PoP wrote:
On Fri, 30 Jan 2004 02:34:36 +0000, geoff wrote:


As opposed to the Sheffield which was the ship which Marconi used to
advertise SCOT and other bits of kit.


I've been on Sheffield (as was) before it got used for target practice
by the argies. Type 42.

I heard an interesting story back in the days of the Falklands.
Apparently in the war theatre ships like Sheffield are put on "picket
duty" in front of and to protect the carriers, to pick up and deal
with any incoming. That's why Sheffield was in harms way.

Sheffield was equipped with Sea Wolf missiles. Basically Sea Wolf is
capable of bringing down an incoming missile, and could of dealt with
an exocet quite easily. Sheffield had the means to defend itself.

Unfortunately when the UK went to war they forgot to inform the
onboard computer systems on Sheffield that Exocet was to be considered
a hostile missile. It's manufactured in France which is part of the
NATO pact. You don't expect your friends to be firing on you so any
Exocet which is in the sky can't be coming your way.

All junk put into the sky has a radar footprint which allows it to be
identified, so Sheffields radar picked up the Exocet. But the
computers said "friendly missile" and didn't engage it. The plan was
that the Exocet would fly past Sheffield towards another target.

The ops room (where the missile went thru) apparently had 3 seconds
warning that they were about to be wiped out. Too late for Sea Wolf to
engage. Must've been a dreadful experience for those in the ops room
seeing death coming straight at them.

Subsequently no further ships were lost to long range Exocet during
the conflict - the onboard computer systems were updated to advise
that it was a hostile missile which should be engaged.

Computer programmers, don't you luv 'em?

PoP

Sending email to my published email address isn't
guaranteed to reach me.

Yes PoP, you are correct there.

It was the missiles radar transmission that made it a "friendly".
Afore the op's room was the seadart storage. The huge fireball was the
result of the exocet motor smashing into them and lighting up the
kerosene. As seadart is a ramjet missile.
The warhead itself did not blow up. It was a dud.
The resulting fire is what burned That young South Wales fella. I forget
his name.