The Falklands And The Task Force

[Eddie M.]

IMHO, one only has to look at the Forrestal accident in the late 60's to show how tough todays carriers are. CV-59 took damage from the detonations of nine(9) 1000lbs bombs, very large fuel fire on deck, in the Hanger and assorted interior spaces and leaking chlorine gas as well. Plus, the firefighting in that incident left a lot to be desired and she still survived. Even if you took out the island, damage control central is deep in the ship and aft steering can take care of making sure she stays underway and is pumping water to the various fire mains. All the mains are redundant. Fire supression and damage control are the highest priorty in ship board life. Just about any scenerio is practiced to prepare for the most unlikely event. It goes so far as to have your own individual emergency oxygen hood in your rack to try and prevent sailors from dying from smoke inhalation in the berthing. Even in port, there are fire drills every day. Today, an attack with something like a Silkworms would be serious, but it would be controlled.

They just pounded the USS America and sank her to see what a modern day carrier could take ( results are classified, IIRC) and those lessons will be incorporated in future carriers.

As far as small boys are concerned, the USS Stark is a prime example of a crew not giving up. It nearly sank because of the fires (and flooding from the water used to fight the fire) set by the propellant of one of the missiles. The ship was rated to handle fire up to 1800 degrees. The propellant burned at about 3500 degrees. Parts for the superstructure melted. Guys had melted nylon boxers during that seige. One DCman said to envision a pizza oven turned on high and then crawl inside (no bunker gear!) to reroute the shattered fire main. Several fatally injuried crewmen refused rescue so they could finish their jobs.

The RN passed on quite a few tips in DC from the Falklands. Those guys are tops when it come to fire supression and DC! B)
   Eddie    

[Archibald]

The fact is, in vietnam no less than 3 carriers suffered from fire - Oriskany in 1966,  Forrestal in july 1967 and  Enterprise in 1969.  

[Runway ? ...]

I'm late to this so bear with me. If one of the carriers was damaged beyond use, but not actually sunk. Then the UK would have a bunch of "buckets of instant sunshine" with nowhere to store them as IIRC they were being collected together on the carriers.
All I mean to say is that you'd have to put them somewhere  
Of course if one of them actually sank then there'd be the problem of preventing . . .  I want to say pollution but you get the idea.

IRL Thatcher would probably have just left the forces to duke it out with what's left  

 

[Eddie M.]

The fact is, in vietnam no less than 3 carriers suffered from fire - Oriskany in 1966,  Forrestal in july 1967 and  Enterprise in 1969.  

All those carriers went on to be repaired. There has not been a major fire on carrier since then. I think it would be very hard to sink one. Probably put it out of meaningful action, but it would survive. At least to recover it's aircraft. The days of mass conflagration like the Lady Lex or Franklin are a very remote possiblity.
   Eddie

[Archibald]

I'm  intriguate by such serie of fire... I suppose it was linked to the high level of activity of the carriers during vietnam war. (on the Forrestal case,I red  there was a shortage of modern bombs so they used older and dangerous bombs ).

Let's go back to the falkland... aparently there's a SMB-2 planned in 1/72 scale.

The super Mystere B.2 was dropped in favor of the Mirage III in 1957.

Before that, Dassault build the ultimate variant of the SMB-2, the SMB-4.
An atar 9 engine (similar to th Mirage III powerplant) replaced the Atar-101 of the SMB-2.
The increased thrust - 6 tons vs 4.5 for the atar 101- pushed top speed to mach 1.4. The rest of the plane was very similar to the SMB-2.

whatif dassault pushed this plane as day fighter in the same way as the
F-100 ?    
Maybe a new, more refined wing could push the aircraft to mach 1.5 ?

The only upgrade of the SMB-2 came from Israel and was named Saa'r. It was a SMB-2 with a skyhawk engine! some aircafts were sold to Honduras in 1976...