(Please forgive the spacing.)
I’m not taking sides, here, but the fact that the UK government has only just admitted that there were nukes on those ships doesn’t mean that it wasn’t common knowledge at the time.
Really? Again, any chance you could provide a cite showing it was incorrect? An actual cite please, not another claim of secret Ohian wisdom, or mentions of newspaper articles without links.
Or, failing that, how about you actually read the OP. Tell me the bit which I’m angry about - hint, it’s the demand for an apology. Tell me when that demand was made? Ooh, in the last couple of days. So tell me just when I should pit said demand? Do you start to see yet why I view your contributions so far as being completely moot? Does it change in one iota any part of my complaint?
But to be honest I’m starting to be annoyed at myself for even participating in your banal sophistry. How about this: I rephrase my op from
“20 years later, it emerges that when these ships left docks they were in a bit of a hurry, so they left with nukes”
to
“20 years later, the MoD states that etc, etc”. Would that make you happy, or at least placate you to the point of pissing off and hijacking someone else’s thread?
How long does it take to sail to The Falklands?
IIRC, a programme I watched about the Falklands war said it took 4 weeks. Even if it would take 2 weeks, an extra 36 hours to remove the nukes would barely make a difference.
that said, it’s pointless to demand an apology over this.
The UK government don’t need to apologise, because they corrected the issue before it made a difference, and secondly I doubt they would anyway.
Mr B - put up or shut up. Your memory does not suffice as a decent cite.
[Also, please don’t continually mix “England” up with “Britain” and “the UK”. There were plenty of Welsh, Northern Irish, and Scots who accompanied the English to the South Atlantic.]
Wow. A pissing match in a Pit thread about something to do with the military, and Monty hasn’t even shown up…
No, that doesn’t make me happy. But at least you’re understanding your statement was deceptive and needed clarification.
And by the way: what hijack? Your OP was wrong, and it tainted the entire thread. I’m sorry if you don’t like that I mentioned it.
I find this topic increasingly engaging, especially because of its implications to the rest of the world. Separately, I see a great many parallels between the UK public view of The Falkland War, and the American public opinion of the War in Iraq.
We Americans could stand to learn a great deal from the Malvinas; at the very least, it seems to have spawned a new generation of British activists. At the most, it could teach a lesson about the perils of colonization, and demonstrate to us the terrible price of such a commitment.
So you’re looking to attack President Kirchner. Perhaps you’d like to read some details on why this issue is now in the press.
Mr. Kirchner’s recent demand for an apology and full disclosure is not quite so unusual considering he’s been drumming on the topic of sovereignty since before he was elected.
This issue of Falkland sovereignty (and its incumbent security issues) has recently emerged in the UN and the press, but Britain does not appear to be willing to negotiate.
In fact, Mr. Kirchner feels strongly enough about this problem that he would express it to the United Nations:
And this was in the press as recently as June:
Further, there appear to be still other issues not addressed in your articles. Mr. Kirchner is especially interested about whether any nuclear material sits at the bottom of the ocean as a result of the sinkings of British naval vessels:
So, in summary, this revelation is nothing new at all. It’s just more of the same: the popular media’s spin on a subject, that for some, hits a little too close to home.
jjimm: I believe I have put up, in previous posts as well as this one. Challenge my cites, if you like; it may be a bit difficult for me to provide the radio broadcast from 1982, but I assure you, it was made. [Also, I have no confusion over “England” or “Britain.” The only ambiguity might come from how the American “conspiracy theorists” viewed the War. Perhaps I was too precise?]
- “Meeting of Decolonization Committee,” United Nations, June 16, 2003
† "Argentina again seeks Falkland negotiations,"Costa Rican Wire Services, June 18, 2003
†† “Kirchner demands British ‘apologies’,” MercoPress, December 7, 2003
I know casdave was serving during the Falklands and he’s posted to the contrary, but I don’t think I understand how it is difficult to remove nuclear depth charges from ships; they are, by their very nature, eminently transferable (albeit normally from ship to sea), as well as storable ?
And how nuclear are nuclear depth charges, in a mushroom cloud, end-of-the-world kind of way. Obviously one wouldn’t want to fish thereabouts for some while, but I don’t know the Mega-whatever size of these things or their environmental impact . . . ?
I suppose the only thing I would say is you go into a war zone expecting the unexpected; no good saying oh dear, lets go home becasue we didn’t bring the right kind of rackets, old cock.
Well, I would also say, did Argentina ever apologise for causing in the interests of a dictators popularity the death of so many ?
Whole thing is just terribly sad, imho.
And just to try one more time, please
- provide a cite for your claims
- advise how the point you are quibling over makes any difference to this thread.
Just two simple requests, and yet I know you’ll continue to wibble more inanity about uncited claims of info or further moot points. What a twat.
London Calling: from what I’ve read, the nuclear depth charges were designed to fully eliminate the threat of nuke-toting submarines. Conventional charges could simply cripple a sub; a damaged sub may still be a threat if it can rise to firing depth.
The point is, President Kirchner, a Malvinan, believes in fighting for the sovereignty of the Falklands. He appears to be keeping his promise, and in doing so has spawned the debate over nuclear weapons on British ships. (As I cited above, he is simply carrying forward the questions about the nukes that have been around since right after the war.) So I submit the real problem is that some people take issue with a politician who keeps his word, even after 20 years?
jjimm: I’m actually a bit hurt you’d take the effort to insult me like that. I didn’t see you negating casdave’s personal experience, yet you shat on mine. And it happened even after I posted corroboration, from both The Washington Post and The Boston Globe. If I have given you cause to doubt my word, please bring it up elsewhere so that I may address your concerns.
To repeat, the reason I entered this thread was to dispel the idea that the nukes were a recent revelation. Because some of the posters here were unknown to me, I hearkened back to fears of the day – personal experience – in order to soften the tone, yet again and again, I and my fellow Ohioans were treated to insults. I’m really not sure why. 
And once more for Gary Kumquat: your OP was deceptive. It stated the public knowledge of the nukes only now emerged, “after 20 years.” I have provided cite after cite after cite to show that was not the case. In fact, I have posted a cite that shows Argentina has known about the nukes since the end of the Falkland War. How many more times do I have to say this?
(I have it on information that I am positively not a twat. Your inappropriate namecalling is not exactly dispelling the rumors about you, though.)
Fwiw, this seems to be the ordinance in question, the WE 177, Type C:
“Type C weighed 600lb (272Kg, Estimated yield - 10Kt. Variable yield fission weapon. This was a nuclear depth charge for the Royal Navy. Withdrawn from Service by June 1992. Possibly shorter and rocket boosted for helicopter use.”
- judging by things like the blue rail to the side, the wheels on the trolley, etc you can gauge the size – the casing looks to be about 4 feet long-ish. So:
600lb/272Kg
4’
10 kiloton (under water)
- sounds like a baby when compared to all that stuff we used to do in deserts during testing. Still, this would have been in war. Not good. At all.
I’d suggest the point is, President Kirchner knows how to garner popularity with the people of Argentina. Which, to state the blindingly obvious, is what caused the Falklands War in the first place.
And I suggest he’d drop the subject like a hot potato if he wasn’t continuing to get something out of it.
He’s just a politician working an angle he can’t lose on. Hence his desire for an apology he’s hardly likely to get.
Yada yada - how is the Argentinean economy at the moment, anything need distracting from ?
The nukes in question. Look at the entry for the WE177. The ones aboard the navy ships were most likely the low-yield ‘C’ variant.
Apparently the WE177 was designed as a parachute-retarded, “dumb” bomb intended for delivery by strike aircraft like the Buccaneer or the Tornado. According to another site, it could be used as a depth bomb and delivered by helicopter.
The US had similar bombs deployed aboard aircraft carriers, complete with a Marine detachment to guard them.
Well, I see London beat me to the punch.
Well, you did have a three-minute warning . . .
Good point. All this acrimony had just about turned me into Eva Fucking Peron.
As a person who was there, lets have one or two facts.
The Royal Navy’s primary role and for which it was mainly equipped at the time was defending the North Atlantic sea route to the UK and Europe.
The main maritime threat at the time was seen as coming from Russian subs, and so RN vessels were overwhelmingly equiped for A/S duties(this was to prove fatal for a number of RN vessels exposed to fairly outdated Argentine aircraft).
We had actually got rid of our so-called nuclear device, so-called because we were never certain if it was real, or if it was a carefully weighted dummy.
The nuclear devices purportedly carried were overwhelmingly depth charges, for the A/S role.
It was usual practice to not be fully aware if the object carried in the helicopter torpedo magazine was real or not. Dummies were used as part of training missions and also to hide the true picture of what was deployed where.
There were also a number of nuclear powered hunter killer subs on the South Atlantic seas, I have often seen the story of HMS Conquerer written up in the media as being an attack on the Belgrano by a nuclear submarine, but this way of describing the attacking vessel is somewhat sensationalist, as the nuclear referred to here applies only to the propulsion system.
Whilst there may well have been an offloading of nuclear devices, this would have been far more to do with the risk of loss of a valuable device in a situation where its strategic value would have been pretty much useless and where it would have been politically unacceptable to deploy.
The RN or the Ministry Of Denfence will not, even after all this time, make a definative comment about what was moved from where to where, quite simply there would be no response to any request for such information, which means that anyone else making such comments, no matter what their claim to authority, is very unlikely indeed to be accurate.
Unless there is an official announcement, all there is will be speculation, I don’t care what anyones online source may claim to know, simply because this information has not been released and is most unlikely to be released even beyond the 30 year ‘Freedom of Information’ act because military deployment of the UK nuclear devices would still be an issue and disclosure would at least reveal something about strategic thinking.
Don’t be such a drama queen – if you can’t take it don’t hand it out. Nothing I’ve posted to this thread deserves the response I got from you.
Pahdonn? 
“Eva Peron” was actually intended as a joke, a play on a few things that have happened here.
Last night, you seemed to be sparring, and holding up your end of the debate so aptly that I thought we were on the same wavelength. Honestly.
I’m not sure how to take your last post. If you weren’t joking, I sincerely apologize for hurting your feelings in any way.
Go lick your aunt’s count, you arrogant asshole.
(Please note that I’m only insulting you, CnoteChris, as opposed to a whole nation)
For the record, I agree with those who think it’s all a show intended to distract the public’s attention. There are far serious problems here that need to be addressed urgently. It is sad that many, if not the majority of Argentineans are being calmed with all the distraction.
I still have hope on him, though. Not too much, but…
Personally, I apologize to everyone in this thread for this non-sense, even though I never voted the guy. Todo vale en la guerra y el amor, they say.
I passionately belive that the Malvinas should be part of Argentina, and it makes me sad wander through the boards and see little insight on the subject, and too much patriotism instead (FWIW, I have a similar feeling listening to our President…). But I think we blew that chance up when we took the weapons (actually, when they drag us to war - the dictators I mean). I only hope the mistake will be marked for generations on people’s heart, so we don’t do it again.
Why?