Exocet Attack on HMS Sheffield - Falklands War Documentary

Falklands War series:

0:00 - Intro
0:28 - Fabulous
1:36 - Tactical Situation
3:32 - The Raid Begins
9:23 - Impact!

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#FalklandsWar #Historigraph

This video was sponsored by Fabulous

Sources for the Falklands War Series (so far):

Max Hastings & Simon Jenkins, Battle for the Falklands
Martin Middlebrook, Operation Corporate
Martin Middlebrook, Battle for the Malvinas
Mike Norman, The Falklands War There and Back Again: The Story of Naval Party 8901
Kenneth Privratsky, Logistics in the Falklands War
Sandy Woodward, One Hundred Days
Paul Brown, Abandon Ship
Julian Thompson, No Picnic
John Shields, Air Power in the Falklands Conflict
Edward Hampshire, The Falklands Naval Campaign 1982
Hugh McManners, Forgotten Voices of the Falklands
Cedric Delves, Across an Angry Sea: The SAS in the Falklands War
Rowland White, Vulcan 607
Gordon Smith, Battle Atlas of the Falklands War 1982 by Land, Sea and Air

Music Credits:

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

Other music and SFX from Epidemic Sound

[TheOperationsRoom]

10:11 The way you present complex information in the form of infographics is second to none

[troo_]

I can't even begin to imagine the frustration and dread at HMS Glasgow when their sister ship isn't doing anything to prevent iminent danger.

[KibuFox]

As Sheffield burned, the men in the lifeboats began to band together. While British ships were close by, many of the young sailors were starting to panic. Reportedly, one of the officers started singing "Look on the Bright Side of Life" from the movie "Life of Brian", and before long had the entire surviving crew singing along. This helped raise morale and spirits of the survivors, and is regarded as one of the smartest decisions made that day.

[casematecardinal]

Damn, those pilots had balls. They rushed headlong into what could have been almost certain death with no support or escort and waited till the last possible moment to maximize effectiveness of their weapons. It may be textbook in a way to get as close as possible but its easier said than done. And thats why you never underestimate your enemy because they are very capable of putting a hole in you if you font respect their ability to and willingness to be bold.

[Seyhawk]

As a former destroyer sailor, this is an absolute nightmare. Great job as always on this video.

[aaronjohn]

Regardless of what happened to the Sheffield and why. The 2 Argentina pilots are to be credited with the daring boldness of their attack. They used their equipment to its full capability, maximized their skill set and attacked. They truly lived the credo "fortune favors the brave."

[phildurling]

The UK military learnt a lot from this conflict. Having being largely army focused due to the NI troubles no one thought that aluminium on warships or nylon uniforms for the ship's company would be a problem. Also putting the right personnel in the right positions. The captain of Sheffield, as I understand it, was a former submarine commander. This wasn't the only incident that lessons were learned from, there were others. In any conflict lessons are learnt quickly, early on. I don't think that it was just the fault of officers in command but also the designers and beaurocrats back in the UK ministry of defence. The bravery shown by both UK and Argentine military is without question.

[Werrf]

Props to the Argentine pilots, this was pretty much a perfect textbook attack.

[vinloy]

Brilliant. The Super Etendard-Exocet combo is deadly for navies.

[josepablolunasanchez]

Amazinly upon returning to Argentina, Argentine soldiers and pilots felt more respected by the Brits than by teir own people. For people it was the same reaction of losing a soccer game. But only veterans know the deep sadness that rests in a battlefield. This is why all veterans from any country, have my respect, especially if they are conscripts.

[rickm]

Balls of steel from the pilots and sailors and the mercy of command failures. The task force failed at basic defense and the pilots took full advantage of the command failures. This is from someone living in the UK. The enemy pilots (from my point of view) were very brave as everything should have been against them.

[iainmalcolm]

Of course, most people in the UK (that are old enough) remember the Falklands War. However the detail you provide is fantastic. Learned things I didn't know.
Currently the IWM channel (Imperial War Museum) are running a video series about the Falklands war. Worth checking out for anyone interested in learning about it.

[poxiplu]

Excellent video, very well done and entertaining. With just 5 exocets, the argentinian naval air force proved the enormous skills and bravery of their pilots. Sinking two majors british ships (HMS Sheffield and Atlantic Conveyor), if argentinian forces would have more exocets the outcome of the war could have changed. Another thing to note is that France not only refused to give Argentina the other 9 they should have give them, the french also refused to teach the argentinians how to operate them, so argentinians had to figure out how to do it in very short time. That was also very remarkable. I'm argentinian and I have to say that war sucks. But both sides fought bravely. RIP all the heroes that fought on both sides.

[herseem]

"I suspect someone's been bloody careless" - from your account, that was a very prescient and perceptive comment given how little he knew of the details of the situation at the time.

[DaDe]

Thanks for another great video! You shine a light on the complexity of naval operations that I feel are usually very much oversimplified.
It also brings to life the gruelling reality of fighting aboard tin cans floating on 100's of metres of water in the face of missiles and torpedo's that require only a single hit.

[polkban]

Accurate description, well done . Greetings from Buenos Aires.

[napoleonibonaparte]

4:13 Flat earthers will naturally make terrible pilots and navigators.

[mattyb]

I remember reading one book a while ago that talked about one issue the Royal Navy had during the war was its anti-air capability. From what I remember, the author said it was due to what the RN was expected to do in the event of the Cold War going hot.

The RN had been given a particular task (anti-submarine if I remember correctly) as part of a larger NATO mission, with the expectation that other NATO Navies would be there performing other tasks like dedicated air defence and so on. So the RN had spent decades planning to fight as part of big multinational force and then came the Falkland War...

Suddenly the RN was fighting a war it had never expected and they found they had some serious capability issues, with air defence being a big one. As what they had avaliable was good if there is someone else nearby with better kit and you expected to be part of a wider network. Not so good if it is the only thing avaliable.

And of course, the Argentine pilots had the skills to find and exploit those short comings.

[petermizon]

Well IT WAS THATCHERS FAULT, DONT KILL 300 ARGIES AND EXPECT A CHRISTMAS PARTY, THE BITCH OF A WITCH

[lonjohnson]

I remember this well as I was a bit of a news junkie at the time. It even had made it into one of my science magazines.
One thing to remember is that this was so deadly because of mistakes ON BOTH SIDES. The Exocet missile had a much longer range than had been used. Had the missiles been fired from a safer distance, there would have been less fuel to feed the fire, which was far deadlier than the warhead alone.