Word: fleetly
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...British government's explanation was that on April 23 it had warned that any Argentine ship or plane representing a clear threat to the fleet would risk an "appropriate response." The dangers of broadening the war, British officials asserted, had to be measured against the risk of allowing the Belgrano to train its impressive firepower on the British task force. As Prime Minister Thatcher told the House of Commons, "The worry that I live with hourly is that Argentine forces, in attacks both naval and air, will get through to our forces...
...time of the attack, the Sheffield, a modern, computerized ship commissioned in 1975, and known in the British fleet as "the shiny Sheff," was on radar patrol about 70 miles from the Falklands. Its main duty was to protect the vulnerable aircraft carrier Hermes from air attack. Instead, the destroyer fell victim. At least two, and possibly three, French-built fighters, including at least one Super-Etendard fighter-bomber, were about 550 miles from a mainland airbase, presumably at Rio Gallegos, and nearing the limit of their combat range when the radar on a Super-Etendard locked...
...pall of smoke from the Sheffield had been clearly visible from the Hermes, where it brought a personal sense of loss to Fleet Commander Woodward. He was captain of the Sheffield from 1976 to 1978. There was another irony. While the Sheffield was being built at Barrow-in-Furness, England, a part of her hull was damaged in an industrial explosion. An identical type of destroyer, the Hercules, was being constructed alongside the damaged vessel, and the prospective owners, the Argentine government, generously offered to give the hull section intended for their ship to the British. The Hercules...
...month. A senior British Cabinet member described it as "an American car painted in Peruvian colors with Haig in the driver's seat." The chief elements of the package were 1) a cease-fire with a simultaneous Argentine withdrawal from the islands and a pullback of the British fleet; 2) an end to economic sanctions against Argentina imposed by Britain's supporters; 3) establishment of an interim U.S.-Brazilian-West German-Peruvian authority for the Falklands while the two disputing countries negotiate ultimate sovereignty over the territory. Belaúnde's chief contribution to the plan...
Britain's aerial weakness over the Falklands is the task force's Achilles' heel. Rear Admiral Woodward is extremely limited in the number of aircraft he can send aloft for combat patrols and raids on the islands while continuing to protect his fleet. That weakness, more than any other factor, might hamper a British invasion of the islands. To help beef up the British air effort further, the government late last week dispatched long-range Nimrod reconnaissance planes to the South Atlantic. Nimrods, the British version of the AWACS, can give British ships warning of enemy aircraft...