WalterM140 wrote:

snip

I watched with great interest the British attack on the Falklands. It's
not
generally known, but only @ 40% of the bombs that hit Brit warships
actually
detonated.

I guess that depends on how you define 'generally known.' It's certainly
well
known among many of the readers of this NG, and even more generally known
among the
readers of s.m.n.

Sure, but 'most people' don't read this newsgroup.


They were US munitions left over from WWII.

No, they weren't. The Fuerza Aerea Argentina used British Mk. 13/18 series
1,000
lb. bombs, US. Mk. 82 500 lb. bombs (the CANA A-4s used the Snakeye retarded
version; the FAA used the slick version), and French Para-retard bombs,
either 250
or 400kg (sources differ. Photos I've seen of one of the French duds at Ajax
Bay
looks to me more like a 250 than 400 kg job.) All of these bombs are
post-WW2
vintage, with the possible exception of some of the British bombs used by the
Canberras. The Mk. 82s would definitely date from post-1965, which is when
Argentina received the first A-4s. The Mk. 82 wasn't even around in WW2, not
entering service until the mid-50s or so. I suspect the same is true for the
French para-retard weapons, if they didn't date from even later.

Thanks for the correction. I heard something else.


Reduce that dud rate to
zero and the whole Brit expeditionary force becomes POWs.

You could equally say reduce the dud rate to zero and the odds are good the
FAA
doesn't have any a/c left, because most of them have been shot down. The
reason so
few bombs detonated is because the FAA pilots had the normal instinct for
self-preservation, and usually flew as low and fast as they could to make the
job
of the defenses much harder. But this meant that bombs were often dropped
from
altitudes too low to allow sufficient time for fuse operation, so many of the
bombs
dudded, or the fuse delays were so long (to allow time for the wingmen to
clear the
target before the bombs exploded) that bombs which weren't stopped by
structure
inside the ship passed on through and out the other side before exploding.
The
whole reason for the defenses was to make the pilots more worried about
survival
than destroying their targets, thus increasing the incident of duds. CTG
317.0
(the amphibious shipping), Commodore Clapp, was very glad that the Argentine
pilots
were chosing to make level bomb runs instead of pop-up dive attacks, for just
that
reason.


Well, that's interesting, but it seems to indicate that the Brits were gambling
they could induce the Argintines to attack incorrectly. Not very prudent.

You seem to agree that if -all- the bombs had detonated the Brit supporting
force would have been reduced below a level where the invasion could have been
supported.

On the few occasions where the defensive fire was minimal, the pilots were
willing/able to climb high enough before dropping (ca. 300 feet AGL for a
slick Mk.
82) that the fuses had time to operate, and the 'dud' rate dropped off
accordingly.

Guy