As I said, we were sendig the Argentineans a message…
Well, as someone who loves the V-bombers, their longevity (particularly the Victor) and adaptability beyond their intended role is really what classifies them as a success.
When a piece of technology can out live its primary purpose for being and cheat death by adapting to new roles, that’s success in the truest form.
If you want an example of a bomber that could verge on being called a failure, I offer up the B-58 Hustler. High power, high speed, high price but low adaptability. She could have lasted longer if something as simple as a reccon variant could have come out of her.
I don’t dislike the B-58, a fine looking aircraft, but a one trick pony in the end.
A very interesting subject.
The Valliant was a low(er?) tech design that was a backstop in the event that the other two were not able to be built or that the advanced design would not work. It did and well.
A Vulcan was inbound to RAAF Williamtown when it was about to be bounced by three
Mirrage lll fighters. (We were watching on sector 6 radar at SY AACC) the three fighters were just outof visual/ob radar range, The Figher Intercept Controller was just about to tell the fligh to flash their weapons when the whole screen blossomed with hash and a very fruity RAF voice said “How Bloody stupid do you think we are?”
They would have held their own. After all a C150 landed on Red Square!
Dai
Prevention is much better than cure. The UK V Force were very much a success. The reality of mutually assured destruction kept the paece for many years, and now that the Cold War is over, we have much to celebrate in the professionalism and dedication of the crews of the V Force. I have seen and felt the awsome power of Victor and Vulcan in flight and look forward to feeling it again when XH558 is rebuilt and takes to the show circuit. I very much believe that the V Force was a success and a strong contender in keeping the peace all those years.
Remember, too, that the UK Shackletons were at that time our defence against incursions into UK airspace. A magnificent machine - 10,000 rivets flying in close formation - with a ‘partial’ pressurisation system ( there were more holes in the front of the aircraft than there were at the rear!). They also took part in exercises in the USA and Canada where they were used to detect incoming ‘hostiles’. The ancient valve technology in the Shackleton’s radar system were build decades before the modern jamming systems and as a result the crews in the Shacks could simply reconfigure their equipment in flight to nullify the effects of radar jamming! 8 Squadron won awards for their efforts in these exercises and fully lived up to one of their unofficial mottos - Old Age and Treachery will Triumph over Youth and Skill!
The other motto - Eight Screws are better than Two Blow Jobs - is probably not appropriate for this forum!!
Ah, memories …
See, told you this one was a goody! What next? The Spitfire, a waste of time after the MkIX? Will the new VSTOL ever be as good as a Harrier? Now there’s a question I’d like answered. Would the TSR2 have been a success? or, as Bill Bedford found, would it have shaken the crews eyeballs out?
keep 'em coming!
Pete
And when I say Bill Bedford, I mean of course, Roly Beamont, English Electric’s test pilot. Who found that due to the crew position’s being at the end of a long moment arm, as it were, relative to the mass of the fuselage. At max chat & low level, the aircraft vibrations were at the same natural resonance of the human eyeball. Result, they couldn’t see! He found a similar effect in the Vigilante, but that flew most missions at high level so probably wasn’t a problem, as such.
No doubt it could/would have been cured in time, btu, who’d have tought?
Pete
I think the V-Force was a success, it was a successful deterrerent and the aircraft adapted to the changing times that they lived through. Plus, no bomber that I can think of from that era could turn 'n burn like a Vulcan!
Well, I would think that, I’m biased!
Darren.
What what what?? Tell me more about this as it sounds interesting. Did u work for the RAF during the Falkland Crisis? What is a C-150??
Cheers
MilanX3
This page gets even better - Colin Russell - I remember those mottos - great days - did not the tail of the Shakelton also rotate in sympathy with the engines? I have a painting of the Vulcan refuelling on the Falklands trip (signed by crew etc.) catches all the atmosphere - that was a very expensive exercise - but watch out world we can if we want!!
PS Can someone design a patch for the V Bomber appreciation society?
I’d like to heat this up…i think i proved my point…
I think that most if not all the people who have complemented the V-Bombers here are British. As i mentioned in my initial statement, the V-Bombers are more of a success of national pride than as a machine to fit the purpose it was intended for. I think the best comment is that “it was never used” for nuclear attack, but beyond that I think a B-52 as pretty or ulgy as it is served from the early 50’s to present day and to compare a V-bomber which was designed into an obselete role right from the start isnt a fair comparison. I think a VC-10 or Trident or one of the other magnificent British Aircraft would have been complementary and more cost effective to use that a refitted V-Bomber for refuelling. Its beautiful, but if It increases my council Tax I’d rather see it in a museum!
As well, as skilled as bomber command was in the Falklands Crisis, in the end the Argentines who were in economic crisis under a failing military dictatorship with litte to no public support at the time fell prey to being sent off by their government and losing many skilled sons of Argentina as well for the sake of corrupt power. Even in this instance, their out of date Mirage III’s still gave the UK a permanent black eye and I cannot do more than respect those Argentines who were forced into a war they did not want and fought valiantly in a difficult situation. As well, to compare the UK to Argentina is like comparing the US to moldova…of course they will win a war with them, just depends on badly they will be beaten. I would also like give respect to those who lost their lives on both sides as well, and i love the V-Bombers they flew, but its like being homeless and owning a Bentley, I think there was a more cost effective way to serve the future roles of those bombers as opposed to filling them with fine Scottish Gas and being better than the Americans on a few occasions…anyone can do that…but which Aircraft win wars and subsequently get purchased worldwide? Certainly not a V-bomber…a DC-10 can do their role and have closed circuit TV to boot…
If taking the bombers as a tool of Deterrence, much of the power of deterrence is in the impression of power, not the possession of it. I think the V-Bombers would have been a great loss even with countermeasures which are flawed when looking down the gun barrel of a Mig-25…but my main point here is that one sufficient V-bomber type would have completed this goal of deterrence, even if many existed or not. But in the end your taxes pay for it all and I think a school or hospital would be a better British achievement than numerous types of V-Bombers/Shell stations.
So in comparing time, duration, skills purpose and cost…personally I’d prefer a Mirage III…didnt it achieve one of the highest kill ratios in air combat history against alot stronger air arms than that of a poor crisis ridden Argentina?? the V-Bombers are no Spitfires, they are not even a Bently…so lets take them for what they are…like an ex girlfriend its a very expensive and nice looking mistake…good for pub talk and glorious stories and words, but a failure none the less…
Now the Fairey Delta 2…there is somthing to be proud of!!!
Cheers
Milan
ROFL - nothing to do with the Falklands at all…
RAAF = Royal Australian Air Force
RAAF Williamtown - Australian airbase near Newcastle on the Central Coast of NSW. At the time, the RAAF was flying Mirage IIIO’s.
C-150 refers to the Cessna (reported to be a 150) which flew undetected across Soviet airspace and landed in Red Square some years ago.
PhilThe C150 was piloted by Mathias Rust if memory serves me.
Milan The B-52 may still be going, but what happened to all those other bombers built for SAC in the 50s & 60s? The UK was not the only nation to persue a multi-type approach to weapons procurement!
Karl
Well spotted Karl.
I think that the addition of the Falklands War into the mix isn’t quite on. There are still a lot of people grieving over lost loved ones, and to rake that up serves no purpose other than to inflame matters.
Getting back to the actual matter in hand, the V-bombers did their job. They acted as a deterrent. I think that Phil H showed how effective their ECM package was, and if anyone in their right mind would think that the British Government would have rested the responsibility for their nuclear deterrent force upon a plane that would be shot down the moment it penetrated Soviet airspace, they’re deluded.
The fact was that “at the time”, and that’s the key point here, the Soviet defences would have been hard pressed to counter the ECM measures that the V-bombers could put out. Of course some would be shot down, as inevitably, some would have fallen in visual range of interceptors. Although the Vulcan was very manoeuvrable for a bomber, and I’m sure the others were too (at a push), they would probably have fallen victim to the guns of Soviet fighters eventually, as they had no defensive armaments.
When the game changed, and the Soviet missiles could reach the previously untouchable altitudes that the V-Bombers used as their main defence, they switched roles, continuing their work admirably, considering none of them were designed for the task.
Indeed, the failure to cope with low level flying of the less radical design of the Valiant shows that approaching the task with multiple candidate aircraft as fully vindicated. Imagine if we’d just had the Valiant, and it had suddenly failed in its new low-level bombing role. Where would we have been then? That well-known creek, without the paddle!
The Tanker role for the V-Bombers was simply a matter of reusing existing airframes, which was a matter of necessity during the Falklands war. We had no tanker fleet, and needed one quickly. The conversion of the few Vulcans to tankers was accomplished in a ridiculously short period of something like 35 days, which then gave us the in-flight refuelling capability to reach the Falklands without touching land after Ascension Islands. Remember, that we were denied landing rights at many airbases to refuel, given the sensitivity of the situation. Also remember that our Task Force was operating at the extreme range of its capabilities on short notice, half way around the world, with no friendly port within striking distance. Given the distances involved, it was no David & Goliath affair, as has been suggested.
I think one of the downfalls of the V-bombers was that they were designed and produced at AT THE SAME TIME as the defenses in Russia were taking on a new look. Not the aircraft designers fault, not the crews fault. That was simply******poor intelligence. Some thing both the British and the Americans were guilty of and is more than evident in the designs of the aircraft at the time. The sucess of the airframes came, like so many others have pointed out, from thier adaptability. While the Valiant fell short in this area both the Victor and V ulcan shined. To address the cost effectiveness… I assure you it would have cost 10 time what it did to maintain the V-bombers in an ever changing enviroment than what it would have cost in R and D, and production of a whole new design made specificly to counter russian air defense.
Im not budging on this one… The V-bombers were everything they were supposed to be and more.
As for argentinian Mirages giving Great Britton a black eye during the Falklands. Again, not related to aircraft design but more in part ( I think ) to a serious laps in judgment by the British MOD. If England wanted/wants to be a world player with military might they should never have scrapped thier carrier fleet. Harriers, while also a very succesfull airframe, are not what Id call the perfect weapon of choice for fleet defense, or AAC. I still think the british have put too much faith in that particular airframe.
Awood It is interesting to consider how the Falklands war would have gone if a force of Phantoms and Buccaneers had been available to supplement the Harriers.
I dare say the Bucs would have been in a postion to carry out attacks on the Mirage’s home bases, considerably nullifying their impact on the battle, and no doubt RN losses in the conflict.
Karl
Karl - another interesting point. When you consider how few Harriers they actually had down there, and at the time, they were the first of the Sea Harriers, and untested (in fact they very nearly weren’t there!), they did a fantastic job for minimal loss of airframes.
Clearly, as you said, a bunch of Buccs or Phantoms would have enabled the RN fleet to breathe a little easier, but for whatever reason - was it the scrapping of the carriers that they could fly from? They weren’t there. It’s a shame, as a few Mirages & Skyhawks taken out as they stood on their runways would have reduced the casualties amongst the RN ships immensely. It would have also been accomplished with minimal loss of life on the Argentinian side too, if timed right.
I sometimes wonder whether they didn’t attack the Argentine land bases for political reasons too. A limited war on a disputed island is one thing, but one country attacking another’s homeland would have been quite another matter. It would have lost us a lot of sympathy in the international community, in my estimation.
btw - in case any V-Bomber lovers are interested, I’ve started a Group Build on the Victor, which you can find details of here:
http://www.finescale.com/fsm/community/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=47904
Now this makes perfect sense…thank you Belgium!
I know its easy to criticize the US bombers of the 50’s but that doesnt make the UK any better in their military planning, neither does a victory over a third world country. While I do love the V-bombers myself, I think poor planning really reduced the effectivness of them so much so that only revisionist history of what they might have been able to do is the best arguement for them. I do think that the lack of Carrier Fleet was the main cause, as fying a Vulcan 8000km to drop a bomb isnt somthing that a military planner wants to rely on as their ace in the hole.
I didnt wish to add flame to the fire in my last message, but I do think that showing the Argentine’s whos boss and justifying poor MOD planning should be taken in a realistic light, and much of that has to do with poor Argentine planning as well as British. Giving respect to both sides of a conflict hopefully will make us more modest and eliminate an Us v. Them approach to this discussion and others. Its more to do with respect than pride, and those who died there were a victim of failures by both Argentina, but by servere failures by the British as well.
Now, if anyone knows of a decent set of fotos of the V-Bombers I would like to see them…I love them, even if they did not be as effective as they should have been, they are sufficiently odd enough looking to be enjoyable!!
cheers
Milan
Milan I think the Argentinians might take offence at being referred to as a 3rd world country.
The campaign in the South Atlantic was a response to a hostile invasion of sovereign territory, it wasn’t a question of showing the Argentinians who was boss. The inhabitants of the Falklands are not of South American decent, but British subjects, and therefore entitled to the same protection from the UK’s armed forces as people in London or Edinburgh.
Were US forces wrong to try to go into Iran to rescue the hostages held in the embassy there? After all that was a long way away from the US, and only involved a small number of people on a tiny piece of territory.
No.It’s the principle that counts.
We seem to have strayed off topic somewhat, but I always enjoy a lively debate, whatever the context.
Karl
The problem was traced to the fuel pumps and would have been cure had the project not been butchered by the Government