ARmy Rumour SErvice

We flogged them lots of kit as well .rolls royce was upset 10yrs ago that
the gov wouldnt let them sell spare parts for the argies ships.

Originally Posted by ugly

We were in Portugal on exercise and stuck for an LSL home till the mighty Crab trooped us back, we got some very strange looks. The French by the way didnt so much as stand by us as commented at the beginning but stab us in the back by supplying much needed exocet stuff to the dagoes as they were affectionately known!

Not entirely fair to the French.

They promptly stopped selling Exocets to the Argies who only had something like eight complete Exocet systems at the outbreak of the war. IIRC five were launched and two of them malfunctioned. (I cannot remember what happened to the other three systems: I don't think they were airworthy.) Of the three that worked, one kill per round. My understanding is that Argie agents were scouring grey markets for more Exocets but British, French and Septic agents were busily clearing the markets ahead of them.

And Maggie has publicly stated her thanks to the French president (Mitterrand?) for breaking all the French paranoia rules and giving our intelligence services chapter and verse on ALL of Exocet's official secrets, something that has never happened before or since.

If I recall it took a lot of pressure to do so and dassault were all for dealing with them regardless of what the Govt actually claimed was happening! This was forsupplying the kit to launch them from the Mirage rather than the missiles themselves.
I seem to remember talk of Suez, De Gaulle and backstabbing the Entente Cordialle.

Hey there

Only five missiles (AM39) delivered in late 1981

France, indeed, stopped any technical advice, etc.

Exocets were made operative by Cdr. Julio Perez and his team of engineers and technicians/fitters at the Missile Workshop, Puerto Belgrano Naval Base

(that's the same guy, electronic engineer and mathematician extraordinaire, that made the makeshift launcher that hit Glamorgan, has a MSc/PhD in Missiles/Rockets, has studied in France, Italy and the UK... now retired as a Rear Adm., is the Dean of the Naval University)

Perez (a shortish, strawberry blond guy), along with our Naval Int "boys", tried to score Exocets from the Black Market, but Brit Intel was always a step ahead of us, even delaying a shipment of AM39s for Peru's Agusta Sea Kings, in the knowledge that those missiles could have ended in Argentina.

Cheers

DS

PS: Some French weapons did came through Lybia, specially the almost useless magic 1 AAM... the Lybians were not very keen on maintenance, hence the missiles had top be refurbished and cleaned (sand in the rocket sections, among other niceties)... AFAIK the Lybia affair was a Soviet thing, and the Frogs were -allegedly- clean on that one...

An Argentinean brought down a Harrier over the runway with a British Blowpipe…..so? Countries, including Britain, sell arms to others who are not on any prohibited list. This however, does not stop a permitted country then selling to another permitted country etc etc, that eventually trades with a prohibited country – arms laundering.

John Nott on France

No.9

And let's hear it for plucky little Belgium, which country had benefited form British blood during the 20th century.

Oh, hang about. They refused to sell us 7.62 as our supplies were being depleted. Until the Falklands were won, at which point we'd need spare 7.62 for use against the Warsaw Pact to defend (among others) ..... plucky little Belgium.

Wonder if this is why Douglas Adams had Belgium as the mostoffensive word in the universe?.

Not forgetting the contracted arty ammo in GW1 which They refused to fullfil as it may be an illegal war!

DownSouth

The Argies also tried to get UK to make them some 6" Naval projectiles and charges for the Guns on the Belgrano.

Fozzy - you young whippersnapper!

The "In" joke at the time was "Do you know why we sunk the Belgrano"?

Because it was full of Argies and we were having a war with them.

Although have since heard other stories about gaps in the Fleets' torpedo capabilities.