Last flight of thr Skyhawks

• solaris

  11 Apr 05, 13:33

  Originally posted by CenturionMBT:

  2 more factors
  the british had the lack of AA guns or ciws
  
  and from what i have learnt recently, the brtish ships used then were constructed mainly of a light aluminium alloy. Hence just a blast and the ship goes down.

  The A4 did operate with AEW. The Argentines did have a P-2 Neptune and a converted B707 operating in the vicinity of the task force. It was the P-2 that provided the initial targeting data for the Super Etendards during the Sheffield strike. The crucial weakness of aluminium alloy was more that just its weak tensile strength but rather its combustibility. It just burns too easily.....the same tragedy was to befall USS Belknap during an accident which caused the USN to rethink its usage in ship construction.
• seancannot

  11 Apr 05, 14:12

  Just saw on the magazine , Israel has upgraded your sky hawk and they will serve until 2015 to 2020!!! Isnt it a waste our skyhawk are so powerful beleive they have strengthened the airframe it still has a few years to go.
• suntze

  11 Apr 05, 17:09

  Solaris,
  
  You are right about the aluminium deckhouse on USS Belknap.
  
  However, HMS Sheffield had steel superstructures. Apparently, she was sunk after extensive fire and damage following a hit by an exocet missile.
  
  There was no AEW covering the fleet and no CIWS to protect the Sheffield, contributing factors leading to the sinking.
  
  Cheers and rgds,
• zoik

  12 Apr 05, 08:29

  Sheffield was the forward Radar Picket on that operation, and so was particularly vulnerable, especially when it is alleged that they had to temporarily turn off her main radar as it interfered with her communications with her escort, a Type 22 frigate.
  There was also some other issue apparently of Sheffield crossing the field of the sensors that were tracking the missiles and so broke contact twice, unable to fire to target and fire the Sea Darts in time.
  The previous day she had downed too Argentine aircraft with this system.
  
  Her escort suffered a direct bomb hit, but because it was released too low, it crashed through the ship, bounced beneath the flight deck, wrecked the tail of the Lynx ASW and bounced out to sea.
  
  there are more accurate accounts of this but I cba to type them up atm.