Falklands War - actual attack on HMS Andromeda
Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2013 4:07 pm
Hello everyone, just joined at least in part because of the thread on the alleged Invincible attack. I posted this there some days ago but as its at the end of a long thread and no on had commented, I thought I'd try it here as a new topic.
If anyone can definitely answer the question of what really happened, it is me because I watched the whole thing. I was the Lynx Pilot from HMS Andromeda. There were three ships on picket duty out to the west of the main task force that day. Avenger to the south, Exeter in the middle and Andromeda to the north in a north south line. We were at 6000 feet ahead of everyone, listening for Etendard radar on our ESM. We picked it up and warned the fleet who went 'zippo 1' which meant get ready for Exocet attack. I turned the aircraft back towards the fleet in case there were any other aircraft around. One Exocet was fired although two Etendards were there (it was their last missile). Exeter was tracking the four A4s that carried on after the Exocet launch. We got in the way of the Sea Darts she fired and almost got shot down ourselves. However they took out two A4s. I saw it happen and expect that Avenger thought one being it was an Exocet. The other two A4s flew over Avenger and bombed her - they missed and got away. The Exocet locked onto Andromeda. I know this because the ops room had lock on detected from the Exocet seeker head on the ships UAA1 ESM equipment. Also Exeter watched it pass astern of them. Andromeda was the third ship there fitted with the Sea Wolf SAM which should have been capable of shooting it down. Unfortunately or more probably fortunately, it ran out of fuel and splashed before it got into engagement range. An interesting day all round!!!
Some facts:
One missile was fired and it fell into the sea because the target it locked on to was too far away.
Avenger did not shoot anything down.
The surviving A4s bombed HMS Avenger and missed.
HMS Invincible was miles away and was not damaged in any way.
I cannot be more definite than that but as an eye witness to the whole thing maybe it will nail this lie once and for all. As for the A4 pilots claiming to have flown down the deck of Invincible and bomb her - rubbish.
If anyone is interested I have a blog covering, amongst other things, my War experiences, taken from my log book. I did this last year to promote my books and if you look you will see adverts for them (sorry!)
I was involved in a lot of the anti - Exocet measures - my helicopter had a jammer fitted to seduce them and I trialled it at Aberporth against a live missile so we knew it worked.
I actually wrote my first novel - 'Sea Skimmer' about the Exocets because to this day I still don't know why the warheads never exploded - now the story behind this could be far more interesting than the Invincible conspiracy theory! As I couldn't find out why - I made it up - hence a novel.
If anyone is interested have a look at posts from last year starting in April on http://sowethereyet.blogspot.co.uk/
If anyone can definitely answer the question of what really happened, it is me because I watched the whole thing. I was the Lynx Pilot from HMS Andromeda. There were three ships on picket duty out to the west of the main task force that day. Avenger to the south, Exeter in the middle and Andromeda to the north in a north south line. We were at 6000 feet ahead of everyone, listening for Etendard radar on our ESM. We picked it up and warned the fleet who went 'zippo 1' which meant get ready for Exocet attack. I turned the aircraft back towards the fleet in case there were any other aircraft around. One Exocet was fired although two Etendards were there (it was their last missile). Exeter was tracking the four A4s that carried on after the Exocet launch. We got in the way of the Sea Darts she fired and almost got shot down ourselves. However they took out two A4s. I saw it happen and expect that Avenger thought one being it was an Exocet. The other two A4s flew over Avenger and bombed her - they missed and got away. The Exocet locked onto Andromeda. I know this because the ops room had lock on detected from the Exocet seeker head on the ships UAA1 ESM equipment. Also Exeter watched it pass astern of them. Andromeda was the third ship there fitted with the Sea Wolf SAM which should have been capable of shooting it down. Unfortunately or more probably fortunately, it ran out of fuel and splashed before it got into engagement range. An interesting day all round!!!
Some facts:
One missile was fired and it fell into the sea because the target it locked on to was too far away.
Avenger did not shoot anything down.
The surviving A4s bombed HMS Avenger and missed.
HMS Invincible was miles away and was not damaged in any way.
I cannot be more definite than that but as an eye witness to the whole thing maybe it will nail this lie once and for all. As for the A4 pilots claiming to have flown down the deck of Invincible and bomb her - rubbish.
If anyone is interested I have a blog covering, amongst other things, my War experiences, taken from my log book. I did this last year to promote my books and if you look you will see adverts for them (sorry!)
I was involved in a lot of the anti - Exocet measures - my helicopter had a jammer fitted to seduce them and I trialled it at Aberporth against a live missile so we knew it worked.
I actually wrote my first novel - 'Sea Skimmer' about the Exocets because to this day I still don't know why the warheads never exploded - now the story behind this could be far more interesting than the Invincible conspiracy theory! As I couldn't find out why - I made it up - hence a novel.
If anyone is interested have a look at posts from last year starting in April on http://sowethereyet.blogspot.co.uk/