The SITREP Podcast Presents: OPS Center Episode 6 The Falklands Air Operations
May 10, 2019 by stvitusdancern
Welcome back warriors! It is time to jump in the cockpits and strap in for some air to air combat over the Falkland Islands. Who will come out on top? Join Oriskany as he guides you through the air operations that took place during this conflict.
Was this war won in the air or on the ground? You decide.
How would you play out this pivot able conflict?
Thanks James a very pleasant interlude listening to this on a rainy friday afternoon
Thanks for the post, @bobcockayne – and send some of that rain over here. It was past 90 degrees at 10:00 AM this morning!
Glad you liked the episode. Next episode we get into the seaborne operations, which, honestly, is really more air battles as Argentinian aircraft try to hit British ships, and British Harriers and air defense systems try to protect them. Meanwhile, British landings take place at San Carlos and Fitzroy, kicking off the ground battles we’ll see in Part 04.
Brings back memories , Only been out of RAF two months when it flared up, my old unit 399 signals had operation Bully Beef according to a mate still in at time, wonder what that was ref too! Strangely enough I had rejoined the Napoleonic Association at time and was helping refurbish the carriage of a 4pdr smoothbore cannon whilst listening to the radio broadcasts. A remember a member of the English Civil War Re-enactors Sealed Knot announces ‘We are at war Gentleman’ on the news of the Sinking of the Belgrano at WMMS. And remember the haunting radio broadcast… Read more »
Interesting, @bobcockayne – the only reference I can find regarding “bully beef” and the Falklands is the infamous news blackout where media was shut out of the loop even more so than most wars. They basically had one film shot of bully beef being unloaded from a British supply ship that was shown dozens of times, it was practically all the video pool some media networks had to work with. Being a signals unit, could your friends have been involved in media access control and were having a joke? Yeah, there’s a lot to say about the Belgrano. We’ll definitely… Read more »
@Oriskany ‘Operation Bully Beef’ is probably officially still under one of the 25/50 year secrecy rules as ‘Smurf’ my old mate only knew about it as he was still in C flight barrack as they hadn’t been able to move him after he lost his security clearance ( he’d gone on date with a Girl he thought was from Munich but was actually from East Berlin!) RAF Digby was not part of NATO but was is part of GCHQ/NSA,26 signals was another at Tuefelsberg Berlin, where we were part of USAF operation.
I’ll say this much, @bobcockayne – so far these Harriers have proven pretty tough to shoot down in AirWar C21 for my Mirages and Daggers. So far, the best approach seems to be a high-speed closure (These Mirage III EAs can push 1000 knots at combat altitude). You gotta get close, and fast, so these Harriers don’t launch too many of their all-aspect AIM-9L Sidewinders at you while the range closes. Immelmann maneuvers are risky, but they (a) dump that excess speed, and (b) if successful, allow the pilot to complete the maneuver in any facing. The trick I was… Read more »
Another great episode. I remember hearing about the Exocet missile all through the 1980s. It wasn’t just the British that had trouble with them. There was an American ship hit once too, right?
Yep, @pslemon . USS Stark, a US Navy frigate, was hit by not one but TWO Iranian Exocets in the Persian Gulf in 1987. These Exocets actually exploded, unlike the one that hit HMS Sheffield (we’ll get into this in Part 03 of the series). Yet the Stark, a smaller ship, did not sink. Honestly, the US Navy had learned a lot from British experience in the Falklands War and underwent a crash program in the mid 1980s to toughen up their warships against SSM, ASM, and cruise missile attack. So USS Stark was a lot more prepared than the… Read more »
Great Episode! Canair combat…or even better, naval combat’t wait to see more
Thanks, @gladesrunner – The system we will use for that will be “Naval Command” by Rory Crabb. Still seeing how much work is involved with making that game actually work. I hope to have some demo games hopefully running on Twitch this weekend (Sunday)?
No grass grows under these feet … 😀
Another Excellent Episode Jim
Thanks very much, @grimwolfuk
a great report James.
Thanks very much @zorg! 😀 😀 😀
Another cracker of a podcast Jim looking forward to listening to the rest.?
Thanks very much @ironshield ! 🙂 Next episode is Naval Operations (we’re running a live game if “Naval Command” this evening) and we’ll wrap up with Part 4 / Ground Operations.
Thanks for the kind message!