Royal Air Force strike aircraft squadrons in the late 60s: plans versus reality

[Scott Kenny]

But I recall speaking to some senior ex RN Hunter Killer captains in the late 80s at a drinks do and they were in no doubt about what their vessels could do to a carrier given the chance.

Remember OUR submarines don’t go after OUR carriers. Well at least in theory.

They do all the time in practice (exercises). Helps to train the ASW crews.

Also the idea that submarines can wipe out carriers based on the frequent publishing of periscope photos and lots of boasts from the submariners does not necessarily make it so. There are two key factors that are usually not in play during peacetime exercises. Live warshots and freedom of manoeuvre.

That is in war time the ASW force will drop lots of live torpedoes into the water on any possible hint of a target. This can’t be replicated in peacetime training: all those live torpedoes zinging around underwater. From memory the RN dropped over a hundred LWTs during the Falklands Campaign. Killed a lot of whales and kelp blooms but would have made it very, very hard for any Argentine submarine if one had tried to make an approach on the task force.

The second element is the freedom of manoeuvre. A carrier task force can easily disarm the threat of conventional submarine attack by deciding where it can sail and staying out in deep water. Requiring a conventional submarine to make a long and difficult approach to try and get in an attack position.

Lots of live warshots flying around assumes that the carrier escorts are pinging away on active sonar. And you don't send your diesel boats after warships, diesel boats hunt merchant ships. You send your nuclear subs after warships. And in 1983, the RN had all 13 Oberon-class SSKs in service, and 10x SSNs in service: 2x Valiant-class, 3x Churchill-class, and 5x Swiftsure-class.

 

[EwenS]

The most detailed account of the Falklands ASW campaign that I have seen thus far was published in 2020 in “Go find him and bring me back his cap” by Mariano Sciaroni with Andy Smith. In Table 7 it lists 62 attacks during which the following munitions were expended:-

Mk.46 torpedo - 24
Mk.44 torpedo - 6
Depth charge Mk.11 - 49
Limbo salvoes - 22 (using 70 projectiles) but salvoes v rounds seems a bit off given Yarmouth & Plymouth only had 1 Limbo mortar with 3 barrels.

The first of those engagements was 24 April by a Sea King on what was subsequently classified as a whale. The last was on 12 June by another Sea King but no detail was available.

In addition there were 5 recorded AS.12 missile attacks on the sub Santa Fe on 25th April for expenditure of 9 missiles.

9 of the 62 listed attacks occurred 1 May 1982 during the search for the San Luis in inshore waters. Another 17 occurred on 4 May most of which related to sightings around the burnt out Sheffield but information is minimal.

Piecing the ASW activity during the campaign has been complicated by some evidence of a submarine belonging to an unknown third party being in the area to be added to the attacks made on marine life.

So not hundreds of LWTs flying around the southern oceans killing the wildlife.

Hunting the San Luis is those inshore waters proved a major headache.

 

[Scott Kenny]

Piecing the ASW activity during the campaign has been complicated by some evidence of a submarine belonging to an unknown third party being in the area to be added to the attacks made on marine life.

I'd put money that was a USN boat.

 

[Yellow Palace]

Piecing the ASW activity during the campaign has been complicated by some evidence of a submarine belonging to an unknown third party being in the area to be added to the attacks made on marine life.

I'd put money that was a USN boat.

It has been claimed that a Soviet diplomat made a passing comment to a British diplomat in April 1982 to the effect of 'I hope our submarine is proving useful'. If there was a Soviet submarine in the area, I doubt it left when the British fleet showed up.

 

[Jackonicko]

Now put onto that, money and industrial politics, all as addressed, 1964-70, by traitor Wilson and ex-communist Healey.

Come on Ken, no offence intended, but that's schoolboy stuff.

I was too young to vote for any Wilson government, and would never have done so - I was Conservative until Thatcher showed her true colours during her second administration. But I hope that I'm open-minded and fair.

Wilson was many things (most of them bad, in my view), but not a traitor (except perhaps to Socialism!), and M(I)5 investigated the Golitsyn-inspired smears and found that they had no basis in fact.

While Healey was a member of the Communist Party during his time at Oxford, so were many of those on the left, following the Spanish Civil War, and with memories of the Great Depression and the General Strike. I have no great liking for Healey, who did great damage to UK defence (though probably less than Tory predecessors Profumo and Sandys, and indeed rather less than wreaked by Thatcher). But to impugn his patriotism (beach master at Anzio, good war record) is a bit poor.

It's also misleading to concentrate on his student communism - as secretary of the Labour Party international department he was a strong opponent of the Communist Party in the UK, the USSR and internationally, and then fought to promote the Korean War and to rid Trade Unions of Marxist influences and leadership. He was on the right of the Labour Party, and was a strong supporter of Gaitskell, and then of Callaghan. You couldn't get more right wing in the Labour of the 50s and 60s!

Caricaturing figures like Wilson and Callaghan is unhelpful - the truth is that even moderate centrist politicians (on either side of the Party political divide) can do great damage.

 

[alertken]

Jacko: I was dissing a nearby poster. Healey was the best PM UK never had and Wilson had remarkable success in holding his disputatious Party together, not only on the Bomb. Everything you say is so and this diss of mine has backfired to remind me how words taken out of context can twist in meaning. I'm mortified to have been misunderstood. So, to be clear, previous PM Douglas-Home: "I had always found (HW) very good to deal with on national security questions” britac.ac.uk/pubs/review/perspectives/0703Cabinetsandbomb-227/3/07

: only now discovered how to do this)

 

[Scott Kenny]

Piecing the ASW activity during the campaign has been complicated by some evidence of a submarine belonging to an unknown third party being in the area to be added to the attacks made on marine life.

I'd put money that was a USN boat.

It has been claimed that a Soviet diplomat made a passing comment to a British diplomat in April 1982 to the effect of 'I hope our submarine is proving useful'. If there was a Soviet submarine in the area, I doubt it left when the British fleet showed up.

Except that I'd have hoped the British were aware of it. 1970s Soviet subs were not exactly stealthy.

 

[Jackonicko]

Jacko: I was dissing a nearby poster. Healey was the best PM UK never had and Wilson had remarkable success in holding his disputatious Party together, not only on the Bomb. Everything you say is so and this diss of mine has backfired to remind me how words taken out of context can twist in meaning. I'm mortified to have been misunderstood. So, to be clear, previous PM Douglas-Home: "I had always found (HW) very good to deal with on national security questions” britac.ac.uk/pubs/review/perspectives/0703Cabinetsandbomb-227/3/07

: only now discovered how to do this)

Sorry for jumping on you! I'm now mortified too!

 

[alertken]

The Power of Social Media, can elect the unexpected/undeserving; can spread misinformation. No prob. Your posts on current affairs are always informative. Ken

 

[EwenS]

Piecing the ASW activity during the campaign has been complicated by some evidence of a submarine belonging to an unknown third party being in the area to be added to the attacks made on marine life.

I'd put money that was a USN boat.

It has been claimed that a Soviet diplomat made a passing comment to a British diplomat in April 1982 to the effect of 'I hope our submarine is proving useful'. If there was a Soviet submarine in the area, I doubt it left when the British fleet showed up.

Except that I'd have hoped the British were aware of it. 1970s Soviet subs were not exactly stealthy.

Except the British were not aware of any uninvolved nations’ submarines in the region until Splendid detected and tracked a contact she classified as a diesel submarine on 5th May (the previous day she had had a similar contact but had not been able to classify it). As she did not then have any ASW torpedoes in her tubes (her task was to find and sink the carrier 25th de Mayo) she withdrew from the scene. Chile seems to be the most likely culprit.

For several days in early May the Argentinians prosecuted targets that they classified as a nuclear sub. By 5th May this could not have been any of the British subs.