Feedback: Although this video is great, it still feels incomplete: 1. How did the jets return to Argentina? Did they have enough fuel, or did they have to refuel on their way back, too? 2. Did the pilots earn any medals from Argentina? 3. Did those five men who died because they refused to abandon their stations get any medals? 4. What were the consequences for the captain and the senior officers? You said the captain of the Glasgow had prohibited the use of that communications rig - I assumed that was to set the stage for a court marshal, or at least a new fleet-wide rule. Also, those men not being at their stations, surely they didn't just get off with zero career consequences?? Overall, a GREAT video, but the end seemed very abrupt, and the story still unfinished :)
You should consider using Google Translate to hear the correct pronunciation of foreign words. It's Etendard, but you say En-tend-ard. Since you say it multiple times, it gets a little annoying.
@@adrien5834 In fact, he says "in-ten-dart" 😅 (the first time, at least; at 2:36 he says "in-ten-thars," and at 2:49 it's "in-ten-dars" - I think that's literally every option covered, lol) But yeah, it totally threw me for a loop the first time, too 😆 I actually had to rewind multiple times, but still didn't really get it.... Luckily, the Subtitles were written out, so that helps people who want to Google the plane - _really_ cool that he makes that extra effort! 😃👍🏼 (the auto-generated subs, by contrast, think he says "nintendos" at 2:49😂👌🏼)
@@imking1630 It's not entirely certain because unsurprisingly, the crew of Sheffield were similarly garbage at tracking that situation. It probably missed the Sheffield and splashed down half a mile away. Pure luck that the ship didn't get hit a second time.
There's a really good summary of the engagement at the start of Sandy Woodward's memoir "One Hundred Days". He goes in to a bit more detail on what was happening in HMS Glasgow's Ops Room.
@@imking1630 is ran out of propellant and was seen ditching into the sea. This was seen visually by some RN crewmembers. Iirc its documented in a ships log.
As Sheffield burned, the men in the lifeboats began to band together. While British ships were close by, many of the young sailors were starting to panic. Reportedly, one of the officers started singing "Look on the Bright Side of Life" from the movie "Life of Brian", and before long had the entire surviving crew singing along. This helped raise morale and spirits of the survivors, and is regarded as one of the smartest decisions made that day.
Nonsense,do have any recordings or were yoy provided with any,NO but parroting British lies and copium of a disastrous war,thanks to US and Chile the later bombed Argentine air field to prevent a massacre..
Damn, those pilots had balls. They rushed headlong into what could have been almost certain death with no support or escort and waited till the last possible moment to maximize effectiveness of their weapons. It may be textbook in a way to get as close as possible but its easier said than done. And thats why you never underestimate your enemy because they are very capable of putting a hole in you if you font respect their ability to and willingness to be bold.
Regardless of what happened to the Sheffield and why. The 2 Argentina pilots are to be credited with the daring boldness of their attack. They used their equipment to its full capability, maximized their skill set and attacked. They truly lived the credo "fortune favors the brave."
The two naval pilots had rehearsed the attack a number of times in war games with their own Type 42 destroyers. Some of the simulated attacks were carried out with naval Tracker aircraft.
Excellent video, very well done and entertaining. With just 5 exocets, the argentinian naval air force proved the enormous skills and bravery of their pilots. Sinking two majors british ships (HMS Sheffield and Atlantic Conveyor), if argentinian forces would have more exocets the outcome of the war could have changed. Another thing to note is that France not only refused to give Argentina the other 9 they should have give them, the french also refused to teach the argentinians how to operate them, so argentinians had to figure out how to do it in very short time. That was also very remarkable. I'm argentinian and I have to say that war sucks. But both sides fought bravely. RIP all the heroes that fought on both sides.
Worst, the 5 missiles were 4 in fact ( one was a dud, in this attack, crashed in the water) and the Argentinian Air Force have ZERO maintenance / spare parts for most of the fighters ( US embargo since 1976) and the french not even installed the targeting modules for the exocet ! They refused, and they refused to service the fighters, also. Argentina was forced to adapt and improvise, and they only had FOUR working missiles...
This is not entirely true. The French maintenance crew that was part of the Exocet contract remained in Argentina and looked after their stockpile even after the French promised the British that they had withdrawn all support for Argentina - a blatant lie. At the time of the war, Nott referred to how good a friend France was to Britain but after the war when it transpired the French had lied and actually betrayed their promise to the British, Nott said (when asked about it) “The French are a devious people and always have been”. No truer words spoken!
Coming from the perfidious Albion, that must mean something then... France did not have to obey any command from Britain, it did not have to give any code that may or may not have existed, as it was of supreme importance for its national security. What it did was already a very beautiful thing. Suspend any new delivery, and train the British concerning this weapon. There was absolutely no betrayal but hey, you cannot prevent an Anglo from bashing the French for no reason.....@@dynamo1796
The Argentinian Navy aviation and airforce caught the Royal Navy with their pants down a few times, flying questionably suicidal missions in outdated aircraft yet still sent ship after ship to the bottom of the Atlantic. Nothing short of miraculous and heroic. Argentina deserves to be proud of its pilots who did the best they could with what they had against an enemy who is superior in every way.
Amazinly upon returning to Argentina, Argentine soldiers and pilots felt more respected by the Brits than by teir own people. For people it was the same reaction of losing a soccer game. But only veterans know the deep sadness that rests in a battlefield. This is why all veterans from any country, have my respect, especially if they are conscripts.
Si Inglaterra perdía iva ser lo mismo además en el país estaban bajo una dictadura militar financiada x EEUU fue todontriangulado para q esa guerra se diera no fue tan al azahar !!!
Coincido soy aargentino y en esa epoca hubo muchos desa0arecidos x las tonterias de ee.uu de desaparecer a kos comunistas en sa epoca aqui si se valora a los veteranos de mavinas
@@claudiojaviertajan1024 No eran tonterias. Los hijos de mil puta de los comunistas plantaban bombas en mi Tucuman. Ponian bombas en jardines, en autos y no les importaba si moria gente inocente. Y si el ejercito no hacia nada, Argentina seria como cuba.
You can thank the left wing terrorism for turning the people against the army for imposing order on the 'dictatorship'(Aka Proceso de Reorganizacion Nacional). That's why our soldiers got the nam treatment. Thankfully it's changing and Argentina is slowly letting the left wing die.
@@elorejano81 It was not England. Britain is the country I am part of. Should our forces have come back alive but defeated our government would have fallen and then the next would have been forced to build better armed forces to win back the territory. Even if by then all the islanders had been evicted and replaced by Argentinians. Or not last very long.
The UK military learnt a lot from this conflict. Having being largely army focused due to the NI troubles no one thought that aluminium on warships or nylon uniforms for the ship's company would be a problem. Also putting the right personnel in the right positions. The captain of Sheffield, as I understand it, was a former submarine commander. This wasn't the only incident that lessons were learned from, there were others. In any conflict lessons are learnt quickly, early on. I don't think that it was just the fault of officers in command but also the designers and beaurocrats back in the UK ministry of defence. The bravery shown by both UK and Argentine military is without question.
@@sichere Sheffield was a type 42 air warfare destroyer - not there primarily to counter the submarine threat. The Captain & First Lieutenant's skillsets were found wanting - according to the Board of Enquiry.
@@docdr7199 Indeed but the role that they had at that time was to counter the very real Submarine threat, as an unsuccessful attack had already been made on the Task force and the Captain was not reprimanded.
@@docdr7199 The Task force was attacked by ARA San Luis on the 1st May. ARA San Luis completed a five-week patrol unscathed. She staged several attacks on British warships but missed each time because of torpedo system malfunctions. Meanwhile, British ASW efforts against that single target proved futile. The British fired over 200 torpedoes at false contacts over the five weeks, You are correct but the bigger picture was that the RN were forced to operate their ships in ways they where not designed for, including defending the beachhead in San Carlos. Previous to the Falklands, Whitehall had assured the RN that the RAF had the ability to cover Naval operations. Also, initially Exocet missiles were not identified as Foe, due to the British fleet operated them too, so only defensive action could be taken at the time. After the attack on HMS Sheffield and the withdrawal of the Argentinian Navy, the computers were updated.
Balls of steel from the pilots and sailors and the mercy of command failures. The task force failed at basic defense and the pilots took full advantage of the command failures. This is from someone living in the UK. The enemy pilots (from my point of view) were very brave as everything should have been against them.
Yeah closing well within firing range of anti air destroyers that were part of a carrier task force requires balls big enough that I'm surprised the planes took off. Not only that but they thought they were attacking the aircraft carrier at first which they would have been aware had a screen protecting it.
Of course, most people in the UK (that are old enough) remember the Falklands War. However the detail you provide is fantastic. Learned things I didn't know. Currently the IWM channel (Imperial War Museum) are running a video series about the Falklands war. Worth checking out for anyone interested in learning about it.
@@mikearmstrong8483The Exocet has been continuously upgraded up to the current Block 3 standard. It is no longer operated from the now retired Super Étendard, but still very much a deadly weapon system. Get your facts straight
"I suspect someone's been bloody careless" - from your account, that was a very prescient and perceptive comment given how little he knew of the details of the situation at the time.
@@cjclark2002 I mean not really, humans are always humans and even though we try to make the military purely a professional thing based on merit that's hard in practice. Plus you never know when someone is just having a bad day, that's kinda the issue in war, it's almost impossible to keep alert 24/7 and humans are bad at judging risk. Also I think it's worth noting that the Admiral takes just as much blame here since he seemingly had the same careless attitude and didn't redirect the jets nor did he order the fleet to take proper precautions like not using satelite communications.
I remember reading one book a while ago that talked about one issue the Royal Navy had during the war was its anti-air capability. From what I remember, the author said it was due to what the RN was expected to do in the event of the Cold War going hot. The RN had been given a particular task (anti-submarine if I remember correctly) as part of a larger NATO mission, with the expectation that other NATO Navies would be there performing other tasks like dedicated air defence and so on. So the RN had spent decades planning to fight as part of big multinational force and then came the Falkland War... Suddenly the RN was fighting a war it had never expected and they found they had some serious capability issues, with air defence being a big one. As what they had avaliable was good if there is someone else nearby with better kit and you expected to be part of a wider network. Not so good if it is the only thing avaliable. And of course, the Argentine pilots had the skills to find and exploit those short comings.
The argies had bought two Type 42s from us and were able to practise mock attacks against them. That is one reason in part why the attack on the Sheffield was successful.
Was a midshipman in the West German navy at the time, and of course we were following closely what was going on down south in 1982. I dare say that this film is the most clear and instructive on the chain of events that has lead to the loss of HMS Sheffield that I have seen so far. BZ!
The type 42 performed very poorly in the war. Their sea dart missiles were not effective at low level and were slow to reload. They had no CIWS. Of the three ships in the video, Glasgow was hit on the 12 May by a 1000lb bomb that miraculously passed right through the engine room without exploding. However, damage was done to the fuel lines and hull and the ship was crippled, only able to manage 10 knots. It was forced home and took no further part in the conflict. Coventry was lost on the 25th May when three 1000lb bombs hit the ship and at least two detonated. It capsized and sank in less than 20 minutes.
@@CosmoMomen what CIWS in 1982?,the Yanks had fitted only one, to a carrier 2 years before on a test faze, they wouldnt have shared that so quick,back then im sure it was quite top secret on its existance and abilities even to the american public,and it was still in its try out stage, anyhow british had sea dart and sea wolf, the problem was the strikes was made before a established picket line could be affected, meaning two type 42 frigates should have been in support of each other, one with its radar beam set low to mid, with low altitude AA missiles on board like sea dart, and the other with its beam set high for high level attack with high altitude AA missile on board like sea slug, these beams should have overlapped in conjunction with each other, unfortunately in the case with coventry and antelope, the attack came in at the time of the retaking and they hadnt had chance to form up and be in place..the attack came in low onto antelope who's radar and weopon system was for high level, and should have been passed onto and took over from the frigate with a low level beam set ,but due to the speed of the attack, they hadnt formed up and implemented the airspace coverage yet, in fact rapier hadnt even been unloaded for shore based air defence, thats war! and when your in the position for a first strike capability this will always happen..
@@StBonaventure07"Your completely rewriting history" No, you are completely wrong. Only two of nineteen Sea Dart missiles fired at low level aircraft hit - 11% success rate . I would not say that was performing extremely well. Ships were lost and sailors died because of deficiencies in the missile system. However, it does seem that the main area of deficiency was not the actual missile but the associated Type 965 fire control radar. HMS Exeter was equipped with the newer type 1022 radar and shot down two Skyhawks (out of four), flying less than 15 metres above the sea, which is considerably below the Sea Dart's minimum engagement altitude of 30m. So, if the whole fleet had been upgraded with better radars, the RN may have suffered far less losses. The missiles still take about 20s to reload from the magazines before they can be launched. So, during a low level attack, this is really only a one 'shot' system as there is only a single twin launcher and both missiles were often fired together to maximise kill probability. Sea Wolf had separate sextuple missile launchers fore and aft. CIWS was present on many Russian warships of the era.
@@octowuss1888 the Sea Dart missile controllers in a ship's operations room would be using 992 to track the targets, not 965. I know as I used to sit to their right. 965 and it's replacement 1022 are long range air indication radars, not fire control. The radars that illuminate a target are 909.
Thanks for another great video! You shine a light on the complexity of naval operations that I feel are usually very much oversimplified. It also brings to life the gruelling reality of fighting aboard tin cans floating on 100's of metres of water in the face of missiles and torpedo's that require only a single hit.
There was of course a full-naval board of enquiry afterwards that exonerated Captain Sam Salt from any undue blame in this incident! He had of course responsibility to answer for the performance & conduct of his ship, for himself & those of the HMS Sheffield’s Officers, NCOs & Crew too, during this event & the immediately preceding period, which he did in fact do too! The fact that there were then no specific, uniform ’Royal Naval’ standing orders or standard operating procedures regarding these particular systems at that time in effect that directly led to the circumstances that had been brought about by turning off one particular operating early warning radar system, in order not to compromise the operational efficacy or security of another, separately-integrated, parallel functioning, electronic-systems, therefore would then seem to expose an obvious systemic oversight & inconsistency in operational protocols at that time in 1982, a fact backed up by only HMS Glasgow of the three (The Sheffield, Coventry & Glasgow) screening Type-42 Destroyers then on forward Fleet Air Defence duties then performing these duties, had also operated, as both the alternative EWS & inter-ship communications systems had been also both temporarily switched off too by on their respective Captains’ orders & hence, they were unable to establish contact with either of the two other Type-42 ships then on forward Air Defence Patrol, whose corresponding systems had been then temporarily deactivated on legitimate but inconsistent RN orders under these circumstances!! This incident then led to a navy/fleet review of operational procedures in those situations & apparently it had been deemed by the subsequent naval enquiry that this case had arisen due to newly implemented or even experimental technologies not having been clearly, previously defined or systematically applied, but then overtaking existing operational procedures at the time that in this particular case had directly led to the tragic loss of lives & sinking of the HMS Sheffield! Later, Captain Sam Salt went on to complete a successful naval career, retiring as a Rear Admiral in 1997. He died of cancer in 2009.
I remember this well as I was a bit of a news junkie at the time. It even had made it into one of my science magazines. One thing to remember is that this was so deadly because of mistakes ON BOTH SIDES. The Exocet missile had a much longer range than had been used. Had the missiles been fired from a safer distance, there would have been less fuel to feed the fire, which was far deadlier than the warhead alone.
So the missiles were shot shorter than the intended range and that makes it less deadlier because less fuel? I think I misunderstood something because I don't understand the logic
No doubt the Argentinian Air Force was something to contend with, not only because of its size but mostly because of its daring and highly skilled pilots. I've always had the impression that the Brit Fleet somehow underestimated the danger the Argies' planes posed and later paid a high price for it. A lesson for future engagements.
small correction, most of the damage to the british fleet was done by the Navy Aviation (COAN), not the Air Force. The COAN that was specifically trained to perform these exact type of attacks. The Air Force was big in numbers, but had very limited ways of projecting power to the Islands, the planes simply lacked the range and equipment. That's why on paper the numbers greatly favor Argentina, but in reality there was never a favorable situation in the air combat for us, everything we could do was avoid detection by flying low, strike the naval assets and assets on the ground, and fly back. There was no realistic scenario where we could stand a fight with A4s that had no radars, no flares, and no MAW vs the Harriers.
What "size" ??? They only had 240 aircraft, most of them 30 yo +, many propeller fighters from ww2 era, and from those 240 ONLY 120 were available. Worst, they had no maintenance for them ( US embargo from 1976). Even Belgorod was a ww2 era cruiser, lol, 50 yo, and was killed by a brand new nuclear sub... Imagine that, an 1938 cruiser fighting a modern nuclear sub...
@@mirandela777 - "Many propeller fighters from WW2 era"...! Are you crazy or just plain ignorant ? Please tell us make and model of such imaginary "propeller fighters" ! Then, you switch to naval affairs (though I wrote about the AIR FORCE only) ! Then you talk about a "US embargo from 1976"....Dude, that embargo was imposed on the neighboring country of CHILE...not Argentina ! and so on... Moral: keep your mouth SHUT before writing novels or else better hit the books and get acquainted first with facts !
Everybody respected the ability and daring of those pilots, because they were Argentine. Once the fleet set sail I relaxed. Anyway, the man who told me it was about to kick off down there had found himself a job in Britain a month earlier. Mind you, hitting Sheffield surprised and annoyed me.
One of my leading seamen came from the Sheffield. He confirmed that the ship was slack, in many ways. The captain was a nice guy, not a ship driver or warrior. But otherwise, the problems of Sheffield were common to my ship as well, and to most of the Royal Navy. We had nylon clothing, nylon bedding, thin anti-flash gear, all designed to cut costs (and weight, perhaps). A week after Sheffield's sinking, we all received horse-hair mattresses, thick cotton N° 8s, proper anti-flash gloves and balaclava. These had all been in store (in Gib, in my case) for years - 1974, my mattress was built. On my ship, I had been complaining for months that the Rover gas turbine - used for auxiliary fire fighting in case the main drain failed, but also for pumping water out of the ship when firefighting or when flooded - did not work. We got a new one after the Sheffield sinking. One of the reasons the Sheffield crew had so many problems was that the exocet split the main drain and firefighters could not get any water pressure, so could not control the smoke, provide boundary cooling, or attack the fire. Their Rover didn't work, either. Exocet only carried a small warhead, plus any remaining fuel. The short range at which they were launched meant that there was still plenty of fuel, adding to the fire, but the warhead was only sufficient to punch a hole in the side. A similar missile hit the a**e end of the Glamorgan at the end of the war and good damage control prevented any more serious loss. It took 2 exocets to wreck the Atlantic Conveyor, but two were not enough to sink the USS Stark. A 500kg bomb would cause much more damage than an exocet, but Argentine bombs rarely exploded due to the low height from which they were dropped. I've just been reading about the Japanese naval air experience - and what is most impressive is the huge number of weapons that are needed to sink a warship - armoured during WWII. One or two hits shouldn't affect a big ship like a carrier with good damage control. But British ships of Falklands vintage were designed to stand up to 1 500kg bomb, but not 2. So, Coventry, capsized after two bombs, but Ardent survived for a day after 3 bombs (with many more unexploded), Antelope was hit by 2 bombs, but only one exploded near the magazines which also detonated, sinking the ship. In conclusion, considering the Argies had only 5 missiles, they squandered them on unimportant targets, a rookie error, and failed to follow up their hit with anything else. Poor strategy, poor planning, poor tactics, generally poor business, and hitting the Sheffield, a ship that wasn't going to make any major contribution to the war, was poetic justice.
@@LondonSteveLee I had that exact thought last year. Being 62 now I remember the loss of the HMS Sheffield very well. (I have been fascinated by magnesium ever since.) but to think that when I was going day to day in California back then I was the same distance of time away from such extraordinary, world defining events then that i had just experienced myself, blew me away. I tripped on it really hard for at least a week, but every body i knew that I talked to about it (and I am completely ernest with my next statement) were too fucking stupid, to understand the point I was trying to make. All of them were at least 60 years old as well. Who ever the couple of you are who made mention of this little factoid, are men that I think I would really like if I ever ran into you out on the streets.Peace be with you
The fact the Argentinians went below to about 50 feet above sea just to use the earth’s curvature fascinates me. I never knew the earth’s curvature could be use in such a manner. I wonder if other aerial operations of other wars used this tactic too. I find it interesting and amazing that the earth’s curvature could be use to hide oneself from the enemy. Very fascinating. Overall very well made video. Godspeed to those who perished during the Falkland War. 🇫🇰 🇬🇧 🇦🇷
Its a really common tactic. Its why no one really cares much about Hypersonics nowadays, as long as you have harpoons that can glide along the curvature of the earth with minimal issues.
Common tactic.However the Argentine aircraft had to climb above the horizon to allow them to acquire the target.The bearing and range to the target allowed the missile to be launched.This according to the pilot took between one and two minutes,and after launch the aircraft dropped below the horizon while executing a 180 degree turn.The Exocet missile has an active seeker guidance system that switches on after launch to search for the target and home onto it.A ship won't out manouver it once launched.The only possible defence is,shootdown which is difficult,jamming or decoy.
Great video. Well done. I remember this well being in the Royal Canadian Navy at the time as an Ops Room rating so everything that happened was important to me, especially mistakes when fighting the ship.
@@scottessery100. He was appointed in Command of HMS Southampton within a year. Subsequently he was promoted to Admiral and retired from the Navy in the ordinary course in 1991. Sadly he passed away from cancer a few years later.
How could the Sheffield's crew not imagine that the planes' position in relation to their ship was slightly different than that from their sister ship?
Perhaps the crew failed to make the transition from “peacetime thinking” to “wartime thinking”……. I saw that in the Balkans War (1999) onboard the USCGC I was temporarily assigned to in the war zone.
Because their boss the captain hadn’t trained them well? Allowing the use of a comms system that blinds the radar in a combat zone doesn’t indicate a good leader….
Easy, in high stress environments critical thinking skills rapidly degrade. This means that Glasgow's message was probably a bit less precise than would be the case in a peacetime simulation. Add in the inherent complacency of the Sheffield's officers probably thinking it was another false alarm, combine that with the "telephone" effect of the message going through multiple people, and it makes perfect sense why there was confusion. The radar operators were probably told "look for any air contacts on 'X' bearing" rather than "Glasgow reports air contacts bearing 'X'". When they then saw exactly what they expected (ie: nothing), they almost certainly chalked it up to someone on Glasgow getting "jumpy" and went back to whatever they were previously doing.
Just comes to show how important a good captain is. The other destroyer was on the ball, and would have survived that had it been targeted. The ship's crew did everything it could to save its sister. Meanwhile, the Sheffield's crew were unprepared, lax, and doing things they shouldn't have been doing during wartime. That is something the captain could have resolved, but didn't.
At the time the exocet hit the Sheffield it was in communication which meant it had its radar turned off also at the time the only system that could tackle low flying missile was seawolf which the Sheffield was not equipped with
While still tragic this sinking really puts in my mind how small this conflict was in comparison to other naval conflicts like WWI and WWII where sometimes thousands die on a single afternoon. If this was a destroyer in Jutland or in Midway it wouldn't even have been mentioned.
Yeah. They don't even tell people that during Jutland the British destroyer screen was forced to fight alone against the German high fleet and while they did get one dreadnought, they lost several in return.
It's true. However, modern (...well, semi-modern speaking of T42s) destroyers are not anymore "minor" vessels like their WWI/WWII counterparts. Today's guided-missile, air defense destroyers are the biggest and more valuable surface asset of a Navy next to an aircraft carrier. So if tomorrow someone would sink a T45, the relevance would be huge.
My two cents: (i) you forgot to say that the fleet was tracked by a Argentine Navy's Neptune, and the attack was properly prepared (ii) the way of attacking was studied by engineers and one university in Argentina, on how to fly without "touchjing" the lobe of the type 42's radar (a maneuver called "peeking the lobe")
@@historigraph awsome always felt it was a bit of overlooked ship despite the important role it played in the war, all people remember it for is being sunk
@@terik3312 I'd argue that actually she was the most significant loss of the war - Ardent, Antelope, Coventry and Sheffield were ultimately all escort vessels - their job if necessary to take a hit. Atlantic Conveyor was one of the ships they were trying to protect.
Had no idea so many mistakes were made by Sheffield. Senior officers still with peacetime thinking. Best graphics I have seen that clearly shows the sequence of events.
The pilots had an extra problem when flying so close to the sea and it was the salt that stuck to the windshield and made it difficult to see, so they used to have to support the helmet against the side glass which caused a huge vibration inside the helmet.
One of my Friends was onboard HMS Sheffield when it was struck and survived to tell the tale. It was a terrifying experience for him. He still suffers this day with the experience (mentally).
Same for the Belgrano sank by the submarine while the navy was out of exclusion zone, the order was made by Margie. These attacks were the anwers from understimate opponent. Finally many lost men in both side afer war, very very sad history.
Atlantic Conveyor was more critical loss due to the material carried. Exocet wasn't the only threat because 14 ships were hit by conventional bombs through air raids but didn't explode. If those 14 hits were exploited or if Argentina had more Exocet missiles UK would have lost the war. I've seen a documentary where the Argentinian pilot said was launched the Exocet from longer distance and it didn't exploited but caused the fire due to its fuel.
@@EE-ve3vh there wasn't any codes, you can't disable a missile with "codes", Mitterrand might have given other useful information like the search radar frequencies to jam it.
@@martindione386 You are correct on the codes. But Mitterand didn't have to provide any frequencies. The frequency bands used by radar seekers on all but the most experimental missiles are common knowledge to all the leading military powers.
Thanks, I was an 18 y o greenie on Hermes down south, in the video you see burn victims landing in helos., our job was to fill the helos with firefighting gear, you could smell the burnt flesh inside. Apparently the Exocet never exploded its warhead, the rocket fuel did the damage. Who gets promoted, sure enough Sam Salt for running a sloppy ship, can so eone say coverup RN style.
I love the understantement of "someone's been bloody careless". It translates from British Naval Officer approximately as "You, Captain, yes you personally, along with a whole bunch of people you are responsible for, are shockingly incompetent, and it's going to be court martials all round."
Admiral Woodward was a submariner and knew captain Salt very well - Captain Salt flew out to Mobassa in Jan 1982 to take Command of Sheffield in a quiet passage home to UK after being deployed to the Gulf for 4 months already - so he was not particularly trained in Anti Air Warfare and had not carried Commanding officer Sea Training at Portland (FOST- is a work up for 4-6 weeks) Sheffield should have gone home to repair defects including fire pumps but Sam Salt apparently persuaded Woodward to join the Task Force in Gib during Exercise SPRING TRAIN !
4:10 Yes you can have Harriers and they are killers. But Harriers could not fill the role of AWACS or E2s. Argentina's pilots exploited this blind spot. History was made, lessons were learned.
If you read Sharky Ward's book, he says the Harriers on CAP could/should have detected the incoming Etendards, but they were sent away to do a surface search leaving a big hole through which the Argentinians attacked.
@@mrgreatauk Yeah, I'd say the admiral who disregarded Glasgow, that's Careless #1. And also the captain of the Sheffield for that radio rule, #2. And also the two senior officers who apparently both weren't at their stations simultaneously, #3 & #4. Captain of the Glasgow should've gotten a promotion for this, though - only person with a head on his shoulders....
I doubt that the admiral was that careless. At any given time in operations, a hundred things are happening at once. The Admiral had to trust his crews to the task. Too many false alarms on the radar, and people will slip up.
Loved the video @Historigraph! Can't wait for the next video man! Sheffield wasn't the Only Ship lost on the British side of the Falklands War, her Sister Coventry and hours later the Container Ship Atlantic Conveyor were lost to AM 39 Exocet Missiles a few days later.
Los pilotos navales, Armando Mayora - Augusto Bedacartatz.🇦🇷 4-5-1982 El Sheffield se convirtió en el primer buque de guerra británico 🏴hundido desde Segunda Guerra Mundial y el primero de la OTAN. 20 Muertos y 63 heridos condolencias a familiares del HMS Sheffield - Su capitán Sam Salt. Despues del fin de la Segunda Guerra Mundial , Argentina🇦🇷 , Excelentes pilotos Alemane🇩🇪 en nuestro pais capacitaron a los pilotos arg. Adof Galland - Hans Ulrich Rudel- Behrens Otto - kurt Waldemar Tank- Werner Baumbach- Heinz Scheidhauer.
Silver lining: As bad as it was for her, Sheffield actually accomplished her primary mission. Neither carrier was struck by enemy fire. In extremis, the duty of the escorts is to take the hit to save the carrier. Thus, despite all the mistakes, and almost certainly inadvertently, Sheffield did succeed in her primary mission of keeping the carriers from being hit by the enemy missiles.
@@EdMcF1 Atlantic Conveyor wasn't "sacrificed". The two exocets that hit her had been successfully decoyed by chaff fired from other ships. Unfortunately, Atlantic Conveyor wasn't fitted with any kind of countermeasures and was subsequently struck and lost. The loss of the Atlantic Conveyor was a huge blow to the task force as it was carrying a lot of important equipment including heavy lift Chinook helicopters.
Aluminum isn't a good thing to build ships out of first of all. Second Kevlar burns quite nicely and puts out tons of toxic smoke,three: electronics burn nicely too and puts out tons of toxic smoke also wasn't the water mains hit too? Also the ship had a pathetic air defenses. 2 20mm cannons,sea dart Sam's that suck at any range,4 30 cal machine guns and a 4.5in cannon. Like wtf royal navy.
Even Modern AA platforms like CWIS, combined with long range missile defense, are vastly overrated. Sadly since the advent of airpower, navies have had a consistent habit of underestimating new aerial threats to their ships, that trend is continuing to this day.
And the Brits found that their uniforms made of synthetic rayon melted to their skin while firefighting and that corfam shoes also melted to their feet. We in the USN & USCG dis ban corfam shoes from shipboard use and once aga issued flash gear as what was used during WW2.
Historical evidence from the Royal Navy says that if a fire onboard a ship is not brought under control within ten minutes, then the chance of regaining control diminishes. A valiant effort must be applauded by all on board. A combination of circumstances converged at a crucial moment in time, as is present in many disasters. Lessoned learned, has enabled a range of changes in various actions, procedures and ship design. Most importantly, the realisation of the condition of PTSD, by those whose war never ended, would eventually result in the recognition and treatment for this nightmare.
Nice narration of events. Thanks for being respectful with both bands. Malvinas/Falklands is still today a very sensitive topic for us Argebtinians and for UK of course. Both bands had sustained lots of casualties thanks to bad politicians...
There were only bad politicians on the Argentinean side. You know? Those that made tens of thousands of Argentinians disappear into dark torture cellars?
A couple of officers (not Cpt Salt) were found to be negligent but weren't publicly court martialled as the UK govt didn't want bad vibes in the wake of the Falkands victory
@@gowdsake7103 Why is that exactly? Reading this is funny to read ill-informed views based on a crappy inaccurate made up video which bears no resemblance of the facts. Let us me hear your reason why you think Sam should take fault when none was due
@@Highendaudio1 Because he was aware of the inherent threat but he was chatting to a friend in I understand in Whitehall using Scott which disabled the use of the 965 and 992
@@gowdsake7103 you see you read and listen to far too many ill-informed people. Let me educate you. He was on the sat phone for official reasons and it had nothing to do with Whitehall. The sat phone is what is affected by radar not the other way around. Sheffield wasn't fitted with 965 radar and this issue is that 965 and 965M were not designed to and could not detect low-flying targets or missiles. Sheffield was not fitted with 992 which was a radar designed for weapon guidance in a set band. A bit of a history lesson for you. The widely fitted 965 underwent improvements post-corporate to improve the surface clutter capability using better doppler and other aspects. the 965M was still no better and In its basic form, it was a radar that saw service in the 50s, so what did we expect? Type 42 were warships that were poorly planned, designed, and equipped due to the lack of money in an era when high-level bombers still carried the deterrent. By 1982 one has to ask if using them as radar pickets was a decision made without facing reality. You may talk about Sea Cat and Sea Slug ( Both well-accepted as not worth the effort ) but Sea Dart like its associated radar was designed to take out high-level bombers. The part that is blacked out in the inquiry all but says, Sheffield wouldn't have stood a chance even if all ducks had been lined up in a row. HMS Glasgow. She didn't detect the Supers Es at 40 miles out on radar; they detected a UAA1 A radar transmission. This is where the Super Es comes up to transmit on their radar to get the final TMA before releasing their weapons. After firing their weapons, the Super Es and the other aircraft (Yes, there were three) then went low again, and they were again invisible to our radars. HMS Glasgow never saw the MPA that was there for hours and located Sheffield and called in the attack. HMS Glasgow never at any point detected any of the three aircraft by radar The threat that was being dealt with at the time was the supposed submarine threat which was totally over-exaggerated. In short, the radar system in our fleet at the time was not fit for purpose and we the problem not the people as you suggest
As did the senior crew on board Hermes sending the Harriers off on a wild goose chase to do visual searches rather than allowing them to fly their usual CAP and sweep the area with RADAR. Argentinian pilots were told to abandon attacks whenever they detected Sea Harrier. These two Etendards flew through where the Harriers should have been patrolling.
I remember this well. Me and a view friends had just bought Fish and Chips one evening on the south coast of England, and were eating it out of the paper standing around another friend’s car listening to the news on the car radio. When the news came through, we were all shocked to hear it. It brought home the fact that there would be losses on both sides, and that there was more bad news likely to come. But we were all proud of Britains response and determination to retake the Falkland Islands and liberate the British citizens. Not forgetting South Georgia as well. Like all conflicts there is loss of life and other people have to live with that loss, and also many have to live with the physical and mental scars. For those that would never return, we will never forget.
Exocet was responsible for sinking one warship, damaging another (which put it out of action for only a few hours) and one stuft ship. Hardly a large role.
@@Matelot123hardly a large role? Tatcher herself asked the French government to give UK the Exocets keys to disable them 😂 France gave UK’s navy an opportunity to be more humble, but I guess it’s not taught in brit’s classes uh?
@@GDavid-yh2xp Irrelevant though. They had six and they sank one warship and one unarmed merchant vessel. Exocet is an easily decoyed piece of garbage that gained a far better reputation than it deserved based solely on the fact that it was responsible for sinking the Sheffield when frankly, the Captain of the Sheffield held far more responsibility for that farce.
The Argentinians only had five Super-Etendards and five air launch Exocets. They had intended to buy 15 Super-Etendards. Problem was their only carrier could not operate this aircraft.
I actually have a mug from the HMS Sheffield, my GPA was US Navy, traded one from his ship for it when he met them in port before the war. So somewhere on that wreck may very well be a mug from the USS Piedmont
God bless the boys on the Sheffield. I am a former sailor (Chef) I served on the Broadsword in peace time a small number of years after the end of the Falklands war. I was on what was known as the armilla patrol in the Persian gulf, The Broadsword at the time was testing out a new 3D sonar from Plessey, One day a guy from the ops room came into my galley with a curious grin on his face and he said questioningly "Chef have you just been running the potato peeler machine" I said Errrrr yeah why whats the problem with that? He then went on to explain that up in the ops room the sonar kept giving them incoming torpedo alerts for days and it turns out it was my potato peeler giving off an similar sonar signature as the motor of a torpedo.
Tampoco hay quien pueda hacer esa filmación del Exocet impactando en el Sheffield ,desde donde se filmó ? Quien la filmó ? Que estaba haciendo filmando justo en ese momento, considerando que el misil venía a una velocidad altísima y nadie lo sabía ,como estaba preparado el camarógrafo para el impacto tan bien ubicado y con cámara de esa calidad ,puedes decirme quién hizo esa filmación o si es real o una simple recreación ?
@@jorgebotta8299 pero no tienes respuesta verdad ,esa filmación del Exocet es una filmación francesa experimental ,la presentan como que es el Sheffield pero no lo es , hundieron realmente al Sheffield ? Porque presentar imágenes que no corresponden al hecho ,quizá no hubo tal hecho,siga investigando y entenderá y después quizá ,quizá te de por pensar
And the missile was shown hitting the target on British television that night or the night after. A French salesman had the film in his briefcase when he saw a client?
@picatostes Bjd España estuvo con el invasor... Cuando el suelo argentino los cobijo cuando en el 1900 llegaron llenos de piojos y muertos de hambre, soy bisnieto de inmigrantes españoles y aborrezco llevar su sangre !!!
@@mohammed_2939 Sinking of General Belgrano Battle of Goose Green Battle of Pebble Island Battle of Wireless Ridge Battle of Mt Tumbledown Battle of Mt Longdon Battle of Mt Harriet Battle of Two Sisters Battle of Mt Kent
War is so terrible and fascinating. Humanity doing it's worst to each other, and yet the pressure of risking one's life often brings out the best of humanity.
I was in the Gulf when the Stark was hit. She wasn't even on a war footing at the time. Reading a copy of their redacted damage control report was quite sobering.
@@flym0 She was in a war zone - why was she not on a war footing? Great job by the crew to control the fire - luckily for them in typical Exocet style only one detonated.
@@LondonSteveLee IIRC, the old man was more concerned about doing machinery breakdown tasks. We were at full defence watches with everything primed ready to go. All I will say it is a good job we followed the ROE when the Iranian F4 Phantom locked on to us as we transited the straits with our convoy ...
@@LondonSteveLee Indeed. I do think it was complete complacency on her captains part. I have to commend their EW guys for at least priming their chaff launcher but by that time it was far too late. And why they didn't detect the Exocet head on their SLQ32, to me, still remains a mystery. Disclosure: I was an EW operator at the time of this incident.
Excellent vid! I have a feeling something very similar happened with the sinking of the Moskva several months ago. At the time of the attack, I doubt Russian naval personnel thought they had anything to fear from the Ukrainians, whose small navy was quickly eliminated early in the war. Add to that, the Moskva was a contemporary of the Sheffield and thus, very old equipment by 2022 and you have a recipe for disaster.
I'm new to Historigraph but glad to have discovered the channel. I've just watched a series these vids on the Falklands War and believe they are very well researched, written and animated. Solid story telling with an efficient style.
@historigraph loved this one - my father served aboard the HMS broadsword always spoke about the incident that led to the Coventry sinking, also spoke about how one of the torpedoes went straight into the hull of broadsword several decks above but didn't detonate - really would be great if you could consider covering this event!
No British ships were torpedoed. Your father would have known that. Broadsword wasn't hit by a torpedo. A bomb bounced off the sea and went through the side of the ship then upwards through the flightdeck, destroying her Lynx.
@@historigraph It would also be good if you find and add newer music tracks to add to the tone of your videos, like other history channels do. (Epic History TV, Kings & Generals, etc.)
A great friend of mine was in charge of assembling and testing the Exocet target tracking heads. He was also telling that heads were sometimes delivered by him personally to the Argentinians, after the periodical recalibrations. After this event, he mentally suffered a lot and he completely changed its job.
Good show and info. SNAFU again showed up. Many times in WW II vital functions had to be maintained, and the men perished to save their ship. Brave Lads, hopefully Britain acknowledged their sacrifice.
The irony of it all. Up till now, the informed part of the public thought the Exocet missiles were so good that modern anti air radar and missiles were useless against them. Now we learn that the destruction of the Sheffield was in large part to blame on the Royal Navy herself. And the Exocet's warhead didn't even detonate but because it still had most of its fuel, that started the fire and the ship's non-existent fire proofing ensured it was doomed.
Not really, was honestly more timing then anything else and logistical constraints the royal navy faced. The british only had 40 harriers which was not enough to provide both adequate fleet protection from argentinian strikes and conduct raids on stanley and other military targets on the falklands. The air defense platform their ships were predominantly equipped with the sea darter, was horribly outdated and unreliable, the sea wolf was slightly better, but it was very new at the time and still had problems. Both the glasgow and the sheffield only had the sea darter. The argentine fighters flew NAP most of the way, which left them pretty much undetectable to surface radar, same with the exocet itself as it flew too low for radars at the time to pick up. Anti ship missiles were still a very new threat at the time, and point defenses even newer and not that reliable. Even if the glasgow had been able to raise the sheffield to warn them of the threat, I honestly doubt it would have made any difference. It honestly could have been far worse. If the Argentinians had started the war about a year later, they not only would have had their full complement of 100 exocets they ordered from france (when the war happened they only had like 6) but their is also a good chance they would have had total air supremacy as there were serious plans to sell the HMS invincible to Australia, and the HMS Hermes was due to be decommissioned. Not to mention if Argentina had actually enlarged the airfield on stanley, they could have launched super entardes and sea hawks from it instead of the mainland, which would have drastically increased their range and amount of missions they could have performed against the Royal Navy, probably would have allowed them to engage harriers in aerial combat as well. Really a major part of British success in the war came from Argentinian incompetence and improper planning rather then their own.
@@copter2000 well originally the operation was actually planned to start around a year later then it actually did, once the argentinian military was better equipped and prepared. Was accelerated because of tensions around South Georgia islands which werent entirely planned by the Argentinians. Had the Argentinian military actually started the war when they originally meant to, it would have been a entirely different situation both for Argentina and the UK. That being said, the biggest problem was they just assumed the British would not respond, so they didn't really prepare accordingly like with not enlarging the airfield at stanley, using mostly conscript units that were also not well supplied for the siege they were about to face. Another glaring example was when the war broke out, the majority of the Argentinian Navy had to be commanded by junior officers because most of its senior leadership at the time were at a NATO conference in Western Germany. Finally a lot of air and ground units were not utilized and left in Patagonia throughout the war because of tensions with Chile. Had just any of these things been different, they could have potentially had a serious outcome on the war.
@@jonaswhitt4322 Even if they couldn't do anything about the missile, the advance warning would still likely save lives and possibly even the ship by making them better prepared for damage control, instead of needing to think about complicated actions while fire and smoke are spreading.
A well executed attack, by two skilled pilots. I still remember when this happened, I think this was when the general public realised we really WERE at war. Up until then the mood had been righteous but still fairly jovial. The Sheffield's destruction changed all that, rapidly....
A friend of mine, a guy I went to school with was on the Sheffield during the attack. He was in the canteen at the time of the attack and unfortunately didn't survive.
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Feedback:
Although this video is great, it still feels incomplete:
1. How did the jets return to Argentina?
Did they have enough fuel, or did they have to refuel on their way back, too?
2. Did the pilots earn any medals from Argentina?
3. Did those five men who died because they refused to abandon their stations get any medals?
4. What were the consequences for the captain and the senior officers?
You said the captain of the Glasgow had prohibited the use of that communications rig - I assumed that was to set the stage for a court marshal, or at least a new fleet-wide rule.
Also, those men not being at their stations, surely they didn't just get off with zero career consequences??
Overall, a GREAT video, but the end seemed very abrupt, and the story still unfinished :)
That tip for those working from home about taking a five minute walk is Fabulous! Thank you !:-)
💜🙏⚡️
You should consider using Google Translate to hear the correct pronunciation of foreign words. It's Etendard, but you say En-tend-ard. Since you say it multiple times, it gets a little annoying.
@@adrien5834
In fact, he says "in-ten-dart" 😅
(the first time, at least; at 2:36 he says "in-ten-thars," and at 2:49 it's "in-ten-dars" - I think that's literally every option covered, lol)
But yeah, it totally threw me for a loop the first time, too 😆
I actually had to rewind multiple times, but still didn't really get it....
Luckily, the Subtitles were written out, so that helps people who want to Google the plane - _really_ cool that he makes that extra effort! 😃👍🏼
(the auto-generated subs, by contrast, think he says "nintendos" at 2:49😂👌🏼)
@@MrNicoJac I mean, I did like the video. I didn't mean to sound too acerbic...
10:11 The way you present complex information in the form of infographics is second to none
Thanks so much mate- means a lot
You two should consider doing collab videos -- love both of your work!
High praise from the Ops room right there, I love both your channels
It's fake. Sheffield sunk days later when a tug rammed it.
I can't even begin to imagine the frustration and dread at HMS Glasgow when their sister ship isn't doing anything to prevent iminent danger.
Even more so was they "confirmed" 4 kills when all they got was well 2.
Lost contact after engagement = confirmed kill
What happened with the second missile? There is no reference in the video, it just disappears from radar.
@@imking1630 It's not entirely certain because unsurprisingly, the crew of Sheffield were similarly garbage at tracking that situation. It probably missed the Sheffield and splashed down half a mile away. Pure luck that the ship didn't get hit a second time.
There's a really good summary of the engagement at the start of Sandy Woodward's memoir "One Hundred Days". He goes in to a bit more detail on what was happening in HMS Glasgow's Ops Room.
@@imking1630 is ran out of propellant and was seen ditching into the sea. This was seen visually by some RN crewmembers. Iirc its documented in a ships log.
As Sheffield burned, the men in the lifeboats began to band together. While British ships were close by, many of the young sailors were starting to panic. Reportedly, one of the officers started singing "Look on the Bright Side of Life" from the movie "Life of Brian", and before long had the entire surviving crew singing along. This helped raise morale and spirits of the survivors, and is regarded as one of the smartest decisions made that day.
Monty Python to the rescue, as per usual
One of the smartest decisions made that day, but the bar wasn't set very high previously 😂
Nonsense,do have any recordings or were yoy provided with any,NO but parroting British lies and copium of a disastrous war,thanks to US and Chile the later bombed Argentine air field to prevent a massacre..
As a Yank, I’ve always admired the British armed forces for their tenacity and dry sense of humor.
Yup, I heard this at the time from survivors.
Damn, those pilots had balls. They rushed headlong into what could have been almost certain death with no support or escort and waited till the last possible moment to maximize effectiveness of their weapons. It may be textbook in a way to get as close as possible but its easier said than done. And thats why you never underestimate your enemy because they are very capable of putting a hole in you if you font respect their ability to and willingness to be bold.
Ciertamente .es como llegar a tu casa y ver a tu familia amenazada no te va a interesar tu integridad para con los demás obviamente !!!
I agree witj you but there's something alse should be mention that is that Argentinean belibed for wot they were fighting.
Tampoco los aviones tenían radares
@@buscador3933 Sí, lo hicieron. eso dice en el video
@@capitandelespacio2 you should start believing in your economy instead, god knows it needs it
Regardless of what happened to the Sheffield and why. The 2 Argentina pilots are to be credited with the daring boldness of their attack. They used their equipment to its full capability, maximized their skill set and attacked. They truly lived the credo "fortune favors the brave."
Yeah, it was only British soldiers and sailors burning to death. Knob
Nah, they were chicken and blind. They wanted bigger fish, and settled for a guppy.
The two naval pilots had rehearsed the attack a number of times in war games with their own Type 42 destroyers. Some of the simulated attacks were carried out with naval Tracker aircraft.
@@michaelhearn3052 War favors the bold.
@@karlshaner2453 true. But they got lucky!
As a former destroyer sailor, this is an absolute nightmare. Great job as always on this video.
I do have evidence that the Sheffield was attacked on May the 1st with bombs (not the 4th with an Exocet)
Excellent video, very well done and entertaining. With just 5 exocets, the argentinian naval air force proved the enormous skills and bravery of their pilots. Sinking two majors british ships (HMS Sheffield and Atlantic Conveyor), if argentinian forces would have more exocets the outcome of the war could have changed. Another thing to note is that France not only refused to give Argentina the other 9 they should have give them, the french also refused to teach the argentinians how to operate them, so argentinians had to figure out how to do it in very short time. That was also very remarkable. I'm argentinian and I have to say that war sucks. But both sides fought bravely. RIP all the heroes that fought on both sides.
Worst, the 5 missiles were 4 in fact ( one was a dud, in this attack, crashed in the water) and the Argentinian Air Force have ZERO maintenance / spare parts for most of the fighters ( US embargo since 1976) and the french not even installed the targeting modules for the exocet ! They refused, and they refused to service the fighters, also. Argentina was forced to adapt and improvise, and they only had FOUR working missiles...
This is not entirely true. The French maintenance crew that was part of the Exocet contract remained in Argentina and looked after their stockpile even after the French promised the British that they had withdrawn all support for Argentina - a blatant lie.
At the time of the war, Nott referred to how good a friend France was to Britain but after the war when it transpired the French had lied and actually betrayed their promise to the British, Nott said (when asked about it) “The French are a devious people and always have been”.
No truer words spoken!
I do have evidence that the Sheffield was attacked on May the 1st with bombs (not the 4th with an Exocet)
Coming from the perfidious Albion, that must mean something then...
France did not have to obey any command from Britain, it did not have to give any code that may or may not have existed, as it was of supreme importance for its national security.
What it did was already a very beautiful thing. Suspend any new delivery, and train the British concerning this weapon.
There was absolutely no betrayal but hey, you cannot prevent an Anglo from bashing the French for no reason.....@@dynamo1796
Props to the Argentine pilots, this was pretty much a perfect textbook attack.
on a pretty much suicide mission. look how many antiair ships were there
thats crazy
The Brits should have made sure that the Argentinian Airforce was destroyed
Gracias, desde la Patagonia. Muchas gracias
And they paid for it
The Argentinian Navy aviation and airforce caught the Royal Navy with their pants down a few times, flying questionably suicidal missions in outdated aircraft yet still sent ship after ship to the bottom of the Atlantic. Nothing short of miraculous and heroic.
Argentina deserves to be proud of its pilots who did the best they could with what they had against an enemy who is superior in every way.
Amazinly upon returning to Argentina, Argentine soldiers and pilots felt more respected by the Brits than by teir own people. For people it was the same reaction of losing a soccer game. But only veterans know the deep sadness that rests in a battlefield. This is why all veterans from any country, have my respect, especially if they are conscripts.
Si Inglaterra perdía iva ser lo mismo además en el país estaban bajo una dictadura militar financiada x EEUU fue todontriangulado para q esa guerra se diera no fue tan al azahar !!!
Coincido soy aargentino y en esa epoca hubo muchos desa0arecidos x las tonterias de ee.uu de desaparecer a kos comunistas en sa epoca aqui si se valora a los veteranos de mavinas
@@claudiojaviertajan1024 No eran tonterias. Los hijos de mil puta de los comunistas plantaban bombas en mi Tucuman. Ponian bombas en jardines, en autos y no les importaba si moria gente inocente. Y si el ejercito no hacia nada, Argentina seria como cuba.
You can thank the left wing terrorism for turning the people against the army for imposing order on the 'dictatorship'(Aka Proceso de Reorganizacion Nacional). That's why our soldiers got the nam treatment. Thankfully it's changing and Argentina is slowly letting the left wing die.
@@elorejano81
It was not England. Britain is the country I am part of.
Should our forces have come back alive but defeated our government would have fallen and then the next would have been forced to build better armed forces to win back the territory. Even if by then all the islanders had been evicted and replaced by Argentinians.
Or not last very long.
The UK military learnt a lot from this conflict. Having being largely army focused due to the NI troubles no one thought that aluminium on warships or nylon uniforms for the ship's company would be a problem. Also putting the right personnel in the right positions. The captain of Sheffield, as I understand it, was a former submarine commander. This wasn't the only incident that lessons were learned from, there were others. In any conflict lessons are learnt quickly, early on. I don't think that it was just the fault of officers in command but also the designers and beaurocrats back in the UK ministry of defence. The bravery shown by both UK and Argentine military is without question.
The Sheffield's role was primarily to counter the submarine threat and a former Submarine Commander was an appropriate candidate.
@@sichere Sheffield was a type 42 air warfare destroyer - not there primarily to counter the submarine threat. The Captain & First Lieutenant's skillsets were found wanting - according to the Board of Enquiry.
@@docdr7199 Indeed but the role that they had at that time was to counter the very real Submarine threat, as an unsuccessful attack had already been made on the Task force and the Captain was not reprimanded.
@@sichere We disagree...
@@docdr7199
The Task force was attacked by ARA San Luis on the 1st May. ARA San Luis completed a five-week patrol unscathed. She staged several attacks on British warships but missed each time because of torpedo system malfunctions. Meanwhile, British ASW efforts against that single target proved futile. The British fired over 200 torpedoes at false contacts over the five weeks,
You are correct but the bigger picture was that the RN were forced to operate their ships in ways they where not designed for, including defending the beachhead in San Carlos.
Previous to the Falklands, Whitehall had assured the RN that the RAF had the ability to cover Naval operations.
Also, initially Exocet missiles were not identified as Foe, due to the British fleet operated them too, so only defensive action could be taken at the time. After the attack on HMS Sheffield and the withdrawal of the Argentinian Navy, the computers were updated.
Balls of steel from the pilots and sailors and the mercy of command failures. The task force failed at basic defense and the pilots took full advantage of the command failures. This is from someone living in the UK. The enemy pilots (from my point of view) were very brave as everything should have been against them.
Exactly Sir !!!!
Yeah closing well within firing range of anti air destroyers that were part of a carrier task force requires balls big enough that I'm surprised the planes took off. Not only that but they thought they were attacking the aircraft carrier at first which they would have been aware had a screen protecting it.
I think when you're dealing death on behalf of a fascist Junta, the bravery can only be described as misplaced.
@@paulcardin6344 Wikipedia?
@@paulcardin6344 God Save the Queen! Her fascist regime!
Of course, most people in the UK (that are old enough) remember the Falklands War. However the detail you provide is fantastic. Learned things I didn't know.
Currently the IWM channel (Imperial War Museum) are running a video series about the Falklands war. Worth checking out for anyone interested in learning about it.
It was NEVER a war brother,, it was a conflict war was never declared, just greasing the wheels and sharing the love xxxx
@@bobmiller7502 like the Ukraine, you meant to say? Not a war?
Those videos are propaganda, ir you're really interested on the conflict, see both countries videos, with NO propaganda.
@@bobmiller7502 correct as Thatcher never stood up in parliament and declared that we were ar war with Argentina.
@@michaelhearn3052 xx
Brilliant. The Super Etendard-Exocet combo is deadly for navies.
If your navy hasn't upgraded in 40 years, and your enemy's navy hasn't upgraded in 40 years, then yeah, sure.
I do have evidence that the Sheffield was attacked on May the 1st (not with an Exocet the 4th)
@@mikearmstrong8483The Exocet has been continuously upgraded up to the current Block 3 standard. It is no longer operated from the now retired Super Étendard, but still very much a deadly weapon system. Get your facts straight
@@mikearmstrong8483 exocet still one of the deadliest anti ship missile
@@mikearmstrong8483 exocet is still one of the most deadliest anti ship missile
4:13 Flat earthers will naturally make terrible pilots and navigators.
One imagines they would get shot down *a lot*
I’m a professional Marine Navigator. The Earth is not flat.
@@living2ndchildhood347 tell this to muslims 😂🤣
I do have evidence that the Sheffield was attacked on May the 1st with bombs (not the 4th with an Exocet)
"I suspect someone's been bloody careless" - from your account, that was a very prescient and perceptive comment given how little he knew of the details of the situation at the time.
British understatement at it' finest (the "bloody careless" comment)
I do have evidence that the Sheffield was attacked on May the 1st with bombs (not the 4th with an Exocet)
You can’t build a “cheap ship” If you reduce the monetary cost you’ll pay in sailor’s blood
Also, get a competent captain.
@@andrewholdaway813
hard to believe those kinds of issues still exist isn’t it?
@@cjclark2002 I mean not really, humans are always humans and even though we try to make the military purely a professional thing based on merit that's hard in practice. Plus you never know when someone is just having a bad day, that's kinda the issue in war, it's almost impossible to keep alert 24/7 and humans are bad at judging risk. Also I think it's worth noting that the Admiral takes just as much blame here since he seemingly had the same careless attitude and didn't redirect the jets nor did he order the fleet to take proper precautions like not using satelite communications.
Which we are doing again by skimping on weapons system for Type 45.
What about the sas in Argentine , observing all departures of combat aircraft? This was a cock up.
I remember reading one book a while ago that talked about one issue the Royal Navy had during the war was its anti-air capability. From what I remember, the author said it was due to what the RN was expected to do in the event of the Cold War going hot.
The RN had been given a particular task (anti-submarine if I remember correctly) as part of a larger NATO mission, with the expectation that other NATO Navies would be there performing other tasks like dedicated air defence and so on. So the RN had spent decades planning to fight as part of big multinational force and then came the Falkland War...
Suddenly the RN was fighting a war it had never expected and they found they had some serious capability issues, with air defence being a big one. As what they had avaliable was good if there is someone else nearby with better kit and you expected to be part of a wider network. Not so good if it is the only thing avaliable.
And of course, the Argentine pilots had the skills to find and exploit those short comings.
The argies had bought two Type 42s from us and were able to practise mock attacks against them. That is one reason in part why the attack on the Sheffield was successful.
Very insightful observation, though it no doubt explains why the UK went on the develop the Type 45 Destroyer.
@@TeamCGS2005 and in the next war RN's adversary will attack them with submarines 😂
I do have evidence that the Sheffield was attacked on May the 1st with bombs (not the 4th with an Exocet)
Was a midshipman in the West German navy at the time, and of course we were following closely what was going on down south in 1982.
I dare say that this film is the most clear and instructive on the chain of events that has lead to the loss of HMS Sheffield that I have seen so far.
BZ!
Thank you for your service to the DDR
@@trueKENTUCKY Federal German Navy was not the "DDR".
@@trueKENTUCKY - DDR was the Communist Germany... you mean the Bundesmarine, West Germany's Navy.
I do have evidence that the Sheffield was attacked on May the 1st with bombs (not the 4th with an Exocet)
The type 42 performed very poorly in the war. Their sea dart missiles were not effective at low level and were slow to reload. They had no CIWS. Of the three ships in the video, Glasgow was hit on the 12 May by a 1000lb bomb that miraculously passed right through the engine room without exploding. However, damage was done to the fuel lines and hull and the ship was crippled, only able to manage 10 knots. It was forced home and took no further part in the conflict. Coventry was lost on the 25th May when three 1000lb bombs hit the ship and at least two detonated. It capsized and sank in less than 20 minutes.
More importantly after repairs she was found to be bent due to her hitting a torpedo off the stern. She was only kept on because she was fairly new
CIWS*
@@CosmoMomen what CIWS in 1982?,the Yanks had fitted only one, to a carrier 2 years before on a test faze, they wouldnt have shared that so quick,back then im sure it was quite top secret on its existance and abilities even to the american public,and it was still in its try out stage, anyhow british had sea dart and sea wolf, the problem was the strikes was made before a established picket line could be affected, meaning two type 42 frigates should have been in support of each other, one with its radar beam set low to mid, with low altitude AA missiles on board like sea dart, and the other with its beam set high for high level attack with high altitude AA missile on board like sea slug, these beams should have overlapped in conjunction with each other, unfortunately in the case with coventry and antelope, the attack came in at the time of the retaking and they hadnt had chance to form up and be in place..the attack came in low onto antelope who's radar and weopon system was for high level, and should have been passed onto and took over from the frigate with a low level beam set ,but due to the speed of the attack, they hadnt formed up and implemented the airspace coverage yet, in fact rapier hadnt even been unloaded for shore based air defence, thats war! and when your in the position for a first strike capability this will always happen..
@@StBonaventure07"Your completely rewriting history" No, you are completely wrong. Only two of nineteen Sea Dart missiles fired at low level aircraft hit - 11% success rate . I would not say that was performing extremely well. Ships were lost and sailors died because of deficiencies in the missile system. However, it does seem that the main area of deficiency was not the actual missile but the associated Type 965 fire control radar. HMS Exeter was equipped with the newer type 1022 radar and shot down two Skyhawks (out of four), flying less than 15 metres above the sea, which is considerably below the Sea Dart's minimum engagement altitude of 30m. So, if the whole fleet had been upgraded with better radars, the RN may have suffered far less losses. The missiles still take about 20s to reload from the magazines before they can be launched. So, during a low level attack, this is really only a one 'shot' system as there is only a single twin launcher and both missiles were often fired together to maximise kill probability. Sea Wolf had separate sextuple missile launchers fore and aft. CIWS was present on many Russian warships of the era.
@@octowuss1888 the Sea Dart missile controllers in a ship's operations room would be using 992 to track the targets, not 965. I know as I used to sit to their right.
965 and it's replacement 1022 are long range air indication radars, not fire control. The radars that illuminate a target are 909.
Thanks for another great video! You shine a light on the complexity of naval operations that I feel are usually very much oversimplified.
It also brings to life the gruelling reality of fighting aboard tin cans floating on 100's of metres of water in the face of missiles and torpedo's that require only a single hit.
I do have evidence that the Sheffield was attacked on May the 1st with bombs (not the 4th with an Exocet)
What a preventable attack. They had ample warning and they managed to screw it up. There are times, I think, some commanders don't deserve their post.
Submarine Captain! Helicopter No2!
Alot don't
No one was held responsible in typical British cover up.
There was of course a full-naval board of enquiry afterwards that exonerated Captain Sam Salt from any undue blame in this incident! He had of course responsibility to answer for the performance & conduct of his ship, for himself & those of the HMS Sheffield’s Officers, NCOs & Crew too, during this event & the immediately preceding period, which he did in fact do too!
The fact that there were then no specific, uniform ’Royal Naval’ standing orders or standard operating procedures regarding these particular systems at that time in effect that directly led to the circumstances that had been brought about by turning off one particular operating early warning radar system, in order not to compromise the operational efficacy or security of another, separately-integrated, parallel functioning, electronic-systems, therefore would then seem to expose an obvious systemic oversight & inconsistency in operational protocols at that time in 1982, a fact backed up by only HMS Glasgow of the three (The Sheffield, Coventry & Glasgow) screening Type-42 Destroyers then on forward Fleet Air Defence duties then performing these duties, had also operated, as both the alternative EWS & inter-ship communications systems had been also both temporarily switched off too by on their respective Captains’ orders & hence, they were unable to establish contact with either of the two other Type-42 ships then on forward Air Defence Patrol, whose corresponding systems had been then temporarily deactivated on legitimate but inconsistent RN orders under these circumstances!!
This incident then led to a navy/fleet review of operational procedures in those situations & apparently it had been deemed by the subsequent naval enquiry that this case had arisen due to newly implemented or even experimental technologies not having been clearly, previously defined or systematically applied, but then overtaking existing operational procedures at the time that in this particular case had directly led to the tragic loss of lives & sinking of the HMS Sheffield!
Later, Captain Sam Salt went on to complete a successful naval career, retiring as a Rear Admiral in 1997. He died of cancer in 2009.
HMS Coventry was sunk and HMS Glasgow was hit....so who could tell anything to Captain Salt
I remember this well as I was a bit of a news junkie at the time. It even had made it into one of my science magazines.
One thing to remember is that this was so deadly because of mistakes ON BOTH SIDES. The Exocet missile had a much longer range than had been used. Had the missiles been fired from a safer distance, there would have been less fuel to feed the fire, which was far deadlier than the warhead alone.
There's always enough food for a fire in any machinery room...
@@leopold3146 True enough. However, the assessment at the time was this specific missile was more of a molotov cocktail than a bomb.
So the missiles were shot shorter than the intended range and that makes it less deadlier because less fuel? I think I misunderstood something because I don't understand the logic
@@Fae-Fey makes it more deadly
@@Fae-Fey Not less, more. Shorter distance = Less fuel expended.
Accurate description, well done . Greetings from Buenos Aires.
I do have evidence that the Sheffield was attacked on May the 1st with bombs (not the 4th with an Exocet)
No doubt the Argentinian Air Force was something to contend with, not only because of its size but mostly because of its daring and highly skilled pilots. I've always had the impression that the Brit Fleet somehow underestimated the danger the Argies' planes posed and later paid a high price for it. A lesson for future engagements.
not 300 fighters jets, the number includes all. but it was pretty big during the military regime yeah
small correction, most of the damage to the british fleet was done by the Navy Aviation (COAN), not the Air Force. The COAN that was specifically trained to perform these exact type of attacks. The Air Force was big in numbers, but had very limited ways of projecting power to the Islands, the planes simply lacked the range and equipment. That's why on paper the numbers greatly favor Argentina, but in reality there was never a favorable situation in the air combat for us, everything we could do was avoid detection by flying low, strike the naval assets and assets on the ground, and fly back. There was no realistic scenario where we could stand a fight with A4s that had no radars, no flares, and no MAW vs the Harriers.
What "size" ??? They only had 240 aircraft, most of them 30 yo +, many propeller fighters from ww2 era, and from those 240 ONLY 120 were available. Worst, they had no maintenance for them ( US embargo from 1976). Even Belgorod was a ww2 era cruiser, lol, 50 yo, and was killed by a brand new nuclear sub... Imagine that, an 1938 cruiser fighting a modern nuclear sub...
@@mirandela777 - "Many propeller fighters from WW2 era"...! Are you crazy or just plain ignorant ? Please tell us make and model of such imaginary "propeller fighters" ! Then, you switch to naval affairs (though I wrote about the AIR FORCE only) ! Then you talk about a "US embargo from 1976"....Dude, that embargo was imposed on the neighboring country of CHILE...not Argentina ! and so on...
Moral: keep your mouth SHUT before writing novels or else better hit the books and get acquainted first with facts !
Everybody respected the ability and daring of those pilots, because they were Argentine.
Once the fleet set sail I relaxed. Anyway, the man who told me it was about to kick off down there had found himself a job in Britain a month earlier.
Mind you, hitting Sheffield surprised and annoyed me.
One of my leading seamen came from the Sheffield. He confirmed that the ship was slack, in many ways. The captain was a nice guy, not a ship driver or warrior. But otherwise, the problems of Sheffield were common to my ship as well, and to most of the Royal Navy. We had nylon clothing, nylon bedding, thin anti-flash gear, all designed to cut costs (and weight, perhaps). A week after Sheffield's sinking, we all received horse-hair mattresses, thick cotton N° 8s, proper anti-flash gloves and balaclava. These had all been in store (in Gib, in my case) for years - 1974, my mattress was built. On my ship, I had been complaining for months that the Rover gas turbine - used for auxiliary fire fighting in case the main drain failed, but also for pumping water out of the ship when firefighting or when flooded - did not work. We got a new one after the Sheffield sinking. One of the reasons the Sheffield crew had so many problems was that the exocet split the main drain and firefighters could not get any water pressure, so could not control the smoke, provide boundary cooling, or attack the fire. Their Rover didn't work, either.
Exocet only carried a small warhead, plus any remaining fuel. The short range at which they were launched meant that there was still plenty of fuel, adding to the fire, but the warhead was only sufficient to punch a hole in the side. A similar missile hit the a**e end of the Glamorgan at the end of the war and good damage control prevented any more serious loss. It took 2 exocets to wreck the Atlantic Conveyor, but two were not enough to sink the USS Stark. A 500kg bomb would cause much more damage than an exocet, but Argentine bombs rarely exploded due to the low height from which they were dropped.
I've just been reading about the Japanese naval air experience - and what is most impressive is the huge number of weapons that are needed to sink a warship - armoured during WWII. One or two hits shouldn't affect a big ship like a carrier with good damage control. But British ships of Falklands vintage were designed to stand up to 1 500kg bomb, but not 2. So, Coventry, capsized after two bombs, but Ardent survived for a day after 3 bombs (with many more unexploded), Antelope was hit by 2 bombs, but only one exploded near the magazines which also detonated, sinking the ship.
In conclusion, considering the Argies had only 5 missiles, they squandered them on unimportant targets, a rookie error, and failed to follow up their hit with anything else. Poor strategy, poor planning, poor tactics, generally poor business, and hitting the Sheffield, a ship that wasn't going to make any major contribution to the war, was poetic justice.
I do have evidence that the Sheffield was attacked on May the 1st with bombs (not the 4th with an Exocet)
It just hit me- that was forty freaking years ago!
That’s about halfway as far back in time from now as WW2!
Good God time flies!
There is still time to reconcile yourself to God by accepting Jesus. Time flies on Earth but eternity is forever and slow.
What freaks me out is the Falklands conflict today is longer ago than WWII was when the Falklands happened.
I do have evidence that the Sheffield was attacked on May the 1st with bombs (not the 4th with an Exocet)
@@LondonSteveLee I had that exact thought last year. Being 62 now I remember the loss of the HMS Sheffield very well. (I have been fascinated by magnesium ever since.) but to think that when I was going day to day in California back then I was the same distance of time away from such extraordinary, world defining events then that i had just experienced myself, blew me away. I tripped on it really hard for at least a week, but every body i knew that I talked to about it (and I am completely ernest with my next statement) were too fucking stupid, to understand the point I was trying to make. All of them were at least 60 years old as well. Who ever the couple of you are who made mention of this little factoid, are men that I think I would really like if I ever ran into you out on the streets.Peace be with you
The fact the Argentinians went below to about 50 feet above sea just to use the earth’s curvature fascinates me. I never knew the earth’s curvature could be use in such a manner. I wonder if other aerial operations of other wars used this tactic too. I find it interesting and amazing that the earth’s curvature could be use to hide oneself from the enemy. Very fascinating. Overall very well made video. Godspeed to those who perished during the Falkland War.
🇫🇰 🇬🇧 🇦🇷
Its a really common tactic.
Its why no one really cares much about Hypersonics nowadays, as long as you have harpoons that can glide along the curvature of the earth with minimal issues.
Common tactic.However the Argentine aircraft had to climb above the horizon to allow them to acquire the target.The bearing and range to the target allowed the missile to be launched.This according to the pilot took between one and two minutes,and after launch the aircraft dropped below the horizon while executing a 180 degree turn.The Exocet missile has an active seeker guidance system that switches on after launch to search for the target and home onto it.A ship won't out manouver it once launched.The only possible defence is,shootdown which is difficult,jamming or decoy.
Thats why North Korea has studied this war and started producing Argentine Pucaras....
@@EE-ve3vh.... what?
Never heard about that
@@matiasfpmbecause is not true
Great video. Well done. I remember this well being in the Royal Canadian Navy at the time as an Ops Room rating so everything that happened was important to me, especially mistakes when fighting the ship.
What happened to cpt salt …
@@scottessery100 seem to recall he retired sometime later on. Was on the board of a company. He may have passed away recently.
@@scottessery100. He was appointed in Command of HMS Southampton within a year. Subsequently he was promoted to Admiral and retired from the Navy in the ordinary course in 1991. Sadly he passed away from cancer a few years later.
How could the Sheffield's crew not imagine that the planes' position in relation to their ship was slightly different than that from their sister ship?
The "fog of war" always causes confusion.
I suspect because someone had been bloody careless
Perhaps the crew failed to make the transition from “peacetime thinking” to “wartime thinking”……. I saw that in the Balkans War (1999) onboard the USCGC I was temporarily assigned to in the war zone.
Because their boss the captain hadn’t trained them well? Allowing the use of a comms system that blinds the radar in a combat zone doesn’t indicate a good leader….
Easy, in high stress environments critical thinking skills rapidly degrade. This means that Glasgow's message was probably a bit less precise than would be the case in a peacetime simulation. Add in the inherent complacency of the Sheffield's officers probably thinking it was another false alarm, combine that with the "telephone" effect of the message going through multiple people, and it makes perfect sense why there was confusion. The radar operators were probably told "look for any air contacts on 'X' bearing" rather than "Glasgow reports air contacts bearing 'X'". When they then saw exactly what they expected (ie: nothing), they almost certainly chalked it up to someone on Glasgow getting "jumpy" and went back to whatever they were previously doing.
Just comes to show how important a good captain is. The other destroyer was on the ball, and would have survived that had it been targeted. The ship's crew did everything it could to save its sister. Meanwhile, the Sheffield's crew were unprepared, lax, and doing things they shouldn't have been doing during wartime. That is something the captain could have resolved, but didn't.
At the time the exocet hit the Sheffield it was in communication which meant it had its radar turned off also at the time the only system that could tackle low flying missile was seawolf which the Sheffield was not equipped with
You have to give the argentines credit for how well this operation was carried out
I do have evidence that the Sheffield was attacked on May the 1st with bombs (not the 4th with an Exocet)
While still tragic this sinking really puts in my mind how small this conflict was in comparison to other naval conflicts like WWI and WWII where sometimes thousands die on a single afternoon. If this was a destroyer in Jutland or in Midway it wouldn't even have been mentioned.
Yeah.
They don't even tell people that during Jutland the British destroyer screen was forced to fight alone against the German high fleet and while they did get one dreadnought, they lost several in return.
It's true.
However, modern (...well, semi-modern speaking of T42s) destroyers are not anymore "minor" vessels like their WWI/WWII counterparts. Today's guided-missile, air defense destroyers are the biggest and more valuable surface asset of a Navy next to an aircraft carrier. So if tomorrow someone would sink a T45, the relevance would be huge.
@@ceruleancrow5884 Pre-Dreadnought actually.
@@seawolf4846 I just checked myself, yeah you're right :)
@@ceruleancrow5884 Trading several WW1 DDs against a pre-dreadnought is a very good deal, in terms of manpower, money, tonnage and building time …
My two cents: (i) you forgot to say that the fleet was tracked by a Argentine Navy's Neptune, and the attack was properly prepared (ii) the way of attacking was studied by engineers and one university in Argentina, on how to fly without "touchjing" the lobe of the type 42's radar (a maneuver called "peeking the lobe")
(i): 2:58
(ii): 4:03
@@muskiet8687 4.03 it was studied using our type 42 ship's radar at the Universidad del Sur.
I remember this clearly. The ‘wake up’ value of it was quite astounding.
What happened to the second of the Exocets?
It ran out of propellant and ditched into the sea.
@@michaelhearn3052 Ah. Cheers.
@@michaelhearn3052 It malfuncioned, it have enough propelant.
@@geordiedog1749 The guide system malfunctioned
@@omarbradley6807 That would mess it up pretty good.
Cheers
Don't suppose you'll be covering the sinking of the Alantic Conveyer in this series?
Yes it will of course be mentioned in the relevant video
@@historigraph awsome always felt it was a bit of overlooked ship despite the important role it played in the war, all people remember it for is being sunk
And HMS Coventry by bombing
@@terik3312 I'd argue that actually she was the most significant loss of the war - Ardent, Antelope, Coventry and Sheffield were ultimately all escort vessels - their job if necessary to take a hit. Atlantic Conveyor was one of the ships they were trying to protect.
@@tomriley5790 especially when you consider what she carried and how her loss drastically effect how Britain fought the eventually Ground war
The animation of the fire spreading on the ship reminded me of FTL. Excellent video, you're amazing at what you do.
A fire on a ship is far more scary than you can ever imagine
Had no idea so many mistakes were made by Sheffield. Senior officers still with peacetime thinking. Best graphics I have seen that clearly shows the sequence of events.
There were not mistakes: I do have evidence that the Sheffield was attacked on May the 1st with bombs (not the 4th with an Exocet)
The pilots had an extra problem when flying so close to the sea and it was the salt that stuck to the windshield and made it difficult to see, so they used to have to support the helmet against the side glass which caused a huge vibration inside the helmet.
The argentinians were hasty in the invasion. They needed the ethendards and the exocets. Having them would have caused the lost of more ships.
Ethandards?
@@georgerivera9220Super Etendarts, the froggys planes 😂.
I do have evidence that the Sheffield was attacked on May the 1st with bombs (not the 4th with an Exocet)
@@matiasfpmSuper Etendard. Means banner.
...and flew him directly to the admirals ship...ouch. that's is when you know you've messed up bad.
No tea and biscuits offered.
"you disappoint me for the last time" darth vader/adm. woodward dixit
I'm still amazed at the quality and detail in your videos. This is great work. Thank you
One of my Friends was onboard HMS Sheffield when it was struck and survived to tell the tale. It was a terrifying experience for him. He still suffers this day with the experience (mentally).
Same for the Belgrano sank by the submarine while the navy was out of exclusion zone, the order was made by Margie. These attacks were the anwers from understimate opponent. Finally many lost men in both side afer war, very very sad history.
Atlantic Conveyor was more critical loss due to the material carried. Exocet wasn't the only threat because 14 ships were hit by conventional bombs through air raids but didn't explode. If those 14 hits were exploited or if Argentina had more Exocet missiles UK would have lost the war. I've seen a documentary where the Argentinian pilot said was launched the Exocet from longer distance and it didn't exploited but caused the fire due to its fuel.
They did not explote because Mitterand gave the codes to Thatcher.
@@EE-ve3vh there wasn't any codes, you can't disable a missile with "codes", Mitterrand might have given other useful information like the search radar frequencies to jam it.
@@martindione386
You are correct on the codes. But Mitterand didn't have to provide any frequencies. The frequency bands used by radar seekers on all but the most experimental missiles are common knowledge to all the leading military powers.
Thanks, I was an 18 y o greenie on Hermes down south, in the video you see burn victims landing in helos., our job was to fill the helos with firefighting gear, you could smell the burnt flesh inside. Apparently the Exocet never exploded its warhead, the rocket fuel did the damage. Who gets promoted, sure enough Sam Salt for running a sloppy ship, can so eone say coverup RN style.
I love the understantement of "someone's been bloody careless". It translates from British Naval Officer approximately as "You, Captain, yes you personally, along with a whole bunch of people you are responsible for, are shockingly incompetent, and it's going to be court martials all round."
Yes, except for the last part where nobody is assigned responsibility, just British tradition
Admiral Woodward was a submariner and knew captain Salt very well - Captain Salt flew out to Mobassa in Jan 1982 to take Command of Sheffield in a quiet passage home to UK after being deployed to the Gulf for 4 months already - so he was not particularly trained in Anti Air Warfare and had not carried Commanding officer Sea Training at Portland (FOST- is a work up for 4-6 weeks) Sheffield should have gone home to repair defects including fire pumps but Sam Salt apparently persuaded Woodward to join the Task Force in Gib during Exercise SPRING TRAIN !
4:10 Yes you can have Harriers and they are killers. But Harriers could not fill the role of AWACS or E2s. Argentina's pilots exploited this blind spot. History was made, lessons were learned.
That's the reason why two seaking helicopters were converted to AEW with the addition of an extra forward seeing radar and two observers onboard.
If you read Sharky Ward's book, he says the Harriers on CAP could/should have detected the incoming Etendards, but they were sent away to do a surface search leaving a big hole through which the Argentinians attacked.
Things would have been much different, had HMS Ark Royal and her aircraft still been in commission.
@@docdr7199 Clearly you dont know the facts and rely on a book. I think that statement is exaggerated
@@Highendaudio1 Yup. I wasn't there so I have to rely on accounts written by those who were.
Despite all these, bravery to the pilot that did the operation.
Woodward was right. Someone had been bloody careless.
More than one, it seems
But it seems that he himself was a bit too dismissive of Glasgow's warning...
@@mrgreatauk
Yeah, I'd say the admiral who disregarded Glasgow, that's Careless #1.
And also the captain of the Sheffield for that radio rule, #2.
And also the two senior officers who apparently both weren't at their stations simultaneously, #3 & #4.
Captain of the Glasgow should've gotten a promotion for this, though - only person with a head on his shoulders....
I doubt that the admiral was that careless. At any given time in operations, a hundred things are happening at once. The Admiral had to trust his crews to the task. Too many false alarms on the radar, and people will slip up.
Loved the video @Historigraph! Can't wait for the next video man! Sheffield wasn't the Only Ship lost on the British side of the Falklands War, her Sister Coventry and hours later the Container Ship Atlantic Conveyor were lost to AM 39 Exocet Missiles a few days later.
R.I.P to those 20 sailors that died on board HMAS Sheffield🙌
I do have evidence that the Sheffield was attacked on May the 1st with bombs (not the 4th with an Exocet)
I like this channel's emphasis on naval history
Los pilotos navales, Armando Mayora - Augusto Bedacartatz.🇦🇷
4-5-1982 El Sheffield se convirtió en el primer buque de guerra británico 🏴hundido desde Segunda Guerra Mundial y el primero de la OTAN.
20 Muertos y 63 heridos condolencias a familiares del HMS Sheffield - Su capitán Sam Salt.
Despues del fin de la Segunda Guerra Mundial , Argentina🇦🇷 , Excelentes pilotos Alemane🇩🇪 en nuestro pais capacitaron a los pilotos arg. Adof Galland - Hans Ulrich Rudel- Behrens Otto - kurt Waldemar Tank- Werner Baumbach-
Heinz Scheidhauer.
Silver lining:
As bad as it was for her, Sheffield actually accomplished her primary mission. Neither carrier was struck by enemy fire.
In extremis, the duty of the escorts is to take the hit to save the carrier. Thus, despite all the mistakes, and almost certainly inadvertently, Sheffield did succeed in her primary mission of keeping the carriers from being hit by the enemy missiles.
Followed by the Atlantic Conveyor on 25th May 1982, sacrificed to decoy the two Exocets.
@@EdMcF1 Exactly - "Picket ships"
Are you sure ?
@@EdMcF1 Atlantic Conveyor wasn't "sacrificed". The two exocets that hit her had been successfully decoyed by chaff fired from other ships. Unfortunately, Atlantic Conveyor wasn't fitted with any kind of countermeasures and was subsequently struck and lost. The loss of the Atlantic Conveyor was a huge blow to the task force as it was carrying a lot of important equipment including heavy lift Chinook helicopters.
This is a really interesting and well compiled series on Falklands war. Well done
Gloria eterna a los valientes pilotos Argentinos !!!!!
Aluminum isn't a good thing to build ships out of first of all. Second Kevlar burns quite nicely and puts out tons of toxic smoke,three: electronics burn nicely too and puts out tons of toxic smoke also wasn't the water mains hit too? Also the ship had a pathetic air defenses. 2 20mm cannons,sea dart Sam's that suck at any range,4 30 cal machine guns and a 4.5in cannon. Like wtf royal navy.
And this was a specialised anti-air ship... insane
Even Modern AA platforms like CWIS, combined with long range missile defense, are vastly overrated. Sadly since the advent of airpower, navies have had a consistent habit of underestimating new aerial threats to their ships, that trend is continuing to this day.
And the Argentine navy HAD the same ships or the same Sea Dart systems and they KNEW just how they work or didn't work. One for "know thine enemy"
And the Brits found that their uniforms made of synthetic rayon melted to their skin while firefighting and that corfam shoes also melted to their feet. We in the USN & USCG dis ban corfam shoes from shipboard use and once aga issued flash gear as what was used during WW2.
Sheffield was an all steel build.
Historical evidence from the Royal Navy says that if a fire onboard a ship is not brought under control within ten minutes, then the chance of regaining control diminishes. A valiant effort must be applauded by all on board. A combination of circumstances converged at a crucial moment in time, as is present in many disasters.
Lessoned learned, has enabled a range of changes in various actions, procedures and ship design. Most importantly, the realisation of the condition of PTSD, by those whose war never ended, would eventually result in the recognition and treatment for this nightmare.
Nice narration of events. Thanks for being respectful with both bands. Malvinas/Falklands is still today a very sensitive topic for us Argebtinians and for UK of course. Both bands had sustained lots of casualties thanks to bad politicians...
There were only bad politicians on the Argentinean side. You know? Those that made tens of thousands of Argentinians disappear into dark torture cellars?
The range and punch of that little jet was astounding
The range and punch of that little jet was pathetic compared to other carrier strike aircraft of the same era.
@@mikearmstrong8483still, the bri'ish were nervous about those boom sticks ☠️
15 feet at 500 knots that's less than 5 meters at 926km/h the cold guts to do that are astounding.
50 feet
@@adrien5834 i've no doubt .... but we're talking about the aircraft & pilots not the missiles.
11:20 Any follow-up action on that?!
A couple of officers (not Cpt Salt) were found to be negligent but weren't publicly court martialled as the UK govt didn't want bad vibes in the wake of the Falkands victory
@@historigraph it wasn't made public for over 30 years.....
Cover up doesn't begin to cover it
The senior crew of Sheffield certainly played their part in this unnecessary sinking is the only conclusion I can draw.
One person should take all the responsibility Salt
@@gowdsake7103 Why is that exactly? Reading this is funny to read ill-informed views based on a crappy inaccurate made up video which bears no resemblance of the facts. Let us me hear your reason why you think Sam should take fault when none was due
@@Highendaudio1 Because he was aware of the inherent threat but he was chatting to a friend in I understand in Whitehall using Scott which disabled the use of the 965 and 992
@@gowdsake7103 you see you read and listen to far too many ill-informed people.
Let me educate you. He was on the sat phone for official reasons and it had nothing to do with Whitehall. The sat phone is what is affected by radar not the other way around.
Sheffield wasn't fitted with 965 radar and this issue is that 965 and 965M were not designed to and could not detect low-flying targets or missiles.
Sheffield was not fitted with 992 which was a radar designed for weapon guidance in a set band.
A bit of a history lesson for you.
The widely fitted 965 underwent improvements post-corporate to improve the surface clutter capability using better doppler and other aspects. the 965M was still no better and In its basic form, it was a radar that saw service in the 50s, so what did we expect? Type 42 were warships that were poorly planned, designed, and equipped due to the lack of money in an era when high-level bombers still carried the deterrent. By 1982 one has to ask if using them as radar pickets was a decision made without facing reality. You may talk about Sea Cat and Sea Slug ( Both well-accepted as not worth the effort ) but Sea Dart like its associated radar was designed to take out high-level bombers.
The part that is blacked out in the inquiry all but says, Sheffield wouldn't have stood a chance even if all ducks had been lined up in a row.
HMS Glasgow. She didn't detect the Supers Es at 40 miles out on radar; they detected a UAA1 A radar transmission. This is where the Super Es comes up to transmit on their radar to get the final TMA before releasing their weapons.
After firing their weapons, the Super Es and the other aircraft (Yes, there were three) then went low again, and they were again invisible to our radars. HMS Glasgow never saw the MPA that was there for hours and located Sheffield and called in the attack. HMS Glasgow never at any point detected any of the three aircraft by radar
The threat that was being dealt with at the time was the supposed submarine threat which was totally over-exaggerated.
In short, the radar system in our fleet at the time was not fit for purpose and we the problem not the people as you suggest
As did the senior crew on board Hermes sending the Harriers off on a wild goose chase to do visual searches rather than allowing them to fly their usual CAP and sweep the area with RADAR. Argentinian pilots were told to abandon attacks whenever they detected Sea Harrier. These two Etendards flew through where the Harriers should have been patrolling.
Great video and you tell the story in a imparcial mode, happy day for the veterans argentines fall in the islands!
I agree you have a gift for presenting complex information in a concise and clear way - first class
Thanks!
I remember this well.
Me and a view friends had just bought Fish and Chips one evening on the south coast of England, and were eating it out of the paper standing around another friend’s car listening to the news on the car radio.
When the news came through, we were all shocked to hear it.
It brought home the fact that there would be losses on both sides, and that there was more bad news likely to come.
But we were all proud of Britains response and determination to retake the Falkland Islands and liberate the British citizens. Not forgetting South Georgia as well.
Like all conflicts there is loss of life and other people have to live with that loss, and also many have to live with the physical and mental scars.
For those that would never return, we will never forget.
Britain's response? Britain should not have thought the Malvinas were theirs for the taking to begin with.
"liberate the British citizens" yet the only 3 civilian casualties were caused by british fire.
the exocets certainly played a large role in the war
Exocet was responsible for sinking one warship, damaging another (which put it out of action for only a few hours) and one stuft ship. Hardly a large role.
@@Matelot123hardly a large role? Tatcher herself asked the French government to give UK the Exocets keys to disable them 😂
France gave UK’s navy an opportunity to be more humble, but I guess it’s not taught in brit’s classes uh?
@@GDavid-yh2xp Irrelevant though. They had six and they sank one warship and one unarmed merchant vessel. Exocet is an easily decoyed piece of garbage that gained a far better reputation than it deserved based solely on the fact that it was responsible for sinking the Sheffield when frankly, the Captain of the Sheffield held far more responsibility for that farce.
The Argentinians only had five Super-Etendards and five air launch Exocets. They had intended to buy 15 Super-Etendards. Problem was their only carrier could not operate this aircraft.
There was also a sub waiting for a shot at the carrier.
@@20chocsaday The Veinticinco de Mayo was being pursued by two British submarines. That ship was lucky to get back to Argentine territorial waters.
@@shanemcdowall
Thanks. I read the story several years ago but I couldn't remember the name. Anyway, it stayed safe in port.
Well done! I have read and seen many recountings, yours is the clearest.
I actually have a mug from the HMS Sheffield, my GPA was US Navy, traded one from his ship for it when he met them in port before the war. So somewhere on that wreck may very well be a mug from the USS Piedmont
En Malvinas , Argentina combatió con la mayoría de aviones antiguos y armamentos viejos , se hizo bastante a pesar del bloqueo de la OTAN
Habia una mezcla entre aviones viejos y nuevos.
Los q muestra en el video eran contemporaneos de su época
They're not 'Las Malvinas' and never will be. The are the Falkland Islands, populated by Falklanders - still sore are we??
Awesome as always!
What happened to the second missile?
Dropped into the sea
@@historigraph thanks!
God bless the boys on the Sheffield. I am a former sailor (Chef) I served on the Broadsword in peace time a small number of years after the end of the Falklands war. I was on what was known as the armilla patrol in the Persian gulf, The Broadsword at the time was testing out a new 3D sonar from Plessey, One day a guy from the ops room came into my galley with a curious grin on his face and he said questioningly "Chef have you just been running the potato peeler machine" I said Errrrr yeah why whats the problem with that? He then went on to explain that up in the ops room the sonar kept giving them incoming torpedo alerts for days and it turns out it was my potato peeler giving off an similar sonar signature as the motor of a torpedo.
Very interesting thank you. I visited Sheffield during navy days in Portsmouth 1981, it was a shock to see her destroyed on the news in '82.
"No hay quien pueda con los pilotos Argentinos" Sandy Woodward
Tampoco hay quien pueda hacer esa filmación del Exocet impactando en el Sheffield ,desde donde se filmó ? Quien la filmó ? Que estaba haciendo filmando justo en ese momento, considerando que el misil venía a una velocidad altísima y nadie lo sabía ,como estaba preparado el camarógrafo para el impacto tan bien ubicado y con cámara de esa calidad ,puedes decirme quién hizo esa filmación o si es real o una simple recreación ?
@@hernandemornay7559 siga pensando!
@@jorgebotta8299 pero no tienes respuesta verdad ,esa filmación del Exocet es una filmación francesa experimental ,la presentan como que es el Sheffield pero no lo es , hundieron realmente al Sheffield ? Porque presentar imágenes que no corresponden al hecho ,quizá no hubo tal hecho,siga investigando y entenderá y después quizá ,quizá te de por pensar
@@hernandemornay7559 jajaja ahora se duda de que hundieron al barco JAJA
And the missile was shown hitting the target on British television that night or the night after.
A French salesman had the film in his briefcase when he saw a client?
Ejército Argentino desde 1806 enfrentando al Enemigo.
Honor y Gloria !
Viva la Patria Carajo 🗡💀🇦🇷
@picatostes Bjd España estuvo con el invasor...
Cuando el suelo argentino los cobijo cuando en el 1900 llegaron llenos de piojos y muertos de hambre, soy bisnieto de inmigrantes españoles y aborrezco llevar su sangre !!!
@picatostes Bjd Como no nos va a apoyar si nos dieron las islas ustedes mismos 🇦🇷🤝🇪🇦
@picatostes Bjd como no apoyaros si la empatía por Gibraltar es enorme
@@AverageWagie2024 HMS Coventry, cope brit
@@mohammed_2939
Sinking of General Belgrano
Battle of Goose Green
Battle of Pebble Island
Battle of Wireless Ridge
Battle of Mt Tumbledown
Battle of Mt Longdon
Battle of Mt Harriet
Battle of Two Sisters
Battle of Mt Kent
Those two pilots pulled off a very difficult mission.
Woo! Favorite channel post right before bed!
War is so terrible and fascinating. Humanity doing it's worst to each other, and yet the pressure of risking one's life often brings out the best of humanity.
Hermoso momento.
esta lleno de ingleses piratas
This and years later the U.S.S Stark….powerful reminders never to underestimate the AM-39 Exocet.
I was in the Gulf when the Stark was hit. She wasn't even on a war footing at the time.
Reading a copy of their redacted damage control report was quite sobering.
@@flym0 She was in a war zone - why was she not on a war footing? Great job by the crew to control the fire - luckily for them in typical Exocet style only one detonated.
@@LondonSteveLee IIRC, the old man was more concerned about doing machinery breakdown tasks. We were at full defence watches with everything primed ready to go.
All I will say it is a good job we followed the ROE when the Iranian F4 Phantom locked on to us as we transited the straits with our convoy ...
@@flym0 If you at full defense why was Phalanx not even online?
@@LondonSteveLee Indeed. I do think it was complete complacency on her captains part. I have to commend their EW guys for at least priming their chaff launcher but by that time it was far too late.
And why they didn't detect the Exocet head on their SLQ32, to me, still remains a mystery.
Disclosure: I was an EW operator at the time of this incident.
Excellent vid! I have a feeling something very similar happened with the sinking of the Moskva several months ago. At the time of the attack, I doubt Russian naval personnel thought they had anything to fear from the Ukrainians, whose small navy was quickly eliminated early in the war. Add to that, the Moskva was a contemporary of the Sheffield and thus, very old equipment by 2022 and you have a recipe for disaster.
Your exactly right. The same exact thing happened to the Moskva.
I'm new to Historigraph but glad to have discovered the channel. I've just watched a series these vids on the Falklands War and believe they are very well researched, written and animated. Solid story telling with an efficient style.
Thank you, this video is promoting my Falklands videos.
This sort of thing could never happen to a modern warship these days, not even a Russian one…
"Even". Lol.
I must respectfully disagree!
I see what you did there.
Hmm, It looks like having vodka for blood doesn’t improve your combat awareness after all.
Xd
i still feel like you should add music to your intro. Otherwise excellent video as always!
LETS GOOO 1 SECOND AGO UPLOAD
I remember when that happened. I was glued to my little tv keeping up with the news.
Your content is 10/10 like late 90s early 2000s history Channel. thank you.
you mean before they brought aliens into their show
@@gastonmdq07 nah dude aliens did everything
Historigraph is such an underrated channel. I have no idea how he doesn't have twice the subs.
@historigraph loved this one - my father served aboard the HMS broadsword always spoke about the incident that led to the Coventry sinking, also spoke about how one of the torpedoes went straight into the hull of broadsword several decks above but didn't detonate - really would be great if you could consider covering this event!
No British ships were torpedoed. Your father would have known that. Broadsword wasn't hit by a torpedo. A bomb bounced off the sea and went through the side of the ship then upwards through the flightdeck, destroying her Lynx.
@@JorgeSanchez-or9bc Pirate Survived ???
Despite this video being quite awesome (as usually), I miss the classic Historigraph music!
I'll use it in the next video, just for you ;)
@@historigraph It would also be good if you find and add newer music tracks to add to the tone of your videos, like other history channels do. (Epic History TV, Kings & Generals, etc.)
@@historigraph You are a legend :D
A great friend of mine was in charge of assembling and testing the Exocet target tracking heads.
He was also telling that heads were sometimes delivered by him personally to the Argentinians, after the periodical recalibrations.
After this event, he mentally suffered a lot and he completely changed its job.
Im so sorry your friend suffers from such a weak constitution
What did your friend think he was doing ? Obviously the intent was to increase the probability of a direct hit......
Good show and info. SNAFU again showed up. Many times in WW II vital functions had to be maintained, and the men perished to save their ship. Brave Lads, hopefully Britain acknowledged their sacrifice.
Bravo Argentine Air Force!
Super 👍 🇮🇳🙏
All Argentinean forces were defeated by the glorious British, resulting in the surrender of over 11,000 troops. Long live the King 🇬🇧
The Super Etendards were operated by the Argentine Navy.
Viva la Patria carajo!! 🇦🇷🇦🇷🇦🇷
The irony of it all. Up till now, the informed part of the public thought the Exocet missiles were so good that modern anti air radar and missiles were useless against them.
Now we learn that the destruction of the Sheffield was in large part to blame on the Royal Navy herself.
And the Exocet's warhead didn't even detonate but because it still had most of its fuel, that started the fire and the ship's non-existent fire proofing ensured it was doomed.
Save the most recent 2015 MOD report concluded that the missile DID detonate.....
Not really, was honestly more timing then anything else and logistical constraints the royal navy faced. The british only had 40 harriers which was not enough to provide both adequate fleet protection from argentinian strikes and conduct raids on stanley and other military targets on the falklands. The air defense platform their ships were predominantly equipped with the sea darter, was horribly outdated and unreliable, the sea wolf was slightly better, but it was very new at the time and still had problems. Both the glasgow and the sheffield only had the sea darter. The argentine fighters flew NAP most of the way, which left them pretty much undetectable to surface radar, same with the exocet itself as it flew too low for radars at the time to pick up. Anti ship missiles were still a very new threat at the time, and point defenses even newer and not that reliable. Even if the glasgow had been able to raise the sheffield to warn them of the threat, I honestly doubt it would have made any difference.
It honestly could have been far worse. If the Argentinians had started the war about a year later, they not only would have had their full complement of 100 exocets they ordered from france (when the war happened they only had like 6) but their is also a good chance they would have had total air supremacy as there were serious plans to sell the HMS invincible to Australia, and the HMS Hermes was due to be decommissioned. Not to mention if Argentina had actually enlarged the airfield on stanley, they could have launched super entardes and sea hawks from it instead of the mainland, which would have drastically increased their range and amount of missions they could have performed against the Royal Navy, probably would have allowed them to engage harriers in aerial combat as well. Really a major part of British success in the war came from Argentinian incompetence and improper planning rather then their own.
@@jonaswhitt4322 That's a lot of if.
@@copter2000 well originally the operation was actually planned to start around a year later then it actually did, once the argentinian military was better equipped and prepared. Was accelerated because of tensions around South Georgia islands which werent entirely planned by the Argentinians. Had the Argentinian military actually started the war when they originally meant to, it would have been a entirely different situation both for Argentina and the UK.
That being said, the biggest problem was they just assumed the British would not respond, so they didn't really prepare accordingly like with not enlarging the airfield at stanley, using mostly conscript units that were also not well supplied for the siege they were about to face. Another glaring example was when the war broke out, the majority of the Argentinian Navy had to be commanded by junior officers because most of its senior leadership at the time were at a NATO conference in Western Germany. Finally a lot of air and ground units were not utilized and left in Patagonia throughout the war because of tensions with Chile.
Had just any of these things been different, they could have potentially had a serious outcome on the war.
@@jonaswhitt4322 Even if they couldn't do anything about the missile, the advance warning would still likely save lives and possibly even the ship by making them better prepared for damage control, instead of needing to think about complicated actions while fire and smoke are spreading.
A well executed attack, by two skilled pilots. I still remember when this happened, I think this was when the general public realised we really WERE at war. Up until then the mood had been righteous but still fairly jovial. The Sheffield's destruction changed all that, rapidly....
A friend of mine, a guy I went to school with was on the Sheffield during the attack. He was in the canteen at the time of the attack and unfortunately didn't survive.