by Stuart Slade
At least five of the twenty seven Sea Dart missiles launched by the three destroyers scored. More may have hit. If they did, then they were multiple strikes on the same aircraft. The stricken Skyhawks vanished in electronic flares. Their echoes faded out as the sweeping radar scans showed no tracks to be refreshed. Baxter felt Glowworm shaking under his feet, a shuddering blow that told him the ship had been hit and hit hard. The lights blinked out, then picked up again as the emergency generators cut in. Any other sounds were temporarily blanked out by the wailing of the emergency sirens. The repeated insistent “fire and rescue parties amidships” calls told of the effects of the hit.
“Number One, report to the forward bridge immediately.” The message was urgent and allowed for no delay.
“Air Warfare, take over the Operations Room.”
Baxter paused while the Air Warfare Officer slid into his seat, then took off, heading upwards and forwards to Glowworm’s bridge. When he got there, one thing was obvious. The forward bridge with its low position had paid off. Whatever else had happened, the bridge and its crew were intact.
“What happened, Sir?”
“Skyhawk hit us with two Bullpups. One’s hit the foremast and knocked out our primary radar. The other’s hit the 35mm mounts aft. We’re burning back there. I want you to go aft and take over the damage control effort. You’ll have to go back below decks. We’ve got wreckage and fires amidships and the way above decks is blocked.” Captain Foster looked grim. “The Skyhawks hit Electra as well. Bullpups and at least two bombs. She blew up; she just blew up. Still, we’re not down yet, Simon. Now get some foam on that fire aft.”
“On my way, Sir.” Baxter started his way aft, going down a level and then along through the forward mess deck. The heat was making him stream sweat. He could hear the noise of the damage control efforts over his head. The blast from the Bullpup hadn’t penetrated down here. All that he could see and hear were the secondary effects of the blast. At one point, there was a loud crash that made him think an overhead had collapsed. Whatever it was, it had taken place in the forward superstructure. Further aft, he had to head towards the ship’s centerline since the boxes of the vertical launch system were blocking the way along the ship’s sides. Ordnance crews were already checking the missiles that were left, making sure they were ready to be fired when the next wave or Argentine aircraft struck. There would be another wave; Baxter was sure of that.
He could feel the heat rising further. He climbed upwards, emerging on to the open deck by the wreckage of the 35mm mounts. Both were gone, shattered. It looked as if the fiberglass weather shields had just disintegrated when the blast from the missile had hit them. Around them, the damage control teams were spraying foam on a fire around the aft superstructure. It looked as if the Bullpup had hit the bottom section of the aft tower mast. The mast structure was twisted and hanging drunkenly to one side, its radar inert. Instinctively, Baxter looked around for a Chief Petty Officer to get an accurate picture of what was going on.
The nearest CPO had seen the officer arrive and knew what he would need. By the time Baxter had made his brief inspection of the area, the CPO had a concise report ready for him.
“No sweat, Sir. We’ve got this one under control Could have been a lot worse. A few feet forward and we would have taken the hit in the missile silos. Then we’d have gone up just like Electra did.”
“Just like Electra.” Baxter looked at the work in progress. One of the fires was out. The hose teams had switched to water to cool the area down and prevent reignition. Across the hull, around the starboard 35mm mount, the other team was putting the final coat of foam down. That fire too was dying. Then he looked forward. The damage to the foremast was less spectacular, but it was obvious their primary radar was out.
The CPO saw where Baxter was looking. “Funny they got both our radars, wasn’t it, Sir. Reckon those Bullpups were radar-homing?”
Baxter glanced around. In his experience, when a CPO engaged in speculative conversation with an officer, it was because there was something going on he wasn’t supposed to see. That called for a quick value judgment. Was it better to go on not seeing it or should he find out what was going on. I can’t see anything wrong or irregular, better to let sleeping dogs snore undisturbed. “Could be, Chief. There are radar-homing variants of Bullpup but it might be that the missiles just homed in on the most prominent parts of the ship. Whatever it was, they’ve taken us right out of the battle. We’ve lost both 35mm mounts, both sets of radars and the Seawolf launchers forward aren’t looking too healthy. We’re down to our four-inch gun and the Rotodyne. Still, we can hunt subs with that I suppose. And we’re still secure below the waterline.”
“There’s that, Sir.” The CPO didn’t seem that convinced. Looking around him at the mess the two Bullpups had created, Baxter could understand why.
One of the ratings from the damage control group ran up and started to report. He began to address the CPO, but a discrete wave redirected him to Baxter. “Remaining fire is out Sir. We’re putting more foam down and cooling off with seawater, but it’s out. Just making sure it won’t reignite.”
“We’re pretty much done here, Sir. It’s all tying up the loose ends now. I hope they’re on top of things over there.” The CPO waved off to port. Baxter turned and saw that Glorious had been hit as well. She was listing and there was an ominous pyre of black smoke rising from her hull. “Damn, they got her as well. I thought we had them licked.”
Flag Bridge, HMS Glorious, North East of the Falkland Islands
“Damage report?” Lanning snapped the question out. The Argentine Skyhawks, what was left of them, had vanished leaving chaos behind them. Electra was gone. Glowworm was hit and burning. That much he could see. What Lanning needed to know was how badly Glorious had been hurt.
“We’re on top of it, Admiral.” Captain Wales was smoke and dirt-stained but he had the situation on his ship under control. “Our first priority is to get the wrecked Skyhawk off our flight deck. As soon as we do that, we can bring the fighters in. I’ve got the handling crane pushing most of the wreckage over the side. The deck crew are picking up the smaller pieces and throwing them over.”
Lanning grunted. That had been one of the more nerve-racking parts of the attack. A Skyhawk had been hit by a MOG missile from Eclipse and sent skittering through the sky. The heavy warheads the Ozwalds liked to build into their weapons should have taken the little Skyhawk right out of the sky. Somehow the pilot had kept going long enough to unload his bombs. One of the thousand pounders had landed in the sea alongside Glorious’s aft quarter. Another had hit the flight deck aft and slid off without exploding. The Argentine pilot had deserved better luck, especially since his aircraft, even without the weight of its bombs, had simply run out of altitude and airspace. It had slammed onto the flight deck aft, slid across it and then hung up on the port aft four inch battery.
The pilot had ejected and come down on the flight deck a bit further forward. He’s been detained by the crew who had got him down to the sick bay, suffering from broken legs as a result of his hard landing on the steel deck. His rescue might have counted as being fortunate for him had it not been for one of his wing-mates who had put two one-thousand pound bombs into Glorious’s midships section. One bomb had set the starboard boat storage area on fire. The other had pierced the side plating and exploded in the sick bay. The Argentine pilot was presumably one of the dead in there. The compartment devastation was such that nobody who’d been in it was ever likely to be identified.
Glorious had taken two more very near misses just forward of the island. They were the ones that were causing all the real problems. They had exploded underwater; the mining effect had opened up seams in the ship’s side and caused enough flooding to give the ship a marked list. The damage control teams were trying to establish a flooding boundary. Once they’d done that, work could start on bringing the ship back to an even keel. That brought a question to Lanning’s mind.
“
Can we bring them in with this list? And how many are there?”
“It will be a difficult landing, but yes. We’re within limits for bringing aircraft in. We’ve got seven Sea Mirages waiting to land. The pilots are singing ‘why are we waiting’ over the radio.”
“Seven out of sixteen?” Lanning knew that the Sea Mirages had had a hard fight but the final figure was still shocking.
“Preliminary count is that the fighters got six Crusaders and six Skyhawks. The missile ships got six more and we got one with our four inchers. Five got away, three trailing smoke. We didn’t do badly, Admiral.”
A destroyer exploded, another one crippled and the carrier hit. Nine fighters down, more casualties still to come in when our own strike gets there. If this isn’t doing badly, what is the final butcher’s bill going to look like?
“Thank you. Carry on, Charles.” Lanning turned away and stared out of his bridge windows at the work on the flight deck aft. He saw the deck crews clearing away and the first of the surviving Sea Mirages coming into land. Glorious was still in business. For how much longer was a good question.
Super-Crusader 3-A-204. Over the South Atlantic
“Here they come.” There were three enemy formations approaching, one group accelerating ahead of the rest. That would be the fighters coming in as a preliminary sweep. Lieutenant Anton Marko thought. The other two groups would be the bombers running in behind them. They could wait for a minute or two, the first priority would be to bring down the enemy fighters. Then shooting down the unarmed Buccaneers would be a formality. He glanced down at his radar display, the fighters were already spreading out but there were only four of them. This strike was virtually unescorted. His radar warning receiver went frantic as his fighter was designated and the sky filled with radar homing missiles. A dozen or so AIM-7Es heading out; about the same number of R-530s coming in.
Marko firewalled the throttles, feeling the thrust of the J-93 engine behind him send his speed soaring. The problem was that the narrow scan on his radar meant he couldn’t turn much or he would lose the paint on his selected target and his missile would miss. The Sea Mirages he was targeting had a much greater degree of freedom in that respect and they were already turning to take advantage of it. Marko had to rely on his jammer and the chaff his aircraft was already strewing in its wake to protect him against the British missiles. To his relief, the missile threatening him either malfunctioned or was seduced by the countermeasures. It missed by a wide margin. Three of his squadron mates weren’t so lucky. Their dark blue F9Us vanished in fireballs almost in the same instant as two of the British fighters blew up. Twelve aircraft against four had just become nine against two.
Freed of the need to guide his missile to its target, Marko pulled the control column back into his stomach and let his fighter climb. This was something the British fighters couldn’t even begin to match. His mind held a picture of them turning below him. He rolled his Super-Crusader on to its back and then dropped, seeing the two slate gray Mirages far below him. He felt his vision starting to blur as he dived on them, watching with frustration as three fighters closer than his closed in first. They swept in behind the two Sea Mirages but the two British fighters suddenly turned towards each other. They racked themselves around in tight banks. Two of the Super-Crusaders broke away but the third tried to press home his attack. He picked one of the fighters but in doing so he opened himself to the other. A radar homing missile took the aft section of his fighter apart. The pilot punched out as his aircraft disintegrated around him.
The tight turn had left the pair of British fighters wallowing. Marko realized that his late dive had been a blessing in disguise. His AIM-9s were already locked on and he fired a pair of them. Both guided perfectly to their target. The stricken Sea Mirage turned end-over-end, streaming white vapor as it broke up and burned. The nine Argentine fighters converged on the single remaining Sea Mirage.
“Forget him; get the bombers.” The fighter controller shouted the orders into the earphones of the pilots. They peeled away and started to turn towards the nearest of the Buccaneer groups. Only, they’d vanished from the radar picture. Marko picked them up visually; not by direct sight of the aircraft but by the white streaks they were leaving on the water behind them. The British bombers had dropped down so they were skimming only a few feet above the waves. They hadn’t dropped any speed in doing so and they had already pulled far ahead of the pursuing fighters.
That didn’t disturb the Argentine pilots. They had a 1,200 mph speed advantage over the Buccaneers. They closed the difference quickly, leaving a single Sea Mirage behind them to escape back to Glorious. Marko locked one of his AIM-7 Sparrow missiles on to a Buccaneer, then fired it as he dived down to intercept the bombers. It missed, hopelessly, exploding in the sea far behind the racing Buccaneer. Marko cursed and fired again. He watched helplessly as his second Sparrow follow the first. That was when he realized what was wrong. His radar was locking on to the cloud of spray behind the bombers. By now, he was closing on them fast. He flipped over to his remaining pair of ALM-9 Sidewinders.
As if they had sensed his intentions, the Buccaneers dropped even lower, nestling into the waves that were now barely a few feet underneath them. To his frustration, Marko realized he wasn’t getting an annunciator tone from his missiles. The same spray cloud that had foxed his Sparrows was shielding the engine exhausts from the infra-red homing systems on the AIM-9s. Worse, his Crusader was being bounced all over the sky by the turbulence this close to the sea. The F9U was like all American aircraft; optimized to fly high and very fast. Down here, a few feet above the waves, the shocks reflected from the sea surface were literally shaking his aircraft to pieces. Marko started to fire short bursts from his four 20mm cannon as he closed on his chosen target. He could see the tracers going wild as his aircraft bounced at critical moments in the attack run. He felt like screaming in frustration. This was a totally different kind of environment from the stately, choreographed battles he and his fellow pilots had trained for.
Finally, his gunsight settled on the Buccaneer for a few seconds. He got in a quick burst that finally, eventually, struck home. He saw the Buccaneer lurch, fragments flying from its fuselage, but to his utter disbelief the damaged aircraft kept flying. He was within the danger zone now, the area where missiles from the destroyers would be targeting him as well as the hostile bombers. He had to make one last effort to put the infuriating British bomber down. He was lined up for another burst and finally managed to get it off. This time, the bomber didn’t survive. It hit the sea below, bounced high into the air and broke up. Marko saw the two ejector seats going skywards and the white blossom of parachutes forming. By then he was climbing away from the pounding nightmare a few feet above the sea, and getting back to where his fighter was happy.
Argentine Aircraft Carrier Veinticinco de Mayo
Vice-Admiral Juan Lombardo swore to himself. The fighters had taken their own sweet time about it but they had knocked down three of the eight inbound Buccaneers. The other five were angled away from his aircraft carrier; apparently heading for two members of his screen. A quick glance at the plot confirmed that. They would pass ahead of him and hit the destroyers Cordoba and Rivadavia. The Rivadavia was already spitting missiles at the five inbound bombers. She’d put a dozen Folgore missiles into the air. Lombardo felt like cheering when two of them sent Buccaneers spinning into the sea. His delight was short-lived because one of the three surviving bombers let fly with a salvo of four missiles. The other two were also firing missiles but singly. That told him they were Bullpups. The four missiles were an entirely different matter. Lombardo realized they had to be anti-radar weapons. Rivadavia’s Captain must have made the same conclusion but the missiles were too fast and the range too short. The missile destroyer’s superstructure vanished beneath the four explosions and her missile fire ceased instantly. Lombardo knew she was out of the game for a long time to come.
The Cordoba was thumping away with her old, slow-
firing 5.3-inch guns but they were anti-ship weapons and their use against the low-flying bombers was hopeful in the extreme. The other gun destroyer out there was the Hippofyte Bouchard. She was an old American DDK Gearing, accompanying the fleet to provide anti-submarine cover. She had four five inch guns and six three inch, for all the good they would do her. One of the Buccaneers was heading for her. Lombardo winced as a Bullpup plowed into her bridge. Another Bullpup was heading for Cordoba, but the old ship brought it down with her 47mm guns. Her luck held. The Buccaneer heading for her actually flew between her funnels but the salvo of retarded bombs was badly late and exploded well beyond her. Must have been a release failure, the bombs hung on their ranks for some reason.
Rivadavia wasn’t so lucky. Already hurt by the Martel missiles that had gutted her fire control systems, the four one-thousand pounders bracketed her beautifully. One went into the water just short, two slammed into her midships section and the third was just over. By the time the water subsided, Lombardo could see the ominous sight of her wallowing. Her bows and stern moved differently. Any seaman’s eye would realize that her back had been broken by the blasts. Hippolyte Bouchard was better off, but only just. An older ship, built in an American yard, she was tougher than the more modern Italian-built ships. The bomb hits hadn’t been quite so devastating. They’d gone aft; that had helped as well. The destroyer’s stern guns were a shambled mess and the structure there was burning, but Lombardo could already see that the damage wasn’t fatal.
“Admiral, look!” The cry from the bridge wings caused Lombardo’s head to snap around. Another formation of eight Buccaneers was heading in. This one had got past the fighter screen untouched. They appeared to be heading for a group of four destroyers; the missile destroyers Cervantes and Juan de Garay and another pair of Gearing DDKs. For a moment, Lombardo felt a sense of relief that inbound bombers would have to get past the four ships first. Something about the flight paths disturbed him. It took him a split second to realize what it was. When the realization struck home, he knew he had missed something very important. The Buccaneers aren’t trying to get past the screening destroyers to their primary target. The screening ships are their primary target. He watched while Cervantes and Juan de Garay started pumping out missiles, sending more than two dozen at the inbound formation. Three Buccaneers went down, but the inevitable was already under way. The anti-radar missiles were already launched and they were fire-and-forget weapons. It didn’t matter to them that their launching aircraft was already fragments sinking in the chilled waters of the South Atlantic. They were locked in on the fire control radars of the two missile ships.
