the ship’s radar.
The following link is from a model site, but it is succinct and accurate. The RN currently has 9 AEW Sea King Helicopters. The equipment is the same as the “quick-fix” deployed at the end of 1982, but the helicopter engines have been improved.
The new EH101 Merlins helicopters have yet to be modified for this role.
The AWAC aircraft & AEW helicopter would certainly be able to give an early warning of attack, but without adequate air to air capability from the Harrier, the ships would have to rely on thier own missile systems and CWI to intercept the missile after it was fired, rather than attack the carrying aircraft.
http://www.helis.com/database/go/uk_sea_king_41.php
http://www.raf.mod.uk/equipment/sentry.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Dart_missile
“There was an account that the French actually supplied England with information on how to neutralize the Exocets at some point during the Falklands campaign. Obviously this must have come after the RN took some serious hits (and after the Exocet's market value climbed due to the free publicity). This information was only released much later after the war.”
The French government provided information on the operation of the Exocet Missile to the British government soon after as the Argentines landed on South Georgia.
However, the UK also used the ship borne version of the missile and with much assistance from the US determined how to defeat the missile. The problem was that we could not build and deploy the counter-measure quickly enough to stop being hit.
(This information was provided to the French as a “Thank-You” for their help and I think resulted in improvements to the missile). Later the RN ships were equipped with improved counter-measures to spoof Exocet Missiles.
“Thus I'm surprised to see that the Argentines bought more exocets after they were betrayed in a way by their suppliers”
I do no think that they knew that the French government (not directly the suppliers) provided the intelligence to the UK government. I’m not sure how many additional Exocets they were able to purchase.
“Exocet is not 100% french infact its part british too the manafacturer MBDA is owned partly by BAe systerms (Hence the B in the name).”
Yes and no. Aerospatiale developed the missile and was the supplier in 1982. Later British Aerospace & Aerospatiale became partners in the MBSA joint venture.
“So britian knew how to stop exocets, if you look at ships hit there was a foolish reason, sheffield was on a satalite phone so the radar didnt work to pick the missile up, another missile was blocked by two ships crossing paths. and so on”.
As mentioned above, we knew how to create a counter-measure to spoof the missile but we could not deploy it in time. However this meant that we were relying on hard kills using missiles and guns. There was a problem with interference between the satellite communications system and the long-range radar that had been know for years, but had not been fully fixed.
And yes apparently one ship crossed in the path of another, which had a firing solution, but this sort of “stuff” happens during war.
In summary.
We have better AEW, poorer Air-to-Air fighter cover and would have to rely on missiles and guns to protect the fleet.
We have fewer ships, many of the types we used then are still in service (Type 42).
IMHO: We could not re-take the Falklands, certainly not in the same way as we did in 1982. Nor do I think that there is any political will in Argentina for a re-match.
