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From: mcvax!cs.hw.ac.uk!adrian@uunet.UU.NET (Adrian Hurt)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: article submission
Message-ID: <6184@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 3 May 89 03:12:24 GMT
References: <5977@cbnews.ATT.COM>
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Organization: Computer Science, Heriot-Watt U., Scotland
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From: Adrian Hurt <mcvax!cs.hw.ac.uk!adrian@uunet.UU.NET>

In article <5977@cbnews.ATT.COM> brianb%bucsf.BU.EDU@bu-cs.bu.edu (Brian Bresnahan) writes:
>
>>From: marsh@mbunix.mitre.org (Ralph Marshall)
>>	While none of this comes as news to me, I've never understood
>>*why* they've stopped putting armor on ships.

One possible factor is that if the hull's skin is thin enough, bombs may go
straight through it. This happened in the Falklands, and it wasn't all due to
faulty fusing.

>The air defense of the Royal navy ships does not compare well to US
>ships

Did not compare well. As a result of the Falklands conflict, most R.N. ships
had extra 20 and 30mm guns added. The "Invincible" class carriers now have the
"Phalanx" system.

>Type 42 Batch 1 (includes Sheffield)
>Sea Dart
>2Omm guns
>30mm guns

Those 30mm guns, and most of the 20mm's, were added after the Falklands action.
Also don't forget its 114mm gun, which was always there.

>Amazon Class (a.k.a. Type 21)
>Sea Cat
>20mm guns
>114mm guns

One 114mm quick firing gun. And one of these guns shot down an Exocet.

>These are classes of ships which had units sunk or damaged
>during the Falklands war.

Also damaged was the Plymouth (an old Rothesay class). The Argentinians were
probably happy about that one - it was the ship on which the surrender of
South Georgia was signed. What interested me was that when a modern ship, e.g.
Type 21 or Type 42 was hit, it was usually sunk. When an old ship, e.g.
Glamorgan or Plymouth, was hit, it survived. And the Plymouth was hit hard,
while Glamorgan took an Exocet. By quickly turning off its electronics to fool
the Exocet's seeker, it only got hit in the hangar.

>}The Arg AF penetrated almost total Brit air superiority and snuck under
>}radar with planes flying 5ftabove waves

And as a result, the British put a form of AWACS into Sea King helicopters.

 "Keyboard? How quaint!" - M. Scott

 Adrian Hurt			     |	JANET:  adrian@uk.ac.hw.cs
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