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Back in 1982's Falklands war, the Argentines sunk two British destroyers with French-made Exocet surface missiles, towards the beginning, and then stopped scori

Back in 1982's Falklands war, the Argentines sunk two British destroyers with French-made Exocet surface missiles, towards the beginning, and then stopped scoring any hits. I once heard unsourced speculation that the French might have given the British the scoop on how to sabotage incoming missiles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falklands_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falklands_War

tyingq 7y ago
It seems they only had 5 total of the Exocets to fire. One hit the HMS Sheffield, two hit the merchant ship Atlantic Conveyor, and one hit the destroyer HMS Glamorgan. So that's 4 of the 5. I think they just ran out of missiles. https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-17256975 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-17256975 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exocet#The_Falklands_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exocet#The_Falklands_War
- nextos 7y ago
  It's also worth to note the hit to HMS Glamorgan required Argentina to hack a pair of Exocets to fire them from land without any cooperation from France, which was quite impressive.
  - baud147258 7y ago
    I thought that some French tech support/engineers from the company building the missiles stayed in Argentina to continue their job. Same with the French people supporting the French-made airplanes. Edit: even if France supported the UK during the war, preventing the delivery of more exocet missiles and providing information on the missiles and airplanes to the UK. Edit 2: Apparently it was an oversight, the French team in Argentina was never told to stop working. Also I guess the missile builder might have been happy to have a live fire demonstration of his products
    - nextos 7y ago
      Yes, I think it was a great ad campaign. A much inferior airforce posed serious trouble to a big power thanks to their great product. To be fair, Israel also advised Argentina on air-to-sea surface attack tactics that proved to be seriously good.
      - growlist 7y ago
        > A much inferior airforce posed serious trouble to a big power thanks to their great product. There's no denying their effectiveness in this example, but then the context was the UK was fighting a conflict halfway across the world and without air superiority. Take away either of those elements and the Super Etendards were likely to have been obliterated long before their Exocets were within range.
        nextos 7y ago
        Nobody said it was an easy conflict to fight for the UK. But Argentina was also ill prepared. They should have waited a few months till they received a whole batch of Exocets, which was already bought and in production. With many Exocets, they could have launched a saturation attack which would have caused serious damage to the British fleet. Furthermore, waiting would have meant the islands would have entered Antartic winter shortly after invasion, giving them many months to dig in and prepare for UK Task Force landings.
        noir_lord 7y ago
        It was a gamble to distract from problems at home. There where probably career officers raising all the issues you did and more but it didn’t matter. It’s interesting to speculate what thatcher would have done had the Argentines managed to sink enough ships to end the first Task Force, we where already fighting at our limits (which showed just how poor our equipment and spending was, lions lead by donkeys still applied), force project is hard, force projection for a 2nd rate power (if we class superpowers as 1st rate) at best is ridiculously hard.
smackay 7y ago
I have a vague memory that there were also problems with the Sea Wolf based defence system on the ships. The controlling software apparently recognised the incoming Exocets as friendly. I don't know if there is any credibility to this but I am sure it would have been fixed pretty rapidly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Wolf_(missile) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Wolf_(missile)
- jt2190 7y ago
  I heard something similar, I believe reported by the television news program “60 Minutes”, but the report I remember was about the Phalanx missile defense system not recognizing the Exocet as an “enemy” missile since it was a NATO weapon. Edit: Note that I’m working off of very old memories, and the 60 minutes reports may not have been accurate.
  - HeyLaughingBoy 7y ago
    FWIW, I was in high school at the time and I remember something similar.
  - NikkiA 7y ago
    None of the UK ships had Phalanx at that point in time, so it can't have been that.
- lb1lf 7y ago
  According to an army grunt friend of mine, there's a truism in his profession which goes "Friendly fire... ISN'T!" Joking aside, I would assume current IFF systems let you define anything not explicitly friendly as hostile - what with shifting alliances, armament development consolidation &c - the issue being how many backdoors there are. I take it as a given no US-made missile can kill a US-operated aircraft, regardless of what the operator of the missile desires. (Same goes for French, British, Russian &c)
  - SEJeff 7y ago
    "There are no missed shots, just some bullets containing 'To whom it may concern'".
trhway 7y ago
>I once heard unsourced speculation that the French might have given the British the scoop on how to sabotage incoming missiles. reminded by association - in the new Russian&Serbian movie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Balkan_Line https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Balkan_Line released for the 20th anniversary of the war there is a scene with the French bomb dropped on a house in Serbia and which didn't explode because it was intentionally sabotaged. Doesn’t seem to have propaganda value, and I’m wondering whether it is a play on real facts or just an artistic reference to the French resistance to the NATO bombing of civilian targets.

tyingq 7y ago

It seems they only had 5 total of the Exocets to fire. One hit the HMS Sheffield, two hit the merchant ship Atlantic Conveyor, and one hit the destroyer HMS Glamorgan. So that's 4 of the 5. I think they just ran out of missiles. https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-17256975 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-17256975 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exocet#The_Falklands_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exocet#The_Falklands_War

nextos 7y ago
It's also worth to note the hit to HMS Glamorgan required Argentina to hack a pair of Exocets to fire them from land without any cooperation from France, which was quite impressive.
- baud147258 7y ago
  I thought that some French tech support/engineers from the company building the missiles stayed in Argentina to continue their job. Same with the French people supporting the French-made airplanes. Edit: even if France supported the UK during the war, preventing the delivery of more exocet missiles and providing information on the missiles and airplanes to the UK. Edit 2: Apparently it was an oversight, the French team in Argentina was never told to stop working. Also I guess the missile builder might have been happy to have a live fire demonstration of his products
  - nextos 7y ago
    Yes, I think it was a great ad campaign. A much inferior airforce posed serious trouble to a big power thanks to their great product. To be fair, Israel also advised Argentina on air-to-sea surface attack tactics that proved to be seriously good.
    - growlist 7y ago
      > A much inferior airforce posed serious trouble to a big power thanks to their great product. There's no denying their effectiveness in this example, but then the context was the UK was fighting a conflict halfway across the world and without air superiority. Take away either of those elements and the Super Etendards were likely to have been obliterated long before their Exocets were within range.
      - nextos 7y ago
        Nobody said it was an easy conflict to fight for the UK. But Argentina was also ill prepared. They should have waited a few months till they received a whole batch of Exocets, which was already bought and in production. With many Exocets, they could have launched a saturation attack which would have caused serious damage to the British fleet. Furthermore, waiting would have meant the islands would have entered Antartic winter shortly after invasion, giving them many months to dig in and prepare for UK Task Force landings.
        noir_lord 7y ago
        It was a gamble to distract from problems at home. There where probably career officers raising all the issues you did and more but it didn’t matter. It’s interesting to speculate what thatcher would have done had the Argentines managed to sink enough ships to end the first Task Force, we where already fighting at our limits (which showed just how poor our equipment and spending was, lions lead by donkeys still applied), force project is hard, force projection for a 2nd rate power (if we class superpowers as 1st rate) at best is ridiculously hard.

smackay 7y ago

I have a vague memory that there were also problems with the Sea Wolf based defence system on the ships. The controlling software apparently recognised the incoming Exocets as friendly. I don't know if there is any credibility to this but I am sure it would have been fixed pretty rapidly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Wolf_(missile) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Wolf_(missile)

jt2190 7y ago
I heard something similar, I believe reported by the television news program “60 Minutes”, but the report I remember was about the Phalanx missile defense system not recognizing the Exocet as an “enemy” missile since it was a NATO weapon. Edit: Note that I’m working off of very old memories, and the 60 minutes reports may not have been accurate.
- HeyLaughingBoy 7y ago
  FWIW, I was in high school at the time and I remember something similar.
- NikkiA 7y ago
  None of the UK ships had Phalanx at that point in time, so it can't have been that.
lb1lf 7y ago
According to an army grunt friend of mine, there's a truism in his profession which goes "Friendly fire... ISN'T!" Joking aside, I would assume current IFF systems let you define anything not explicitly friendly as hostile - what with shifting alliances, armament development consolidation &c - the issue being how many backdoors there are. I take it as a given no US-made missile can kill a US-operated aircraft, regardless of what the operator of the missile desires. (Same goes for French, British, Russian &c)
- SEJeff 7y ago
  "There are no missed shots, just some bullets containing 'To whom it may concern'".

trhway 7y ago

>I once heard unsourced speculation that the French might have given the British the scoop on how to sabotage incoming missiles. reminded by association - in the new Russian&Serbian movie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Balkan_Line https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Balkan_Line released for the 20th anniversary of the war there is a scene with the French bomb dropped on a house in Serbia and which didn't explode because it was intentionally sabotaged. Doesn’t seem to have propaganda value, and I’m wondering whether it is a play on real facts or just an artistic reference to the French resistance to the NATO bombing of civilian targets.