GADGET

Hola Dante-JT Please take a notice about bomb accuracy. I am these 8 days flying with a Spainsh weapons test pilot that worked several years with the Expal bombs used by the Argentinian's A-4s against the Royal Navy in 1982. He told me that accuracy with those bombs was really bad as their CoG was too far back and the very body of the bomb were made in an artesanal way, one by one. So it was not expected that a bomb would hit the same spot as a previous one of the same kind, from medium and low altitude, as sometimes these bombs even flipped back and could fall short or to one side of the pretended target. The faster the launcher plane the worse. The Argentinians used very low altitude releases, so another problem arose as the bombs had no time to arm (3 secs I think was standard but I can ask again). This way, somebody come with the idea to spin the fuse by hand several turns, to shorten the arming time... with not very good results either. Do you think those two caracteristics of the Expal bombs can be modelled? If you need to cantact me, please use this e-mail gadget AT telefonica DOT net

I have finally contacted my friend, an authority in naval affairs, and hopefully will aport some information about the Fearless during the conflict days. He has the pics I was talking about the .50 MGs on the superstructure, disposed for the conflict. Great job. Please keep on going.

Bad news... I can not find the Fearless pics, althought I have found other ships from those days, not Malvinas related. From those times I have already found pictures form my visitis to the USS Nicholson, USS Dale, USS Truett, Canadian Fraser, French carrier Foch, D-640 Georges Leigues, and many others, but no British ships. Maybe there must be other albums left at my folks place. I don't know. Also the dates of this pictures correspond to 1983-1984, and probably the Fearless pics would be of the same period, maybe too late for the simulation. Good news is that I know the person who does have pics, and is an absolute naval expert. If you need some information, please tell me exactly what is it and I can always ask to the Doctor.

I will try to find the pics for you, but I repeat they are from after the war, so the configuration of the ship might vary somehow. I do not think the lasers were used on the war either, but they sure brought some political turbulence.

WOW !!!! I do remeber the Fearless. I had the chance to visit the ship when in Barcelona, right after the war (about 2-3 months). The deck was covered with small calibre weapons, not originally issued with the ship, consecuence of the lessons learned after the Argentinian A-4 attacks. I might have the pics somewhere. I also remember some "international" incident, when my group of aero-naval spotters discovered some "classified" tubes on the deck, that come out to be lassers to blind the pilots of any possible attack aircraft. I have no information if those lasers saw action during the war, or as the .50 cals were a post war modification.