Word: fleetly
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...diplomatic maneuvering was no more than a side issue compared to the vicious immediacy of the fighting. By choosing to invade Port San Carlos on the narrow Falkland Sound, the British had taken a considerable risk. Only 15 miles wide near Port San Carlos, the waterway gave the British fleet little maneuvering room against air attack. That problem was compounded by the fundamental weakness of the task force: its lack of adequate air cover and of an early-warning system like the U.S. AWACS aircraft. With only 36 Harrier jets aboard the armada's aircraft carriers, Hermes and Invincible, Task...
...everything from Pucará attack planes to Mirage III and Dagger fighter-bombers and A-4 Skyhawk bombers. The aircraft swooped down on the San Carlos inlet from the west and from the south, their pilots showing little regard for safety as they tried to get at the fleet. In groups of up to three at a time, they raced the full length of the San Carlos anchorage on their low-level attacks. At times they flew so low that spray flecked their canopies...
...British were braced for particularly heavy attacks against the fleet on May 25, to coincide with Argentina's National Day celebrations. Waves of Skyhawk bombers soon began screaming over Falkland Sound. The Coventry, helped by other vessels, shot down four of the attackers but was hit and sunk by later sorties. Then the 14,946-ton Atlantic Conveyor, a merchant ship hired for the task force, was attacked by two of Argentina's deadliest type of warplane: the French-built Super-Etendard fighters that carry the sea-skimming Exocet missile. The aircraft fired their weapons from a distance of about...
...loss of the two ships marked Britain's bleakest day in .the war. In the House of Commons, Defense Secretary Nott announced that recent additions to the British task force (an additional three destroyers, four frigates, two submarines and a large minesweeper joined the fleet last week) more than balanced its losses in the past few weeks. Said Nott: "The task force has more escort vessels today than a week...
Trying to retake the Falklands, the British task force needed three kinds of warplanes: a naval interceptor to protect the fleet, a ground-attack aircraft to soften up enemy defenses on the islands, and an agile troop-support plane to cover British forces as they advance from their bridgehead toward the main Argentine garrison at Port Stanley. All those roles have been filled by what the British regard as their magnificent flying machine: the Sea Harrier, a vertical short-takeoff and landing jet whose maneuverability and advanced avionics have made it more than a match for the land-based attack...