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#181
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Presidente Alcazar wrote:
On 31 Mar 2004 18:51:14 -0800, (Guy alcala) wrote: Typically spurious rationale advanced to justify further slef-indulgent PC equipment purchases to a sceptical wife. I will deny, to the last breath in my body, that my rationale is spurious, that I'm being self-indulgent, and that I have a wife, sceptical or otherwise. For most unmarried men, the bank manager performs a similar function when it comes to quashing fond dreams with the icy blast of stern disapproval, backed by desolate financial reality. I'm a simple man, Senyor Presidente (how does one get a tilde over an n in text-only?) I don't require the latest and most expensive, just what works. As it happens, a friend knew of a friend of his who had a 17" monitor he'd been meaning to get rid of, and who gave it to me. My old monitor was a 15" and 17" is bigger than I need (my friend even offered me his 22" monitor gratis as he's upgrading, but I have absolutely nowhere to put such a behemoth). You can't get 15" monitors nowadays and besides, who am I to look a gift in the mouth. Turns out the thing wouldn't turn on when I got it home, so back to square one. And then, while I was out on a walk this afternoon, not three blocks from my place I came upon a computer desk with a NEC 17" monitor sitting on top of it on the curb, with a hand-printed sign reading "Free" on a piece of cardboard. Hustling home I got my car and brought the monitor home, plugged it in and connected it up, and I'm back in business. It's not quite as clear as my old monitor, but it works just fine, and the price was right. ;-) It's nice to live so close to Silicon Valley and be surrounded by large numbers of people who find getting rid of their "old", now worthless (for such is the pace of change) but perfectly functional monitors to be a major hassle, and who ask nothing more of you than that you take it off their hands. Now all I've got to do is get rid of two broken monitors ;-) Guy |
#182
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Peter Twydell wrote:
snip Last monitor that failed on me just emitted a plume of smoke and a nasty smell, but no flames, I'm glad to say. Nasty smell is right. Long after I'd shut it off the smell was still very strong, leading me to suspect that it was toxic and/or that there was some insulation still smoldering inside. Since it was a bit cold that night, and leaving the window and front door open to get maximum flow through was a bad option, I finally just stuck the whole thing outside. I don't know what kind of chemicals are in that stuff, but I know I don't want to breathe it. Guy |
#183
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Guy Alcala wrote:
Now all I've got to do is get rid of two broken monitors ;-) Guy Should have brought your broken monitors back and set them on the desk there... -- -Gord. |
#184
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"Gord Beaman" ) wrote in
: Should have brought your broken monitors back and set them on the desk there... You're a bad man. A very bad man! -- Regards Drewe "Better the pride that resides In a citizen of the world Than the pride that divides When a colourful rag is unfurled" |
#185
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" wrote:
Guy Alcala wrote: Now all I've got to do is get rid of two broken monitors ;-) Guy Should have brought your broken monitors back and set them on the desk there... Don't think it hadn't occurred to me;-) But I figure, considering what the "new" one cost me I can certainly afford the minor inconvenience of taking these two in for recycling/refurbishment. Guy |
#186
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On Mon, 05 Apr 2004 21:26:21 GMT, Guy Alcala
wrote: Now all I've got to do is get rid of two broken monitors ;-) Should have brought your broken monitors back and set them on the desk there... Don't think it hadn't occurred to me;-) But I figure, considering what the "new" one cost me I can certainly afford the minor inconvenience of taking these two in for recycling/refurbishment. Au contraire. What you actually need to do is install them on a desk in an art gallery, and give them a title like "The Destiny of Commuter Hope - A commentary on the intersection of technology and society in the 21st century". Don't forget to grow a goatee, though. And drop the surname. Then flog it for ten thousand dollars as a challenging, contemporary modern art installation. Further valuable contemporary art pointers can be secured by ordering my handbook for followers of my movement, "The Haroshivi Post-Modernist Disruptivist Movement" (Emperor's New Clothes Publishers, 2004). Send your cheques for $29.99 to "Contemporary Art Schooling and Help" (or just "CASH" for short) at the usual address. Remember, this reference book is not available in the shops. Coming soon: "JSF: Military-Industrial White Elephant or Triumph of 21st-Century Conceptual Art?". Gavin Bailey -- Now see message: "Boot sector corrupt. System halted. All data lost." Spend thousands of dollar on top grade windows system. Result better than expected. What your problem? - Bart Kwan En |
#187
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Presidente Alcazar wrote:
On Mon, 05 Apr 2004 21:26:21 GMT, Guy Alcala wrote: Now all I've got to do is get rid of two broken monitors ;-) Should have brought your broken monitors back and set them on the desk there... Don't think it hadn't occurred to me;-) But I figure, considering what the "new" one cost me I can certainly afford the minor inconvenience of taking these two in for recycling/refurbishment. Au contraire. What you actually need to do is install them on a desk in an art gallery, and give them a title like "The Destiny of Commuter Hope - A commentary on the intersection of technology and society in the 21st century". I haven't decided which I prefer among these three: "Man's crisis of identity in the latter half of the twentieth century," "The Idiot in Society," or "Archaeology Today".* Don't forget to grow a goatee, though. And drop the surname. Then flog it for ten thousand dollars as a challenging, contemporary modern art installation. Just as long as I don't have to lie writhing on the desk in my underwear while smearing myself with human excrement and rhythmically burping. I draw the line at performance art ;-) But can't I keep the surname and lose the first name? If a Spanish surname was good enough for Dali, it's good enough for me. Further valuable contemporary art pointers can be secured by ordering my handbook for followers of my movement, "The Haroshivi Post-Modernist Disruptivist Movement" (Emperor's New Clothes Publishers, 2004). Send your cheques for $29.99 to "Contemporary Art Schooling and Help" (or just "CASH" for short) at the usual address. Remember, this reference book is not available in the shops. Coming soon: "JSF: Military-Industrial White Elephant or Triumph of 21st-Century Conceptual Art?". Say, didn't you co-author "Semiotic Deconstruction of Social-semiotically Constructed Reality"? Guy *Bonus points for recognizing the source of these. |
#188
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Evan has apparently declined my offer to analyse Moro's claim below for
accuracy (to absolutely no one's surprise), so to amuse myself I'll do so, to show just how easy it is to disprove it, based on the technical minutiae that Evan apparently finds so difficult to deal with. For those who don't have access to Moro, here's his account of the Dagger attack on June 8th, verbatim. My notes and interjections are in square brackets, although I have resisted the temptation to make comments about Moro's overly dramatic (for what purports to be a history) prose: "The Mystery of the Frigate Plymouth. "Just after all hell had broken loose in the wake of the A4-B [Sic. A-4B] blitz [on Sir Tristram and Galahad at Port Pleasant], two formations of Mirage-Vs Daggers, code-named Perro (Dog) and Gato (Cat), screamed in over Pleasant Bay [False; they were over Falkland Sound, ca. 50 miles to the NW], bristling with 500-pound bombs [some of the mission pilots agree, others say 1,000 lbers], gunners' trigger fingers at the ready on 30mm cannon. They bore in from the west, and as they came in, they spotted a frigate in the inlet that was going to great lengths to conceal its presence. But it proved to be too late. The planes hugged the elevations around Pleasant Peninsula [False: see above], then lunged for the prey, coming in at 30 deg. on both the bow and the port side. Again bombs fell and cannons blazed as they made their attack run over the hapless vessel, whose gunners cut loose with everything they had in a vain attempt to drop their tormentors from the skies. The attackers returned to base without a single loss [True]. Where had the British CAPs been at the moment of truth? Something was strangely amiss with the Sea Harriers [This inference is part of Moro's claim that both Hermes and Invincible had been hit and damaged by AAF bombs/CANA Exocets, for which the evidence Moro uses is even more tenuous than for this case]. "The wounded frigate turned and, making slow headway (three knots), left the bay on an easterly heading. Apparently, four of the eight bombs hit the ship's structure [True]. Initial reports from Great Britain indicated that none of them detonated, but later reports from the same sources told a different tale [False. None detonated, although one set off a depth charge]. "At the same time, the armed forces' operations electronic center [in Stanley] picked up a source of infrared radiation, similar to that given off by a vessel afire, in the Falkland Sound area [Sure, they did! See end of post]. There was no logical explanation for this, since there had been no Argentine attacks in that area [False]. Then, unexpectedly [only to Moro], Hastings and Jenkins revealed in late 1983 that the Rothesay class frigate Plymouth had been attacked by Argentine aircraft (Mirage-V and A4-B) at the exact point where radiation had been detected in Falkland Sound. A later publication [also 1983 according to my copy] (Ethel [Sic.] and Price) re-states the Plymouth's position at the same location. "What really happened? British officials seemed to waffle in the days immediately following the June 8 attack. Argentine analysts could be certain only of the events reported by their own men: that a Class [Sic. Type] 12 frigate had sustained an attack in Pleasant Bay by air-launched 500-pound bombs. This was confirmed by aerial photographs [he is presumably referring to gun camera film from the Daggers rather than post-strike recon photos, as no such missions were flown to the area]. Data provided on the attack against the frigate [presumably the one supposedly attacked in Pleasant Bay] report serious damage [overstates the case] by the bombs from the Mirage-Vs which had not been revealed by the infrared radiation, thus agreeing with the original British report [of the attack on HMS Plymouth in Falkland Sound] that the bombs had failed to detonate." "The process of deduction has enabled the following events to be surmised [here's where he really steps off the edge into fantasy based on wishful thinking]: 1. The frigate targeted by the Daggers in Pleasant Bay was similar to the Plymouth. One of the Argentine pilots saw the Marks F-16 during the attack, indicating that the frigate would be the HMS Diomede (similar to the Plymouth) [we'll be back to this]. 2. The Plymouth may have fallen victim to a mistaken attack by a Harrier squadron flying cover against Argentine troops at Port Howard, under adverse weather conditions and poor visibility [nice of him to admit that those were the conditions]. "The Royal Navy has sought to explain the events by attributing to Argentine Flyers 'an understandable navigational error,' which is not borne out becauseof the distances involved and the pinpoint precision of the Mirage-V's navigation system." I then summarized these claims and asked Evan to analyse them, as follows: You have Moro, and from references you've made to it, you apparently also have "Air War South Atlantic." Using those two sources plus any others you wish (you'll want to use a good naval reference like Jane's, Conway's etc. for the era), why don't you analyse for us Moro's claim that: 1. The Dagger attack on June 8th hit a frigate other than HMS Plymouth (Moro suggests HMS Diomede, owing to a pilot's claim that he saw "F 16" on the ship), 2. That said frigate was off Port Pleasant rather than in Falkland Sound when attacked, 3. That Plymouth, which he agrees was in Falkland Sound, must have been hit by a British air attack, 4. And that IR emissions from said frigate were detected from the Argentine Ops Center (presumably in Port Stanley)? Okay, how long does it take to determine, using only the three sources I mentioned above and which Moro certainly had available to him, whether his claims are valid? Not counting the time to retrieve the books from the shelf, library or what have you, I estimate between 30 seconds and one minute. Let's start with the simplest part first - Moro agrees that Plymouth was attacked while in Falkland Sound, indeed she was only a little way outside San Carlos Water on her way to an NGS mission of West Falkland when she was attacked. Numerous photos of her show her burning as she retreats back into San Carlos Water, so her position is agreed by all sides. Moro claims that the Daggers were absolutely sure of their position and attacked a frigate in Pleasant Bay, and no Argentine attack, by Daggers or any other a/c, was made on a ship in Falkland Sound that day. Further, he claims that the ship attacked was a "Class 12" frigate, and that one of the pilots saw "F-16" on the ship, indicating it was HMS Diomede. Let's ignore the information (which Moro had available to him in "Falklands: The Air War") that Diomede didn't deploy to the South Atlantic until well after the war was over; for the sake of argument we'll assume that British claims to that effect are all part of the big cover-up Moro charges the Brits with. So, what proof do with have from the Argentine side as to what ship was attacked by the Daggers that day? Their gunsight camera film, of course, which Moro cites as proof. Fortunately for us, still frames of that film have been widely released by the AAF and published in numerous sources, including one photo in "Air War South Atlantic". And here's where Moro's claim falls completely apart. The frigate in the Dagger gunsights is very clearly a Rothesay class, of which only two were with the task force at the time, Plymouth and Yarmouth. Even assuming HMS Diomede was in the South Atlantic at the time, it can't be her, because Diomede was a broad-beam Leander. The difference between the two classes is instantly recognizable from the beam, which is the angle all the attacks were made, as shown by the gun camera film. The photo in "AWSA" is cropped so only the section of the ship from the turret aft to the funnel is visible, but that's more than enough. Rothesay class ships have the funnel just aft of the mast and raked slightly aft, the two forming a noticeable V at the base. Leanders have the funnel well aft of the mast (guesstimating 30-50 feet), and the funnel is vertical not raked. In the gun camera photos, the funnel and mast are together, and the latter is raked. In gun camera photos available in other sources the other recognition features are plainly visible - Rothesays have the weather deck stepped-down aft of the Limbo mortar, while in Leanders the deck continues level all the way to the stern. Unmodified broad-beam Leanders like Diomede have a mainmast aft mounting a Type 965 radar; Rothesays lack both mast (well, they have a sort of stump) and radar. The ship in the photos has a stepped down weather deck, and no mainmast or Type 965. In other words, the Dagger gunsight photos are conclusive as to the ship type they attacked, and it was a Rothesay, not a Leander like Diomede. Unless, of course, Moro wants to contend that his own side was participating with the British in the great conspiracy to cover up British losses ;-) What about the "F-16" one of the pilots believed he saw? British frigates and destroyers had painted out their hull-side pennant numbers during the war (HMS Yarmouth seems to have been an exception, as her port-side pennant number "F101" is visible in photos taken while she was alongside the sinking HMS Ardent), apparently leaving their pennant numbers only on the counter. As an aside, the AAF released gun camera film of the Dagger attack on Broadsword on 21 May, where they apparently 'added' a pennant number, F08, to the picture. Unfortunately for Argentine credibility, that number had last been used in the 1960s by HMS Urania; Broadsword's own pennant number was F88. Of course, the Brits _could_ have painted a false pennant number on her themselves, but normal practice was to just paint them out entirely, and besides, she could be identified from her sister Brilliant by the difference in her funnel, number or no number. This was definitely a case where they should have left well enough alone. Getting back on track, we know the ship wasn't Diomede (or any other Leander), so how could the pilot have thought he saw "F-16"? I'll point out that the attacks were made at speeds between 550-575 knots, at an angle to the ship, the pilots were being shot at, and the ship was making quite a lot of smoke, not exactly conditions conducive to reading a number accurately. And yet, the pilot did a pretty good job -- HMS Plymouth's pennant number was F126, and the photo of her at anchor in San Carlos Water shortly after the attack appears to show that the '2' has been somewhat worn away. It's a bit hard to say for sure because funnel smoke and possibly smoke from the fire is drifting across the stern, making the number hard to see at all, at least in the print in the book. Finally, getting back to the "big coverup" theory of Moro, couldn't it be that there were more Rothesays in the theater during the war than the Brits admitted, and it was one of _those_ which was attacked in Port Pleasant? A reasonable question, except for the gun camera photos and the numerous photos taken of the damage to HMS Plymouth, immediately after the attack. In every still frame I've seen of the attack on Plymouth, including the one reprinted in "AWSA", a hole can be seen in the after end of the funnel about half way up, made by one of the bombs (which passed through without exploding) of the first Dagger to attack. So, we know that whichever Rothesay they attacked, it will have that entrance hole in the funnel, and also show signs of the bomb's exit on the other side. AWSA has three photos related to the attack; the gun camera still mentioned above, and two photos showing the damage to Plymouth immediately after she'd anchored in San Carlos Water shortly after the attack, both of which, including a closeup of the funnel, show the hole in the funnel and the damage made by the bomb's exit. But maybe the ship was hit in Port Pleasant, then steamed around to San Carlos Water? At the 3 knots that Moro claims, that would be quite a feat to get there in daylight, as it's well over 90nm by sea -- even at 28 knots they couldn't make it given the time the attack occurred. In short, the total time needed to analyse and disprove Moro's claim, based primarily on evidence from _his own side_ along with other sources he used, was considerably less than the time it took you to read the above. And that ignores Commodore Clapp's account (which hadn't been published when Moro wrote his book) that no frigate was anywhere near Port Pleasant at the time, because Clapp didn't feel they could add anything to the defense beyond a couple of 20 or 40mm guns, owing to the short warning time and surrounding terrain that would prevent radar-guided weapons from working; it would just be another target. Clapp also said that he'd tasked Plymouth with a NGS mission against a target in West Falkland, that he'd wanted her to stay inside the headlands of the entrance to SCW to keep her inside the AA defenses, but her Captain had decided he preferred a firing position outside it. There are numerous other sources which Moro failed to use or didn't have access to at the time, which just pile proof on proof as to the British version of events rather than Moro's being the correct one. For instance, what about Moro's claim that the Daggers couldn't have been in Falkland Sound, owing to the pinpoint precision of their navigation system? While some French built Mirage 5s had INS or Doppler nav systems, the Israeli-built Daggers don't seem to have had anything like that at the time. Here's Salvador Mafe' Huertas, who interviewed several Grupo 6 pilots, describing their fit at the time of the war in "Dassault Mirage III/V": "The equipment was fairly basic, with VOR, DME, ILS and an Israeli-developed RWR . . . At the beginning of 1982, the FAA [Fuerza Aerea Argentina; I've used AAF for them to avoid confusion with the British FAA] was working with the Israelis on a plan to update and modernize its Daggers, but the whole scheme was brought to an abrupt halt by the Argentine occupation of a little-known group of islands in the South Atlantic." This upgrade did eventually come about, known as the "Finger" program, completed in several stages finishing up with Finger IIIB. It included an INS. So it appears that the Daggers lacked "pin-point" navigation capability at the time; even the best INS at the time would drift ca. 1 mile/hr, not enough to put them in Falkland Sound instead of ca. 50 miles away in Port Pleasant, but "pin-point" only in relative terms. VOR/TACAN is line of sight, so that's out of the question on the deck even if they hadn't been well out of range. Further indication of their lack of onboard navigation systems, if that were needed, is provided by the following account of the mission in Mafe' Huertas, describing the lead up to the attack: "The five remaining a/c [one Dagger had suffered a bird-strike just after take-off] were joined by Learjet TC-23 [Sic. T-23. Trasnports that were primarily used or modified for cargo hauling added the 'C' after the 'T' -- the Lears were just plain 'T', as contemporary photos show] of Grupo 1 de Aerofotografico, which would act as pathfinder, _using its state of the art navigation system [Omega and INS] to guide the formation towards the south-west coast of West Falkland_ [my emphasis]. From there, the Daggers would establish a northwest heading towards Falkland Sound, intending later to turn east, crossing southern east Falkland to make the attack from the west. The weather began to deteriorate, and in order to avoid the worst of the low cloud, rain and snow squalls, the formation deviated slightly from from the planned route. Crossing Falkland Sound on their north-easterly heading they were amazed to find the Type 12 frigate [actually Rothesay class, but they were slightly modified Type 12s, the Whitby class], HMS Plymouth (F 126)." Surprise having been lost for an attack in Port Pleasant, they decided to attack her instead. Finally, we come to Moro's most ludicrous claim of all regarding this incident: "At the same time, the armed forces' operations electronic center [in Stanley] picked up a source of infrared radiation, similar to that given off by a vessel afire, in the Falkland Sound area." I wrote in an earlier post that this one could be argued (more accurately, debunked) based on basic physical phenomena. I leave it to the rest of you to evaluate the likelihood of some kind of IR sensor being able to detect a ship on fire, when the detector is located at least 50nm away from the supposed fire, with no direct line of sight to it (lots of several hundred foot high hills in the way), and the weather is low cloud, rain and snow squalls, i.e. lots of moisture in the air to absorb IR radiation and reduce the range to near zero. So, if any of you are tempted to read Ruben Moro's "The History of the South Atlantic Conflict," you're now aware of the effort Moro put in establishing the 'truth' of his more unlikely claims. Objective history, it ain't, but it does serve to illustrate the mindset of nationalist partisans like Moro. He reminds me of Venik, Mikhael Petukhov, et al., but at least Moro was an actual participant in the war (he was a Lt. Col. at the time flying C-130s, possibly including some missions into Stanley). Guy |
#189
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I don't know if its heplfull but a Workmate of mine served aboard HMS
Plymouth during the conflict and has in the past related to me this tale of when they were attacked by the daggers, the bomb hits and the depth charge being triggered - i guess something like this would tend to stick in your memory!! He also said something about them bringing down an A4. There is A4 wreckage in the museum that the Plymouth now is. I'll have to give him a call and see if he can give me a few more details BTW HMS Plymouth is now part of the Historic Warships Collection in Birkenhead UK along with HMS Onyx, a Diesel Sub that also took part in the conflict. Lee Hutch "Guy Alcala" wrote in message . .. Evan has apparently declined my offer to analyse Moro's claim below for accuracy (to absolutely no one's surprise), so to amuse myself I'll do so, to show just how easy it is to disprove it, based on the technical minutiae that Evan apparently finds so difficult to deal with. For those who don't have access to Moro, here's his account of the Dagger attack on June 8th, verbatim. My notes and interjections are in square brackets, although I have resisted the temptation to make comments about Moro's overly dramatic (for what purports to be a history) prose: "The Mystery of the Frigate Plymouth. "Just after all hell had broken loose in the wake of the A4-B [Sic. A-4B] blitz [on Sir Tristram and Galahad at Port Pleasant], two formations of Mirage-Vs Daggers, code-named Perro (Dog) and Gato (Cat), screamed in over Pleasant Bay [False; they were over Falkland Sound, ca. 50 miles to the NW], bristling with 500-pound bombs [some of the mission pilots agree, others say 1,000 lbers], gunners' trigger fingers at the ready on 30mm cannon. They bore in from the west, and as they came in, they spotted a frigate in the inlet that was going to great lengths to conceal its presence. But it proved to be too late. The planes hugged the elevations around Pleasant Peninsula [False: see above], then lunged for the prey, coming in at 30 deg. on both the bow and the port side. Again bombs fell and cannons blazed as they made their attack run over the hapless vessel, whose gunners cut loose with everything they had in a vain attempt to drop their tormentors from the skies. The attackers returned to base without a single loss [True]. Where had the British CAPs been at the moment of truth? Something was strangely amiss with the Sea Harriers [This inference is part of Moro's claim that both Hermes and Invincible had been hit and damaged by AAF bombs/CANA Exocets, for which the evidence Moro uses is even more tenuous than for this case]. "The wounded frigate turned and, making slow headway (three knots), left the bay on an easterly heading. Apparently, four of the eight bombs hit the ship's structure [True]. Initial reports from Great Britain indicated that none of them detonated, but later reports from the same sources told a different tale [False. None detonated, although one set off a depth charge]. "At the same time, the armed forces' operations electronic center [in Stanley] picked up a source of infrared radiation, similar to that given off by a vessel afire, in the Falkland Sound area [Sure, they did! See end of post]. There was no logical explanation for this, since there had been no Argentine attacks in that area [False]. Then, unexpectedly [only to Moro], Hastings and Jenkins revealed in late 1983 that the Rothesay class frigate Plymouth had been attacked by Argentine aircraft (Mirage-V and A4-B) at the exact point where radiation had been detected in Falkland Sound. A later publication [also 1983 according to my copy] (Ethel [Sic.] and Price) re-states the Plymouth's position at the same location. "What really happened? British officials seemed to waffle in the days immediately following the June 8 attack. Argentine analysts could be certain only of the events reported by their own men: that a Class [Sic. Type] 12 frigate had sustained an attack in Pleasant Bay by air-launched 500-pound bombs. This was confirmed by aerial photographs [he is presumably referring to gun camera film from the Daggers rather than post-strike recon photos, as no such missions were flown to the area]. Data provided on the attack against the frigate [presumably the one supposedly attacked in Pleasant Bay] report serious damage [overstates the case] by the bombs from the Mirage-Vs which had not been revealed by the infrared radiation, thus agreeing with the original British report [of the attack on HMS Plymouth in Falkland Sound] that the bombs had failed to detonate." "The process of deduction has enabled the following events to be surmised [here's where he really steps off the edge into fantasy based on wishful thinking]: 1. The frigate targeted by the Daggers in Pleasant Bay was similar to the Plymouth. One of the Argentine pilots saw the Marks F-16 during the attack, indicating that the frigate would be the HMS Diomede (similar to the Plymouth) [we'll be back to this]. 2. The Plymouth may have fallen victim to a mistaken attack by a Harrier squadron flying cover against Argentine troops at Port Howard, under adverse weather conditions and poor visibility [nice of him to admit that those were the conditions]. "The Royal Navy has sought to explain the events by attributing to Argentine Flyers 'an understandable navigational error,' which is not borne out becauseof the distances involved and the pinpoint precision of the Mirage-V's navigation system." I then summarized these claims and asked Evan to analyse them, as follows: You have Moro, and from references you've made to it, you apparently also have "Air War South Atlantic." Using those two sources plus any others you wish (you'll want to use a good naval reference like Jane's, Conway's etc. for the era), why don't you analyse for us Moro's claim that: 1. The Dagger attack on June 8th hit a frigate other than HMS Plymouth (Moro suggests HMS Diomede, owing to a pilot's claim that he saw "F 16" on the ship), 2. That said frigate was off Port Pleasant rather than in Falkland Sound when attacked, 3. That Plymouth, which he agrees was in Falkland Sound, must have been hit by a British air attack, 4. And that IR emissions from said frigate were detected from the Argentine Ops Center (presumably in Port Stanley)? Okay, how long does it take to determine, using only the three sources I mentioned above and which Moro certainly had available to him, whether his claims are valid? Not counting the time to retrieve the books from the shelf, library or what have you, I estimate between 30 seconds and one minute. Let's start with the simplest part first - Moro agrees that Plymouth was attacked while in Falkland Sound, indeed she was only a little way outside San Carlos Water on her way to an NGS mission of West Falkland when she was attacked. Numerous photos of her show her burning as she retreats back into San Carlos Water, so her position is agreed by all sides. Moro claims that the Daggers were absolutely sure of their position and attacked a frigate in Pleasant Bay, and no Argentine attack, by Daggers or any other a/c, was made on a ship in Falkland Sound that day. Further, he claims that the ship attacked was a "Class 12" frigate, and that one of the pilots saw "F-16" on the ship, indicating it was HMS Diomede. Let's ignore the information (which Moro had available to him in "Falklands: The Air War") that Diomede didn't deploy to the South Atlantic until well after the war was over; for the sake of argument we'll assume that British claims to that effect are all part of the big cover-up Moro charges the Brits with. So, what proof do with have from the Argentine side as to what ship was attacked by the Daggers that day? Their gunsight camera film, of course, which Moro cites as proof. Fortunately for us, still frames of that film have been widely released by the AAF and published in numerous sources, including one photo in "Air War South Atlantic". And here's where Moro's claim falls completely apart. The frigate in the Dagger gunsights is very clearly a Rothesay class, of which only two were with the task force at the time, Plymouth and Yarmouth. Even assuming HMS Diomede was in the South Atlantic at the time, it can't be her, because Diomede was a broad-beam Leander. The difference between the two classes is instantly recognizable from the beam, which is the angle all the attacks were made, as shown by the gun camera film. The photo in "AWSA" is cropped so only the section of the ship from the turret aft to the funnel is visible, but that's more than enough. Rothesay class ships have the funnel just aft of the mast and raked slightly aft, the two forming a noticeable V at the base. Leanders have the funnel well aft of the mast (guesstimating 30-50 feet), and the funnel is vertical not raked. In the gun camera photos, the funnel and mast are together, and the latter is raked. In gun camera photos available in other sources the other recognition features are plainly visible - Rothesays have the weather deck stepped-down aft of the Limbo mortar, while in Leanders the deck continues level all the way to the stern. Unmodified broad-beam Leanders like Diomede have a mainmast aft mounting a Type 965 radar; Rothesays lack both mast (well, they have a sort of stump) and radar. The ship in the photos has a stepped down weather deck, and no mainmast or Type 965. In other words, the Dagger gunsight photos are conclusive as to the ship type they attacked, and it was a Rothesay, not a Leander like Diomede. Unless, of course, Moro wants to contend that his own side was participating with the British in the great conspiracy to cover up British losses ;-) What about the "F-16" one of the pilots believed he saw? British frigates and destroyers had painted out their hull-side pennant numbers during the war (HMS Yarmouth seems to have been an exception, as her port-side pennant number "F101" is visible in photos taken while she was alongside the sinking HMS Ardent), apparently leaving their pennant numbers only on the counter. As an aside, the AAF released gun camera film of the Dagger attack on Broadsword on 21 May, where they apparently 'added' a pennant number, F08, to the picture. Unfortunately for Argentine credibility, that number had last been used in the 1960s by HMS Urania; Broadsword's own pennant number was F88. Of course, the Brits _could_ have painted a false pennant number on her themselves, but normal practice was to just paint them out entirely, and besides, she could be identified from her sister Brilliant by the difference in her funnel, number or no number. This was definitely a case where they should have left well enough alone. Getting back on track, we know the ship wasn't Diomede (or any other Leander), so how could the pilot have thought he saw "F-16"? I'll point out that the attacks were made at speeds between 550-575 knots, at an angle to the ship, the pilots were being shot at, and the ship was making quite a lot of smoke, not exactly conditions conducive to reading a number accurately. And yet, the pilot did a pretty good job -- HMS Plymouth's pennant number was F126, and the photo of her at anchor in San Carlos Water shortly after the attack appears to show that the '2' has been somewhat worn away. It's a bit hard to say for sure because funnel smoke and possibly smoke from the fire is drifting across the stern, making the number hard to see at all, at least in the print in the book. Finally, getting back to the "big coverup" theory of Moro, couldn't it be that there were more Rothesays in the theater during the war than the Brits admitted, and it was one of _those_ which was attacked in Port Pleasant? A reasonable question, except for the gun camera photos and the numerous photos taken of the damage to HMS Plymouth, immediately after the attack. In every still frame I've seen of the attack on Plymouth, including the one reprinted in "AWSA", a hole can be seen in the after end of the funnel about half way up, made by one of the bombs (which passed through without exploding) of the first Dagger to attack. So, we know that whichever Rothesay they attacked, it will have that entrance hole in the funnel, and also show signs of the bomb's exit on the other side. AWSA has three photos related to the attack; the gun camera still mentioned above, and two photos showing the damage to Plymouth immediately after she'd anchored in San Carlos Water shortly after the attack, both of which, including a closeup of the funnel, show the hole in the funnel and the damage made by the bomb's exit. But maybe the ship was hit in Port Pleasant, then steamed around to San Carlos Water? At the 3 knots that Moro claims, that would be quite a feat to get there in daylight, as it's well over 90nm by sea -- even at 28 knots they couldn't make it given the time the attack occurred. In short, the total time needed to analyse and disprove Moro's claim, based primarily on evidence from _his own side_ along with other sources he used, was considerably less than the time it took you to read the above. And that ignores Commodore Clapp's account (which hadn't been published when Moro wrote his book) that no frigate was anywhere near Port Pleasant at the time, because Clapp didn't feel they could add anything to the defense beyond a couple of 20 or 40mm guns, owing to the short warning time and surrounding terrain that would prevent radar-guided weapons from working; it would just be another target. Clapp also said that he'd tasked Plymouth with a NGS mission against a target in West Falkland, that he'd wanted her to stay inside the headlands of the entrance to SCW to keep her inside the AA defenses, but her Captain had decided he preferred a firing position outside it. There are numerous other sources which Moro failed to use or didn't have access to at the time, which just pile proof on proof as to the British version of events rather than Moro's being the correct one. For instance, what about Moro's claim that the Daggers couldn't have been in Falkland Sound, owing to the pinpoint precision of their navigation system? While some French built Mirage 5s had INS or Doppler nav systems, the Israeli-built Daggers don't seem to have had anything like that at the time. Here's Salvador Mafe' Huertas, who interviewed several Grupo 6 pilots, describing their fit at the time of the war in "Dassault Mirage III/V": "The equipment was fairly basic, with VOR, DME, ILS and an Israeli-developed RWR . . . At the beginning of 1982, the FAA [Fuerza Aerea Argentina; I've used AAF for them to avoid confusion with the British FAA] was working with the Israelis on a plan to update and modernize its Daggers, but the whole scheme was brought to an abrupt halt by the Argentine occupation of a little-known group of islands in the South Atlantic." This upgrade did eventually come about, known as the "Finger" program, completed in several stages finishing up with Finger IIIB. It included an INS. So it appears that the Daggers lacked "pin-point" navigation capability at the time; even the best INS at the time would drift ca. 1 mile/hr, not enough to put them in Falkland Sound instead of ca. 50 miles away in Port Pleasant, but "pin-point" only in relative terms. VOR/TACAN is line of sight, so that's out of the question on the deck even if they hadn't been well out of range. Further indication of their lack of onboard navigation systems, if that were needed, is provided by the following account of the mission in Mafe' Huertas, describing the lead up to the attack: "The five remaining a/c [one Dagger had suffered a bird-strike just after take-off] were joined by Learjet TC-23 [Sic. T-23. Trasnports that were primarily used or modified for cargo hauling added the 'C' after the 'T' -- the Lears were just plain 'T', as contemporary photos show] of Grupo 1 de Aerofotografico, which would act as pathfinder, _using its state of the art navigation system [Omega and INS] to guide the formation towards the south-west coast of West Falkland_ [my emphasis]. From there, the Daggers would establish a northwest heading towards Falkland Sound, intending later to turn east, crossing southern east Falkland to make the attack from the west. The weather began to deteriorate, and in order to avoid the worst of the low cloud, rain and snow squalls, the formation deviated slightly from from the planned route. Crossing Falkland Sound on their north-easterly heading they were amazed to find the Type 12 frigate [actually Rothesay class, but they were slightly modified Type 12s, the Whitby class], HMS Plymouth (F 126)." Surprise having been lost for an attack in Port Pleasant, they decided to attack her instead. Finally, we come to Moro's most ludicrous claim of all regarding this incident: "At the same time, the armed forces' operations electronic center [in Stanley] picked up a source of infrared radiation, similar to that given off by a vessel afire, in the Falkland Sound area." I wrote in an earlier post that this one could be argued (more accurately, debunked) based on basic physical phenomena. I leave it to the rest of you to evaluate the likelihood of some kind of IR sensor being able to detect a ship on fire, when the detector is located at least 50nm away from the supposed fire, with no direct line of sight to it (lots of several hundred foot high hills in the way), and the weather is low cloud, rain and snow squalls, i.e. lots of moisture in the air to absorb IR radiation and reduce the range to near zero. So, if any of you are tempted to read Ruben Moro's "The History of the South Atlantic Conflict," you're now aware of the effort Moro put in establishing the 'truth' of his more unlikely claims. Objective history, it ain't, but it does serve to illustrate the mindset of nationalist partisans like Moro. He reminds me of Venik, Mikhael Petukhov, et al., but at least Moro was an actual participant in the war (he was a Lt. Col. at the time flying C-130s, possibly including some missions into Stanley). Guy |
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Guy Alcala wrote in message ...
Evan has apparently declined my offer to analyse Moro's claim below for accuracy (to absolutely no one's surprise), so to amuse myself I'll do so, to show just how easy it is to disprove it, based on the technical minutiae that Evan apparently finds so difficult to deal with. [remaining drivel snipped] By now, everyone who reads your posts must realize that it bothers you to no end that your beloved Harrier shot down just two missile-armed jets during the Falklands War...that their opponents had no reserve fuel to dogfight even if they had carried missiles...that British attempts to neutralize the airstrip at Port Stanley were, and still are, worthy of criticism from their opponents and everyone else. Your attempt to dismiss the substantial overclaiming of Argentine aircraft by the British was also yawn-inducing, but not surprising. Apparently all of this is a bitter pill for you to swallow, because you make continous efforts to distract our attention from it with longwinded posts of "technical minutiae", interspersed with petty attempts to dicredit Ruben Moro, whilst propping up your hero -- the self-righteous windbag Sharkey Ward -- who is arguably less honest than Moro. Basically, you are an expert at talking a lot but saying nothing. Evidently, you have a tremendous surplus of free time not available to the rest of us. |
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