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The Avro Vulcan
By John
Since LtCol P seems to have officially kicked off Falklands Week here at OPFOR, I figured now would be as good of time as any to profile one of the heroes of the conflict, the British Avro Vulcan bomber.
She's pretty, even for a broad that was built in the early 1950s (B-52 jocks take no offense).
The "Tin Triangle's" primary mission was to nuclear body-check the Ruskies:
As part of Britain's independent nuclear deterrent the Vulcan initially carried Britain's first nuclear weapon, the Blue Danube gravity bomb. Blue Danube was a low-kiloton yield fission bomb designed before the United States detonated the first hydrogen bomb. The British then embarked on their own hydrogen bomb programme, and to bridge the gap until these were ready the V-bombers were equipped with an Interim Megaton Weapon based on the Blue Danube casing and Green Grass, a large pure-fission warhead of 400 kT yield. This bomb was known as Violet Club. Only five were deployed before a better weapon was introduced as Yellow Sun Mk.1.
But it was the Falklands War where the Vulcan really cut her teeth:
Although the primary weapon for the Vulcan was nuclear, Vulcans could carry up to 21 x 1000 lb (454 kg) bombs in a secondary role. The only combat missions involving the Vulcan took place in the 1982 Falklands War with Argentina, when a number of Vulcans flew the 3,380 nautical miles (6,300 km) from Ascension Island to Stanley to attack Argentine radar installations with missiles and bomb the occupied airfield there with conventional bombs in Operation Black Buck [1] [2]. Victor aircraft were used for air-to-air refueling in a complex scheme described here: [3].Five Vulcans were selected for the operation: their bomb bays were modified; the flight refuelling system that had long been out-of-use re-instated; the electronics updated; and wing pylons designed, manufactured, and fitted to carry an ECM pod and Shrike anti-radar missiles. The engineering work began on April 9 with the first mission on April 30–May 1, 1982. While only one 1000 lb bomb hit Stanley's runway, this first raid demonstrated the willingness and ability of the British to attack targets in the South Atlantic.
There were seven raids planned, but only five went ahead, with two scoring hits on radar installations. At the time these missions held the record for the world's longest distance raids. One effect was to force the Argentines to withdraw their Mirage II fighters from what had become their vulnerable position on the Falkland Islands to stand defence over the similarly at-risk Argentine mainland. The planning and execution of the "Black Buck One" raid has recently been described in Rowland White's book "Vulcan 607" [4].
Those were the good ole days, when the Brits were strong.
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Comments
doesn't it look like the Vulcan has an almost stealthy profile? Kind of like an early (way early!) precursor to the "flying wing" design of the B2?
Anyone know how this thing showed up on radar? Did it look like a goose or a flying school bus? Probably the latter, but still..ya know?
Jordan,
The assertion of Argentine sovereignty isn't new; they never gave up those claims, and have been attempting to pursue it through international bodies since 1945. I'm uncertain how expressing regret over the loss of life "opens the door" to such an Argentine effort.
Anyway, I'm pretty unconvinced of British weakness. They have a stronger military position in the Falklands than they did in 1982 (if a somewhat weaker fleet), although I suppose that extended deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan have hurt readiness and in general reduced capability. If they go ahead with the building of the CVF, then it's game over; a single CVF would give them local superiority for the foreseeable future.
No matter what you thought of the Falkland war, you have to give the Argintine Air Force their due in that conflict, they had a lot of losses but flew on. one thing we learned after the conflict was that the Brits were real lucky, real lucky, the Argintines hit a lot of Royal Navy ships but most of the Mk82 bombs that hit failed to detonate because the delay elements installed in the fuzes were the wrong timing and the fuze time to arm settings were to high. Some ships had bomb penetration deep into the hulls but the bombs failed to explode.
Their A4's were flying in at wave top level and releasing their loads so low that the fuzes failed to arm.
hmmmm, good info mustang.
I do wonder how effective our multilayered ship defenses are against sea-skimmers. An Iraqi exocet traveling at what sounds like the same altitude jacked up the USS Stark back in 88.
Course her R2D2s weren't on, might have played a role. Who knows, I'm just a dumb zoomie.
I remember a navel exercise that the AF participated in around 1985 that involved a couple of B52's armed with harpoon missles (simulated of course) in the N. Atlantic.
According to the observers and radar scoring it was not a good day for the Navy. Soon afterward the "Buffs" never participated again in that capacity. Makes you wonder?
I am sure (at least hope) that ship defences have improved since then.
Britain is the Griffon's Spearhead.
The Avro Vulcan is my greatest flying sight. Yours too if you had the priveledge.
Nice post,good article.
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very goodd...
I believe some Argentine bomb fuzes were destroyed on impact, before they could initiate their bomb, and allegedly others remained "safe" as their spin-arm blades were ripped off in a similar manner. Possibly they put out one explanation to deflect attention from a more likely one. I visited HMS Broadsword at Liverpool docks in 1982 where they had lots of photos of their bomb which had bounced off the sea, come upwards through the side of the ship and then the helicopter deck, taking the nose off the Wasp parked in its garage, before arcing over the port rail into the sea. I recall hundreds of wires trailing out of the helicopter's ex-nose housing.
I saw a Vulcan flying very slow and very low over the Tees between High Force and Low Force in the late 70s. It looked like you could easily hit it with a well-aimed rock. During the war a Vulcan was seen not far from here doing a practice bombing run on Manchester airport.
thhinks
Thank you very much for sharing
The British Presence in the south atlantic is at the current moment stronger that it has ever been. The Vulcan in the Black Buck raids of 1982 showed the argies that they were not out of reach and the RAF could and would get them if they wanted to. None of you ever heard the ryme "In deepest south america where the ynaks have never been lies a f**ked up argentinian kicked to death by a ROYAL MARINE"
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Interesting. Now that Britain is no longer strong, Argentina has reasserted it's ownership of the Falklands and intends to pursue it through international bodies. When they smell weakness, the sharks start circling.
Apparently the Brit Foreign Minister Margaret Beckett recently expressed regret over the loss of life during the Falklands War, thereby opening the door.