Thursday 30 December 2010

Operation Tidespring Epilogue

Operation Tidespring Epilogue





Narrator of 'Sea of Fire', BBC2 Documentary, August 1997



The Atlantic Conveyor and Conventry had of course known that the Argentine Forces on the Islands had surrendered and the short but on the freighter probably somewhat more intense celebrations are evidence of this. What was to happen on the 6th May was not really connected to this but it hammered home that the conflict was not yet over. The Argentine Missile Submarine was in contact with the Argentine High Command, but they too only heard what they were being told, meaning that they too were unaware of the magnitude of the 2nd Battle of the Falklands several days before.



The courses of the two groups converged without either side knowing what was going to happen on that fateful day.



HMS Coventry was on the port side of the Atlantic Conveyor while her Helicopter was on standby in case anything was detected. Captain Fleming had every reason to expect a reasonable uneventful Journey to Ascension Island, considering that all known Argentine Naval units were accounted for, the remaining Cruiser at port, the Carriers sunk and the Submarines showing up on photographs.


On the morning of the 6th the Lynx Helicopter aboard Coventry was just being readied for the usual dawn patrol when the ASDIC room called out an unidentified contact, in fact the Missile Submarine that had lain in wait for more orders from shore and found the group by accident only. Now it is necessary to understand that Coventry was using her towed ASDIC passive array, at a speed that was the best compromise between the best speed of the Atlantic Conveyor and sensor performance in the current water temperature. Captain Fleming ordered the Helicopter to be launched immediately and soon the Lynx was vectored onto the probable location of the contact.


Dipping it's own passive ASDIC into the waters of the South Atlantic, the helicopter almost immediately failed to detect the contact for several critical minutes that allowed the Argentine Submarine to close to point blank range. However when she levelled off and came close to the surface in order to fire her missiles sound was generated that couldn't fail to be picked up by the operators both aboard Coventry and the Lynx.



Immediately going to Action stations the crew of the Destroyer was almost immediately aware of a problem, the contact was between them and the helicopter and so close already that it would take the Lynx several precious moments to get within firing position for the air-dropped Spearfish torpedo on the starboard side. Almost congruently with the Lynx dropping it, the Argentine Submarine fired four out of five anti-ship missiles. Being less than three miles away from the Destroyer and the Freighter, there was only an extremely small window in which the missiles could be engaged, and unfortunately they were well within the minimum engagement envelope of the Sea Dart. Instead the CIWS turret roared into life, managing to shoot down one of the missiles just as it broke the surface, and another one as it had just passed the ship, Coventry being in the blind spot of the warheads.


The other two however were too fast.



One grazed the bows of the Atlantic Conveyor but failed to explode (most probably and electrics failure) and did nothing but damage a few bits of the various things on the deck of the freighter.


The second missile however hit the ship almost exactly in the middle of her upper deck and caused a massive fire that would eventually go on the claim the lives of a third of her crew, in spite of immediate assistance rendered by the Conventry.


The men would fight for their ship for almost nine hours before the last fires were out and most of the deck cargo had been tossed over the side, but in the end the Atlantic Conveyor remained afloat.


What had happened to the Argentine Submarine in the meantime?


The Spearfish dropped by the Lynx had barely had time to arm itself, but it crossed the distance within seconds, with predictable results.


To this day the Argentine People's Armada refuses to disclose the name of the Submarine or if there were any more of it's type. HMS Coventry is currently on a tour with the British Pacific Fleet, while the Atlantic Conveyor is on the Liverpool-Halifax route as a container carrier after her 1984 rebuild.”



Burma Board of Education, College History Textbook, 2002


After the liberation of the Falklands Islands the Empire immediately asked for mediation by the League of Nations and used diplomatic channels in Washington to indicate that as far as Britain was concerned the war was over and that there were no further designs of Argentine territory on the mainland or any form of reparation. The Prime Minister even indicated that one was willing to pay for the transport of the Prisoners of War back to the mainland in British ships.


No answer was forthcoming from Buenos Aires even though Washington was surprised at the lenient British posture and immediately agreed to make use of American influence in Argentina to end the war before more people on both sides were killed. On the 10th of May, after almost a week of no activity at all the reason for the comparative silence of Buenos Aires became clear when units of the People's Guard instigated the hard-line 'May Coup' as it is known in the west against the relatively détente-minded Government of Marshal Fuentes with the first 'Party-Military Council' Government. It was clear that while the Argentines sorted themselves out that there could be no thought of actual negotiations, so instead Admiral Kavaney consulted with London and declared a unilateral cease fire that would remain in effect until some sort of agreement with Buenos Aires could be reached.



At first the Hardliners were unwilling to accept the facts and refused to come to the table, in fact mere hours after the American Ambassador had delivered Washington's desire for a speedy and peaceful resolution and had hinted that if things went on Washington might withdraw objections to a limited British Air campaign against the mainland the Argentine Air Force sortied a Squadron of Bombers with orders to 'attack and annihilate British shipping around the Islands'.


This attack was beaten off and the only effect of it was that Ambassador McAuliffe insisted on Washington putting more pressure on the Argentines and that at the same time London officially and very publicly asked Brasilia[1] for permission to possibly use Força Aérea Brasileira bases in the south in case Bomber Command needed to visit Argentine Naval and Air Bases.


It was most probably this that was the reason for the about face of the new Argentine Leadership, because two days afterwards the British Ambassador to Chile was quietly asked to meet with his Argentine Counterpart.



No peace treaty was ever signed, nor have the Argentine leaders given up their claims on the Falklands (as evidenced by the rhetoric during the latest regime change in 1998) and both sides merely agreed to suspend hostilities and not to take them up again. Still, the British Empire had won the conflict and reassured especially Brazil and Uruguay that the Allied position in South America was as strong as ever, and the Falklands war was officially declared over on 14th May 1983.


The Official History of the Falkland Islands, Liverpool Publishing House, 2000



In the immediate aftermath of the war the biggest task facing both the Royal Marines and the local inhabitants was rebuilding the damaged infrastructure. To impede movement the Fleet Air Arm had bombed several crossroads. The Argentine Prisoners of war were repatriated by using the very same landing ships that had brought the Marines to the Islands.



Over the next years the British military presence on the Islands increased tenfold. The Falklands Island Marine Regiment was raised in 1984 to have a permanent defence force always station on the Islands and RAF Port Stanley was turned back into a purely civilian airport the same year as it was decided that it would be better to build a whole new base to house the rotating Squadrons which would be RAF Mount Pleasant. The Naval station was increased from a singular Frigate to a Type 82 (later Type 45) Destroyer and two frigates.


[3]



As early as 1985 the Argentine military began orchestrating what turned out to be a regular series of incidents meant to provoke the British. With the regularity of clockwork unarmed Argentine aircraft would intrude into British airspace or Argentine Naval vessels would impede civilian traffic to and from the Islands. However the Argentine Navy never recovered from the beating it had taken at 2nd Falklands and to this day does not operate anything larger than a Destroyer, the last cruiser having been scrapped in 1988. These incidents were always a convenient way of distracting from the internal turmoil that dominated Argentina for most of the 1980s, and that Scotland in 1986 and Germany in 1990 defeated the Argentine National Football team in the finals for the World Cup did not help either as the population seized on anything that could possibly improve their standing in the world.[2]



Still, the Argentine obsession with the Islands began to wane as the country stabilized during the 1990s but even so once or twice a year the Lightnings and later Typhoons were scrambled from RAF Mount Pleasant to intercept Argentine NWA Type 707 converted airliners that attempted to overfly the Islands on either Intelligence gathering missions or to show the world that Argentine goes where it pleases. To this day the Argentines do not have official diplomatic relations with the British Empire nor is there a Charge d'affairs, with the interests of British subjects being represented by the Swiss and Russian embassies.



Autobiography of Admiral Sir Frederick Kanveney, KBE, DSO and Bar, RN (ret.), 2011



The return of Force Z to Scapa Flow is an occasion that I still remember fondly. I had only shifted my flag back to Ark Royal when we crossed the Equator and the damaged ship drew a lot of comments from the onlookers once she was moored, but when we entered the anchorage through Hoxa sound, we could immediately see the crowds of cheering people on the banks surrounding the base. HMS Hood flew the White Ensign from every mast as the sounds of 'Rule Britannia' played by the RM band on the quarterdeck of the Hood waved over the water. When I disembarked from one of Ark Royal's launches near the CinC's Headquarters we were met by the CinC, the Prime Minister and Her Majesty the Queen who assured me that the British population all over the Empire was proud of what we had accomplished and....






The End..



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I must say its a rather new experience for me to actually finish one of these. I did some AARs a while ago, but nothing on the scale of the AAO-verse.





[1] TTL the capital was also built, albeit at a different location farther north to keep it farther away from the Pact nations in South America.


[2] I will hold exactly who wins when during the cup secret for the moment. *evil grin *


[3] The weather on this picture is actually fitting quite well with the subject matter, as it was the “Farewell to the Lightning” show in 1987 according to the caption.

Operation Tidespring Part 10/3

Operation Tidespring Part 10/3



Port Stanley Airport, 30th April 1983, 19:55 local (23:55 GMT)



Air Raid Warning Red! Red! Red!” came from the loudspeakers of the PA system even as the hand-powered sirens blared and the sound of Jet Engines could be heard coming in from the sea. With a routine born out of days of almost constant air attacks the Argentine soldiers and the British Civilians went for what cover there was and peered over the edges of cellars, slit trenches and sand bag bunkers. Just like during the last three days a group of specks came in from the sea, trailing smoke and soon it became clear that it was again a formation of four Buccaneers and everyone knew that their hardpoints and bomb bays would be full with 500 pound bombs in an effort to destroy the remaining Argentine Air power and to render the runway unusable, both tasks that the British had as of yet not fully accomplished even though only four A-4, two A-6 and three F-4s remained of the force that had landed here some weeks ago. The B-45 had failed to find the enemy and had landed here after running out of fuel, their wrecks were still smoking from yesterday's last raid.



Official Argentine news had merely told of a Naval Battle and that both sides had sustained losses, but the wrecks of several Navy Aircraft and the complete impunity with which the British had been bombing and were bombing the Argentine defences. As the Buccaneers from HMS King George VI released their bombs the surviving senior Air Force Officer on the ground thanked whatever deyities there might be that the Islands were out of easy bomber range, because that precluded the venerable Vulcan bomber Force from making an appearance and shower the base with ten times the bombload using half the aircraft.[1]


The Buccaneers slowed to sub-sonic speeds and scattered their bombload all over what remained of the airport and departed after setting most of the remaining infrastructure on fire and rendering the base unusable for days

How the Argentines see the Buccaneer



Major General Lizardo departed from cellar of Government House where he had established his headquarters and once again asked himself what on earth the British were waiting for. For the last three days they had systematically bombed the Argentine positions to smithereems, their Carrier fighters had cut the Islands off from reinforcements and resupply, and they could have landed their Marines at any point of the Islands with little interference from the Argentine troops defending them.



Comrade General, we have news.”


Lizardo turned to his aide and merely stared at the man without saying a word.


Comrade, the Army Company at Goose Green has reported enemy ships within the bay, some of our patrols have spotted enemy ships heading into Berkeley sound, our troops at San Carlos are under heavy gunfire and air attack.”



Anything new from the mainland?”


Nothing since yesterday's message, Comrade General.”


The message in question had been short and to the point, Lizardo was to hold until relieved or overcome, and he strongly suspected that the latter was going to happen before the former. The British were known to have enough amphibious capability with them to land a Division, and it seemed that they were planning to do that. Lizardo had used the last couple of days to concentrate most of his forces on East Falkland before the British made any movement on the waters around the Islands impossible, leaving only token forces on West Falkland which were now reporting that they were in almost constant contact with British Special Forces which had been clearly underestimated before the war.


Royal Marines going ashore at Goose Green


Mount Kent, 30th April 1983, 20:00 local



The sun had just gone down, but even then the men of “Naval Operations Company 22” could hear that for many this brought no relief. They could hear the booming sound of the British Naval guns in the distance and almost constant air activity overhead. Frantic and desperate radio messages spoke of the British coming ashore at three places at once and heavy naval and Air support. Luckily they here at Mount Kent were too far away from the beach to receive a '16 inch RN greeting card', so the men were in a relatively good mood even though morale of the Argentines was plummeting even faster than the one of the British living here soared.


“Comrade Lieutenant, the General wants a status report.....”



The Sergeant spoke no more as his head dissolved into a reddish mist as it was hit by a .303 round from a sniper rifle. The command post of the company was under attack as seconds afterwards a machine gun started firing into the positions of the company and several more men were killed by the sniper. The Lieutenant didn't know that the attack was nothing more than a diversion, and he led the defence against what he thought was a major attack by British special forces. Soon however he began to notice that something was wrong. While the British were trading fire with his men at a brisk pace, no actual push against his position was forthcoming. Clearly this was a diversion, but against what?



The answer soon came in the form of a sound that in the West[2] would be instantly recognized but was something almost totally unknown within the nations of the Seattle Pact. A mixture of a classical helicopter and a jet aircraft, it came from behind the mountain, facing Port Stanley and only weakly defended. The Lieutenant ran out he saw four Fairey Defender, the gunship variant of the Fairey Rotodyne come over the top of the mountain and descend on his position, while more of them began to unload Royal Marines on the top itself. The craft were armed the the usual assortment of guns, missiles and rockets and began to demolish the position of the Argentine special forces who by nature of their job travelled light and only had Redeye PAAM[3] as anti-aircraft weaponry, and the grey-green aircraft now destroyed everything that looked even remotely dangerous, hovering over the ground while door and rear gunners prevented the surviving Argentine Marines from doing too much, especially after the Lieutenant had been hit in the stomach by a 30mm shell from the chin-mounted Gatling gun of one the the 'Dynes'.


Had he still been alive he would have seen that the position of his men was now hopeless. Not only was the remainder of the Company now caught between the forty Royal Marines that two more Dynes had deposited on the top of the Mountain and the reinforced platoon of SAS and RM down below, but also that the remaining complement of HMS Gallipoli, the assault ship they were coming from and that had joined the Fleet only recently[4] was depositing small Marine parties on the other mountains and ridges around Mount Kent, chiefly Mt Harriet, Mt Challenger and The Two Sisters. On Mount Kent itself the battle was decided the moment the British had made the risky air assault on the summit and the 90mm field gun that constituted the whole of the Argentine Artillery outside San Carlos and Port Stanley itself had been taken out by a salvo from a rocket pod.


Even so the Argentine Marines had to be dug out of their holes the hard way.


One machine gun on the southern slopes that had covered the flank was so resistant to all attempts at taking it out that Captain Turner, the British OC on the scene had to call in a flight of Buccaneers on CAS duty to take it out while near the centre of the Argentine position a rock bunker proved resistant to the Mortars the Marines had with them and was taken out by the suicidally brave charge of a Marine Corporal who for this and other actions earlier in the day earned a posthumous Victoria Cross. It took the British Marines most of the night and the 1st of May to find and defeat the last defenders.


But even before then they were no danger to the main British operation any more.



All over East Falkland, 1st May 1983, 0:00 local to 5th May, 18:39 local



In spite of doomsayers in the Battlebridges and staff meetings the landings at Goose Green had cone off without a hitch, in fact the only resistance offered had come from logistics troops that had been busy cutting phone lines, while at San Carlos HMS Dreadnought had been needed to fight down a group of Argentine Artillery guns that were so well camouflaged that they couldn't be spotted by the Marines on the ground for hours, the majority of the casualties of the day being suffered there. The landings at Berkeley sound were remarkably unremarkable, minor resistance by the former crew of a nearby AAM battery that had lost most of it's vehicles and a Battalion of Argentine Army conscripts folded away rapidly after Thunderchild had started shelling their positions, with the Union Flag raised over Port Louis at 13:22.



San Carlos on the other hand was the scene of the fiercest battle the Royal Marines had fought in decades. Here the largest Argentine Force outside the Port Stanley defence perimeter, the 11th Regiment of the Argentine People's Marine Infantry had dug in as deep as was possible and directed a murderous artillery and machine gun fire onto the landing Marines, and by the time things were over San Carlos and much of the countryside surrounding the settlement made a good imitation of the stereotypical Western front of World War One. Fighting there would last for three more days, and after the war was over many would question the wisdom of landing there in the first place.



In the air and on the seas it was clear who had won. No less than seven separate attempts by the Argentine Air Force to support their troops on the Islands were broken up by the Fleet Air Arm so that for the remainder of the war no more Argentine Aircraft would come within a hundred miles of the Islands. When during the early evening hours of Communim's biggest and only universal holiday Lizardo looked at the map, he realized that it would be a matter of another day or two before his position became untenable. Unaware of the internal struggles within the Argentine Government and Military on the mainland he could only register the absence of Argentine Aircraft and the silence coming from High Command and believe that he and his men had been given up for dead. True they intercepted regular Radio reports about the valiant defenders, but no actual messages from the mainland were transmitted to them.


On the 2nd May two British Marine Battalions were landed on West Falkland. While this deprived the Royal Marine Division of almost all the reserves, but it did clear half of the Falklands within two days, so that West Falkland could be declared secure late on the 4th.


Marines advancing on Port Stanley


The first contact between the Main body of Marines coming in from Berkeley Sound made contact with the perimeter around Port Stanley late on the 3rd. The fourth was spent with heavy but inconclusive fighting along the main perimeter before shortly before midnight a message was transmitted on known frequencies of the Argentine Armed forces that encouraged Lizardo to surrender. No such thing was forthcoming. The Information Officer had long since died in a British Air Raid, he felt duty bound by his orders and fought on. The 4th brought more and very heavy fighting, but early on the 5th a message was received by General Burton, the Marine Commander, and some hours after that the Argentine Army and Marine troops left their foxholes without weapons and hands raised, just glad that it was over for them.



The war for the Falklands had been won, now all that remained to do was to convince the Argentine Government of that.




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Comments, questions, rotten tomatoes? It is incredibly rushed, but I always wanted to concentrate mainly on the air and Naval Battles anyway, partially to hone my own skills for the main story. Ending+Epilogue update should be out on the 31st. Anyway, I had to confine myself to black and white pictures because the beret colours aren't right. No Paras anywhere and TTL the Marines wear a dark Blue one anyway.




[1]TTL the later versions of the Vulcan have the ability to carry additional bomb pods under the wings, bringing the load up to 38.000 pounds Was proposed in OTL for the Phase 6 Vulcan.


[2] I've thought long and hard about a suitable term for this. “The West” as it was defined during the RL cold war wouldn't really work considering that the centrepiece of NATO is the big bad ITTL, while the Allied Alliance has a very strong (compared to real life at least) Republic of China and half of Japan in it. So after failing to come up with something suitable I've decided to stick with “The West” myself, figuring that it was a term initially coined by the Americans to describe what was then a mostly Euro-centric block + Asian and African holdings of the British, and eventually the term just stuck when the RoC and West Japan ascended to membership. All that will eventually be explained in more detail in the main story once I get around to it.


[3] Term for MANPADs.


[4] A good example of the unplanned and haphazard way in which I started this story. Had I planned it beforehand, the Gallipoli would have been listed as part of the task force from the start. I deeply regret this, guys. The next one, detailing the Middle Eastern War of the mid or late 1960s will have much more thought put into it, promised.

Saturday 25 December 2010

OTS part 10/2




Operation Tidespring Part 10/2




No.903 NAS, somewhere south of the Argentine Fleet, 26th April 1983, 12:31 GMT



The news of the damage to their Carrier did not endear the men of No.903 NAS to the Argentines, but even if it had it would not have changed anything. The British plan had been thrown out of the window with the damage to HMS Ark Royal, but that didn't stop the Strike force from attacking. The main group of 22 Buccaneers with Green Eagle Anti-ship Missiles was hugging the waves, but up on top and intentionally exposed to anyone with a RDF set was the Fighter Escort and five Buccaneers armed with Green Arrows, meant not so much for the outright destruction of the ship-mounted RDFs on the Argentine escorts as for the disruption of their Air defence efforts. The horrible casualties that the very same Squadrons had suffered when they had thrown themselves against the Imperial Japanese Navy during The War had taught them the advantages of this disruption.


Now however at least part of the plan needed to be enacted, and to do so the Buccaneers of No. 905 NAS, being both the bait and armed with Green Arrows instead of Green Eagle needed to draw the Argentine fighters out of the missile envelope of their escorts, however the Argentines refused to take the bait after what had happened to their own strike. So instead they hovered over their Strike Group and awaited developments, with the tanker aircraft from the Carriers periodically re-fuelling the fighters. Little did they know that all the British were really doing was to draw their attention away from the real danger and waiting for a short wireless message on a never used frequency, the text having been selected as a tribute to one of the most popular war films of all time.



Broadsword calling Dannyboy, everything ready, we need transport.”[1]


The Strike Commander sent an equally short message back.

Roger that Broadsword. All sins forgiven.”[1]



He switched back to the strike frequency and said:


All Red units, weapons free.”


The six Buccaneers turned towards the Argentine Fleet and fired their missiles. Each of the missiles had been programmed to go after a specific set of frequencies and type of emission to avoid too many double targets. The missiles were detected and indentified almost immediately after they were launched, their flight profile was unmistakeable even to the most inexperienced of operators. Like their comrades on the Falklands the men behind the scopes had the problem of either loosing all ability to defend themselves against the missiles that were sure to come or risk damage to their sets and their ships, and elected the same solution of switching them off and on again, not knowing that the real reason for these missiles was more to confuse them than to actually do any damage.



To the south-west of the fleet the main strike was coming in. Twenty-two Buccaneers with four Green Eagles each had reached the launch point and were now preparing to fire. Unlike the earlier Green Falcon[2] missile, the Green Eagles had an active RDF seeker head and required neither the activation for the Blue Parrot RDF in the nose of the launching aircraft nor any more input from the Observer, it merely scanned the sea in front of it for targets and then attacked the biggest return that it could detect. The Buccaneers fired them down the bearing of the Argentine Fleet and then turned around, firewalling their engines to get out of the area before anyone noticed they were there. Of the eighty-eight missiles launched, twelve would fail at one point on the way to the target. That still left seventy-six missiles going after a mere sixteen targets, enough to ensure that at least some damage would be done. This was the first time that the Green Eagle was used in anger and no one knew how the sophisticated and devilishly expensive (in the eyes of HM Treasury at least) missile fared in the face of alerted ships with defensive systems and jamming.



Battlearea around the Argentine Carrier Group, 12:35 to 13:00 GMT


The E-2 AEW Aircraft were looking eastward to where the British force was retreating towards their own Carriers, so they did not spot the missiles until they were twenty miles out. Having separated into three groups, the missiles approached the Argentine task force from south-east, south, and thanks to the extended range almost directly west, so there was no way to tell for the Argentines where the launching aircraft were and in any case, the ships had enough to do trying to stay alive. The E-2 lacked a decent look-down Radar like their land-based counterparts, but even so the British Missiles intermittently appeared on the screens. All good that did was to give the Arengines some idea on what was facing them, and when the Argentine Admiral was faced with the simple truth that there were two, if not three or more missiles for each of his vessels, the political conditioning from the Naval Academy broke down for a second.




Like all the Pact Nations Argentina discouraged religion and no open member of the Church got very far within the military, but even so centuries of South American culture were difficult to eradicate, and no one in the bridge did more than hesitate for a second.


May god have mercy on our and their souls...”



The Green Eagle was a subsonic missile, but it still travelled at .98 mach, and so only minutes after the swarms had been detected first, a flash could be seen on the horizon where the outer ring of escorts was stationed.


Comrade Admiral, the Almirante Brown reports that La Argentine has blown up after a at least two missile hits!”


'And so it begins....' the Admiral thought.



He instantly ordered the other ships to keep their Radars on, Green Arrows be damned. Before that order could be relayed to anyone, the Almirante Brown herself was hit by a British missile and slowed to a crawl. The missiles of the first wave in the other groups had equal success, of the four ships of the outer escorts, two were destroyed outright, while the remaining ones suffered so much damage that they would sink later. Due to the close proximity of the Malvinas, five of the six Destroyers and Frigates of the inner escort ring were placed to the south of the Carriers and they had managed bring everything from small arms to main guns to bear on the suspected vector of the Missiles.


They unleashed a hellstorm of lead and other assorted munitions, but had no chance of intercepting all of the still sixty-five missiles coming at them. Even so, eight Green Eagles died in the barrage, but no less than nine missiles hit the hapless Argentine vessels and one crashed into the sea after clipping the bows of ARA Rosales even as the American-built frigate was afire from end to end already.



The cloud of missiles had been noticeably thinned, and even as they watched it continued to thin out as another missile succumbed to damage suffered earlier. The four Destroyers and two Aircraft Carriers now had almost a minute's time to do something, which was preciously little, as the remaining ships lacked the modern defensive systems of HMS Devonshire. Still, they fired every chaff rocket they had and the barely turned around aircraft on the decks of the Veintcinco de Mayo and the Independencia were launched without weapons, their crews having the same orders as the helpless and frustrated CAP fighters, fly towards the Malvinas if anything should happen to the ships.


The Destroyers valiantly tried to interpose themselves between the missiles and the Carriers in order to soak up as many of them as they could. It was a brave but useless gesture, as they between them had no hope of downing the remaining forty-seven missiles.



First to go was the outermost and oldest Destroyer of the Argentine Fleet, the ARA Commodoro Py which suffered a hit to the superstructure even as the last on-deck F-4 catapulted off the Veintcinco de Mayo two miles away. The escorts fought and died valiantly, but it was a foregone conclusion. As the Commodoro Py was hit, the Admiral reached into his pocket for a picture of his wife and daughter, and then everything went white.


Observing and cataloguing the death of the Argentine Navy was HMS Duke of Wellington, four miles to the west. In accordance with orders received through NAVCOM the submarine was beginning to penetrate the outer ring of escorts when it was blown away by the Fleet Air Arm. The Captain correctly deduced that the Argentines would be too busy fighting of missiles to hunt for submarines, so he increased speed. Upon reaching the inner core several minutes after the last missile hit (the remainder would litter the ocean floor between here and the Falklands) of the force a peek through the periscope showed clearly that he would not be needed to administer the killing blow to anyone.


The Veintcinco de Mayo was afire from bow to stern, and the Independencia was smoking out of several holes and listing so heavily that the starboard edge of her flight deck was almost touching the water. Even at this distance he could see the Argentine sailors jumping off the sides of the stricken vessels, and as much as he hated leaving fellow sailors to die, he could do nothing, so he continued to watch. Two hours later nothing was left of the Argentine Strike force but a single undamaged Destroyer and two sinking ones, several dozen life rafts and hundreds of men in the water, and the day was not yet over, because farther south two Argentine cruisers, one Destroyer and three Frigates were moving along without having ever been notified by the Argentine High Command that they were effectively on their own, while slightly farther east below the horizon and beyond Radar detection two British ships and their escorts were waiting in what looked like a scene from the distant past....



ARA General Belgrano Battlegroup, sixty miles to the south-east of the Argentine Carrier group, 26th April 1983, 13:15 GMT


If anyone asked the Officers on the bridge of the Cruiser, everything went as well as could be expected, the last message from Command had said that the Carriers were attacking the British Fleet, and nothing had been heard from them since. Confidence that was utterly out of place in the face of what had happened not half an hour ago was everywhere on the Bridge.


Their mission was simple. A smaller, second group of ships had been detected and identified as the main amphibious group, and now the cruisers were tasked with destroying them. Rear Admiral Gonzales felt confident in his ship and in his men, as did the Squadron InFom.


CIC-Bridge, anything on Radar?”


Nothing yet, Comrade Rear Admiral.” came the reply, “Only the ships of our own group.”


Gonzales replaced the intercom and turned back towards the bridge windows.


Signal to group. 'Increase to best speed'”


Gonzales sighed. He knew that there was one significant problem with the Cruisers in the Argentine People's Armada or whatever the fleet was called this week, the Carriers were in the spotlight and always had first dibs on the shiny new toys like the Americans liked to put it, and the Cruiser Squadron had to make do. As a result her Radar was older than most of her crew, and while it was always in working condition it was less powerful than the one in the newest class of Destroyers, let alone the new MIDAS equipped British County-Class vessels.


Bridge-CIC, we have six contacts at bearing zero-three-zero, thirty miles out, and coming our way.”



Somewhere in the back of Gonzales' mind something suddenly made him feel a pang of dread. He shook it away and instead said: “Our first catch of the day. General Quarters, I'll be right down.”



He sprinted the way to the CIC. By the time he got there his crew was at General Quarters as he noted with satisfaction. Underfunded and today one short they might be, but they were well trained. He still wished that the ARA Revolución

hadn't developed an engineering casualty and stayed behind. With only two ships he had decided against a pincer movement, instead they were going straight in.


What was slightly odd about all this was the complete absence of British Helicopters. Their larger landing ships were part of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary, and if they were sent into combat they usually carried some Naval Helicopters, but they were conspicuously absent. Again, just a nagging feeling in the back of his mind.


For several minutes the Cruisers moved through the sea before the call came.


Visual contact, dead ahead.”


Any calls for identification of the contacts remained unanswered, and going against established procedure and traning, Gonzales left the CIC and walked up to the bridge, just in time to see two contacts that were most definitely not Landing ships execute a perfect combat turn and show him their broadsides.


¡Dios mío, Santísima Madre de Dios!”[3]


Facing him like a relic from the last war were two of Britain's Dreadnoughts, turrets trained and ready to fire. Gonzales noted with professional detachment that the British were flying multiple Battleflags as was custom in the Royal Navy Dreadnought force and wondered why they hadn't used Broadswords.




HMSs Thunderchild and Dreadnought, 15432 yards away, five seconds later


The reason why the British hadn't used Cruise missiles was simply that[4] the Argentine cruisers had been spotted relatively late. Unlike the Argentines who had sailed under EMCON, the British had used their RDF sets to follow the air battle, correctly figuring that if the Argies had spotted the Carriers, they would most likely have been on the Satellite pictures or submarine plot anyway, so better have everything ready to get cracking in case some bombers came their way. By the time the Argentines had been discovered to be coming for them, forming line of Battle and meeting them in the same old style was actually less of a hassle than programming the temperamental Broadswords, never mind that a gun engagement appealed to the small Dreadnought community.


Eighteen 16'' Naval Guns now faced the Argentine ships, and since he was well within his powers as commander on the scene and under the current Rules of Engagement, Rear Admiral Travis made a decision. He glanced over to where the ships crest with the Martian Walker in the middle was painted on the bulkhead of the flag bridge and decided that it was the human thing to do. The Naval portion of the conflict was clearly decided, and he was well within reason under the current Rules of Engagement.


Open Argentine Navy Frequency, Flags.” “Aye aye, Sir.”


ARA General Belgrano


Attention Argentine Cruiser Force, this is the commanding Officer of the British Dreadnought Thunderchild. You are outnumbered and out gunned. Your Carrier Force has been destroyed by British Naval Aircraft an hour ago, and you are facing two ships of the Lion Class. In the name of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II I hereby offer you the chance to surrender. Any hostile move will be met with deadly force. Attempt to flee and we will employ more of the same. You can communicate your assent by heaving to and turning your gun turrets facing the other way. You have five minutes.”



For several seconds silence reigned on the bridge of the Belgrano. Even if it wasn't true that the Carriers had been destroyed, they were still facing what arguably were two of the most powerful surface warships that had ever been built, and the impression of destructive power displayed by their gun turrets belied the obsolescence of the concept and Gonzales had to remind himself that these ships were all twenty years younger than his own. The InFom reacted first.


Lies! British Lies and propaganda! They would never destroy our Carriers! We must fight! For the Revolution and for the people!”


To say that Gonzales and by the looks on their faces most of his bridge Officers weren't tempted would be a lie, but all had reasons not to do it. Gonzales had no ties left in Argentina, and if it was merely his own skin, he would do it in an instant. But he also knew that for example his Gunnery Officer had four lovely daughters and no one knew what was going to happen to him if he surrendered, as that would most certainly entail knocking the InFom over the head with a stick. He had no actual command power, but pull with the Party. Most of the enlisted men would do what they were told especially if the InFom was taken out of the loop.



Time's almost up, Comrade Rear Admiral.” said the commander of the cruiser.


Gonzales closed his eyes for a second and thought of his wife and his son and two daughters.


Comrades. There is only one thing we can do. Open Fire.”


Battle area


The barking of the Belgrano's guns was all the answer the British needed. Without hesitation eighteen sixteen inch guns thundered in reply. Both sides had the range, and the two Argentine Cruisers were instantly straddled with shell splashes. The two groups had formed line and now steamed alongside each other, and soon the higher calibre guns got their way when a hit from Dreadnought knocked out the RDF sets on the Belgrano. Thunderchild next scored a hit on the other Argentine Cruiser, the ARA Nueve de Julio that gutted her forwardmost turret and almost lead to a magazine explosions. Ten minutes and two salvoes later another hit by Thunderchild then did penetrate into the magazine with predictable results.



Both the Argentine cruisers has scored several hits in return, but armour that was intended to keep out calibres several times their size along with aircraft bombs and torpedoes shrugged 6'' cruiser fire off with ease, something the Belgrano couldn't do when a shell from Thunderchild devastated her superstructure while a hit from Dreadnought penetrated into her machinery spaces and reduced the Cruiser to less than ten knots of speed and gave it a severe list. It was here that Dreadnought scored again, with no less than four out of nine shells hitting the hapless Argentine Cruiser and reducing everything above the main deck to so much scrap metal. Belgrano came to a slow halt and immediately began to list heavily, with a near miss from Dreadnought then tearing up her side, making the old Cruiser turn turtle and sink within ten minutes.


For all intents and purposes the Argentine Navy had been destroyed as an offensive force.





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I hope the failure rates of the missiles are at least somewhat realistic, but please bear in mind this is literally the first deployment for the Sea Eagle.



Up next is the ground invasion!


[1] Almost exactly like they were in the film.


[2] Martel.



[3]”My god, Holy mother of God!”


[4]the author wanted a gun engagement and now had to pull a reason out if his behind.


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