If I had to guess, I’d say it was the Kursk.
During the Falklands War (1982), several British ships were sunk-several by dive bombing (a WWII technique), using obsolete PUCARA prop-jet fighters. The HMS SHEFFIELD was sunk by a lone French missile-launched from a mirage fighter jet. Had the British lost their sole aircraft carrier, the jig would have been up.
Right. And by Sheffield absorbing the hit instead, they performed the role of an escort well.
We all, as cruiser sailors, understood that our role was to protect the carrier by engaging the enemy first, and if that meant the loss of our own ship, then that loss was in the full line of duty.
Also, the British had trouble engaging low flying targets of this type using the 1950s era radar they had at the time.
Modern radars and combat data systems significantly improve the defense against these kinds of threats.
The previous post by Ralph is simply not true.
This post is so wrong on so many details it needs a proper response.
Not one Pucara hit one RN vessel the only thing that Pucaras hit was one helicopter.
The Pucara was not equipped for such a role, being ground attack aircraft.
HMS Sheffield was not sunk by just one missile, she was struck by one missile, but these are normally operated in salvoes of two, one of the missiles missed.
The missile platform itself was not a Mirage, it was a Super Entendard, which, although made by Dassault, is not a Mirage.
The war readiness of HMS Sheffield was poor, she was not in an appropriate state of operation for the situation in which she was deployed.
HMS Sheffield would have been seriously damaged, but not lost completely and she would almost certainly have been able to operate some of her major weapons systems, such as the main gun and helicopter had the correct procedures been followed, I can give you a more detailed response if you wish and that will explain exactly what the failings were, or you can accept that I actually know what I am talking about.
The British had two vessels operating Harriers, so when one carrier is mentioned, its hard to say which you mean, because one was a true carrier(if small) and the other is often mistaken for a carrier but is in fact termed a type of cruiser.
The British could not have lost either carrier. The were kept well outside the operating range of a refuelled Super Etendard, and one Exocet hit is extremely unlikely to render a vessel of this size non-operational anyway.
You’ll also note that despite the use of Skyhawks, Daggers etc, many of them were shot down by Royal Navy AA missiles, and I can personally attest that these systems were actually only just operationally working - Seawolf had some serious software issues that caused systems crashes, yet they still downed a confirmed two Argentine aircarft with three other ‘probables’, a total of five from eight missile launches.
The obsolete Seacat system managed to shoot down one Argentine aircraft, and that particular version of it was one of the oldest ones in the fleet and was hopelessly out of date.
You’ll also note that Sea Dart had seven confirmed air kills.
So what actually happened is that around half of all Argentine attack aircraft in the air were destroyed by ship borne systems.
This from a fleet whose anti aircraft readiness was second rate at best, had the AA capability of the fleet been better, it would have even worse for the Argentine pilots.
Now move on a little, Sea Wolf is way more reliable, and is capable of attacking multiple targets, the software issues are long gone and the system in total has undergone some major improvements.
You should also note that any major surface fleet is going to operate under full AWACS cover, with a carrier group, and satellite observation, this is rather differant to a missile fired at a lone Israeli ship, which happened to be only a coastal sea vessel anyway and was not designed to operate in a missile environment.
Ralph
Your previous posts might resemble information to those who have no knowledge of modern marine warfare, but they bear no resemblance to reality.
Unmanned aircraft currently cannot operate the missiles that are large enough to attack a surface fleet, nor are they currently fast enough to reach their target before being intercepted, nor do they have the range to operate effectively, and they are not mobile enough to used quickly enough from makeshift launch platforms and runways.
All those may well change, but unmanned aircraft have been closely examined and their potential has been evaluated by all the worlds major military nations for at least 20 years, and in all that time there is not yet an effective anti ship system utilising such vehicles.
I read a book about the Falklands War a few years ago that suggested the Argentines should have focused on the cargo ships that were carrying supplies (food, ammo, etc.) for the British task force. The Brits were logistically hard-pressed by the end of the brief war and, had the cargo ships been sunk, might have actually had to withdraw. True?
Sorry for the hijack.
It was a highly possible scenario, folk do not realise just how close it was, we are talking of being down to 10 rounds of ammo for the field guns.
If the Argentine troops had made more of a fight at say Goose Green, we would have run out of ammo and then it would have been down to a holding job until more arrived, which would have taken quite some time, or going in without arty support and much higher casualties on both sides.
The Falklands winter was almost upon us too which would have complicated things rather.
You have to realise that it was the prospect of continued arty fire that prompted the surrender at Port Stanley and not the presence of troops.
USS Lake Erie (CG-70) plankowner.