More than thirty years have passed since the Falklands Conflict of 1982. Long ago, the guns fell silent, but the Internet battles continue to this day and will probably continue for a very, very long time. Moreover, the discussions are by no means limited to the interpretation of events that happened in real history - opportunities that did not happen are of no less interest. Of course, history as a science does not tolerate the subjunctive mood, but why not arrange a little mind game and try to answer the questions - what if …:
1) Would the most modern air defense systems be installed on the British ships?
2) Would the British have a battleship at the Falklands?
3) Would the British squadron receive a full-fledged ejection carrier instead of the Hermes and Invincible VTOL carriers?
4) In addition to VTOL aircraft, would British aircraft carriers have AWACS helicopters?
SAM
SAM "Sea Wolf"
In discussions of the Falklands conflict, the idea was repeatedly expressed that if the British ships had normal, modern anti-aircraft missile systems, then the air defense of the British compound could be provided without any aircraft at all, and British aircraft carriers would be completely unnecessary. Let's try to figure it out.
The most modern air defense system among the British was the Sea Wolf, which entered service with the Royal Navy in 1979, i.e. just three years before the events described. This complex had truly impressive characteristics - capable of intercepting air targets flying at speeds up to 2M, it was fully automated, and according to passport data, the reaction time (i.e. from the moment the target was taken for tracking until the moment the rocket was launched) was only 5 -6 seconds. The accuracy of the missiles was such that, according to the recollections of Admiral Woodworth, during the tests, the "Sea Wolf" successfully shot down 114-mm shells in flight. The frigates "Brodsward" and "Brilliant" had two air defense systems of this type each, i.e. one frigate had the ability to simultaneously fire on 2 targets. True, the range of this air defense missile system was small - only 6 km, but against aircraft attacking with free-fall bombs, this drawback is quite tolerable.
Let's calculate the efficiency of the complex, as is customary on the Internet. So, it is obvious that the frigate's radar station will detect aircraft long before the latter enter the zone of destruction of the air defense missile system, even a low-flying Skyhawk will be detected at least 20 kilometers away. The standard radar 967 for detecting air targets of the Sea Wolfe air defense missile system is capable of “seeing” and determining the parameters of a target with an RCS of about 10 m 2 at a distance of 70 km. The Skyhawk has another 14 km to fly to the range of the Sea Wolf missiles, and the aircraft flying at a speed of 980 km / h (272 m / s) will take 51 seconds. The reaction time of the Sea Wolf is no more than 6 seconds, so that by the time the attacking aircraft are within 6 km of the ship, all the necessary calculations will be made, and the detection radar will transmit the enemy aircraft to the target tracking radar (for Sea Wolf, this is a radar 910). Start!
The rocket moves with a maximum speed of over 2M, but the average speed will obviously be lower - let's take it equal … well, let it be 1800 km / h or 500 m / s. "Skyhawk" moves towards the rocket at a speed of 272 m / s, the distance between them at the moment of launching the rocket is 6000 m, the speed of convergence is 772 m / s, the plane and the rocket will meet in (roughly) 8 seconds after launch at a distance of 3800 m from the ship. Since the launch was carried out from two guides, 2 aircraft were fired upon.
Over the past 8 seconds, the 967 radar will lock the following targets for a long time, so a couple of seconds (maximum) to pick up a new target for tracking, another 5-6 seconds for the reaction time and - restart! In 6-7 seconds, enemy aircraft will fly another 1900-2200 m and find themselves 1600 m from the ship. So in a couple of seconds after the second missile launch, 2 more pilots will meet their Destiny. And 2 more airplanes of the Sea Wolfe air defense missile system will be able to “reach” on the retreat, firing at them after the bombs are dropped, when they move away from the ship.
It turns out that, based on the passport data of the Sea Wolfe air defense system, the Brodsward-class frigate is capable of firing at 6 aircraft in one attack. Taking into account that the probability of hitting a target with one missile was considered equal to 0.85, one such frigate during an attack will shoot down an average of 5 enemy aircraft.
Brilliant result! In theory. And in practice, out of 8 air attacks on the "Diamond" or "Brodsward" (both frigates carried two "Sea Wolves" each), two attacks of the Sea Wolfe air defense missile system were complacently overslept (problems with the software), in another one I could not shoot at independent from a complex of reasons (the destroyer "Coventry" was in the line of fire) and only in five cases out of eight was able to take part in the battle. But during those five combat episodes in which Sea Wolf did take part, only four Argentinean combat aircraft were shot down by its missiles. The best result was reached on May 12 - “Diamond” was attacked by four “Skyhawks” and two of them were destroyed. On two other occasions, Sea Wolfe shot down one aircraft per attack, and in one episode was unable to shoot down anyone.
Unfortunately, the author could not find data on the actual consumption of the Sea Wolfe air defense missile systems. Dear V. Khromov in “Ships of the Falklands War. Fleets of Great Britain and Argentina indicates:
"At least eight missiles were fired, which shot down two (and possibly one more) enemy aircraft."
Accordingly, the probability of hitting a target for one missile according to V. Khromov is no more than 25-37.5%. Unfortunately, these data cannot be considered reliable - for a long time it was indicated in the press that Sea Wolf shot down five planes, later this number was reduced to four, but certainly not two or three. Accordingly, it can be assumed that the number of missiles fired is incorrect. Perhaps V. Khromov did not take into account some episodes of the use of the air defense missile system, hence the underestimated data on the success of Sea Wolf and, if the suggested guess is correct, the underestimation of the missiles fired. Again, V. Khromov does not write: "Eight missiles have been fired," he writes: "At least eight missiles have been fired."
The author of this article believes that the British spent 10 Sea Wolf missiles to destroy 4 Argentinean aircraft. This gives the probability of hitting one target 40%, which is even slightly higher than the data of V. Khromov and a very good result for a real battle.
So, we see a gaping gap between the passport and actual data of the Sea Wolfe air defense system: if in theory it could fire up to 6 aircraft in one attack, then in practice the complex simply “slept through” almost 40% of the attacks. And in the remaining cases, I have never been able to attack more than two aircraft, despite the fact that the probability of hitting a target with one missile was approximately half the declared one (40% versus 85%).
But Sea Wolfe turned out to be the most effective British complex: the most massive air defense missile system, Sea Cat, proved to be not just worse, but absolutely disgusting - for 80 launches there was only one (and even then - dubious) hit, i.e. the probability of hitting a target with one missile ranges from 0% to 1.25%.
Launch of the Sea Cat air defense missile system from the Intrepid landing ship
Well, let's imagine for a second that a Magician in a blue Sea King suddenly flew into the area of the landing operation, waved his magic wand and all the Sea Cat air defense systems acquired the probability of hitting the target of the Sea Wolves. What happens in this case? During the fighting at the Falklands, the Sea Cat fired 80 rockets. Accordingly, with a probability of hitting 40%, 32 of these 80 missiles will reach their target.
But it should be borne in mind that several ships often fired at the same group of Argentine aircraft: for example, on May 21, the three Daggers fired missiles at Argonot, Intrepid, Plymouth and Brodsward - but only Brodsward »Has achieved success. Those. even if only one missile was fired from each of the four ships, then still at least one of the Argentine aircraft was fired upon by two missiles. And given the fact that the British clearly did not have time to distribute targets for air defense systems from different ships, it is possible that out of the three "Daggers" only two, or even only one aircraft were fired upon. Therefore, the 32 "effective" missiles we have calculated does not mean 32 downed aircraft in any way - given the fact that several "effective" missiles can "aim" at the same aircraft, it is unlikely that the number of downed aircraft would have exceeded 25-27. and less. VTOL aircraft destroyed at least 21 combat aircraft in Argentina. Accordingly, we can say that even if the Sea Harriers suddenly disappeared, and the most massive anti-aircraft complexes of the KVMF miraculously gained the effectiveness of the Sea Wolf, then this would affect the final result very insignificantly, if at all. And if the effectiveness of the Sea Cat air defense system is extended to the Sea Wolf, then we should expect the level of air defense, approximately comparable to that provided by the Sea Harriers. As already proved in the articles of the Falklands cycle, the mission of the air defense of the Sea Harriers formation failed. Accordingly, the "improved Sea Cat" would have failed in the same way.
But in fact, all this reasoning is nothing more than a fantasy - where did the British get so many new air defense systems from? After all, Sea Wolfe entered service only in 1979. It is clear that this complex was to be expected on ships that entered service since 1979, but what a miracle could it have been on earlier ships? The peculiarity of the navy is that the warship is a very long-lived weapon system. These warriors of the seas and oceans serve for 30 years or more, and even the fleets that regularly renew their composition, about 2/3 consist of ships of at least 10 years of age. At the same time, even for the richest countries, it is impossible to carry out such regular modernizations of the fleet that their navies are equipped exclusively with the latest weapons. Accordingly, a large squadron, which included the main combat-ready ships of the fleet, by definition will carry a significant amount of not the most modern weapons. It is not forbidden to dream about something else, but the Wizard in the blue Sea King still will not arrive.
But maybe in other Western countries there were air defense systems that the British could adopt instead of the Sea Cat, and thereby dramatically increase the effectiveness of their own air defense? Alas - there were none. Sea Sparrow? The first versions of this air defense system were very unreliable designs, in which the operator had to "guide" the target visually to guide the missiles.
Fire control post of air defense missile system Sea Sparrow mark115
More advanced complexes with fully automated guidance appeared only at the very end of the 70s, respectively, the British fleet could not be massively equipped with them in 1982. At the same time, the real effectiveness of Sparrow missiles even in the Desert Storm range (external target designation from AWACS aircraft, a lot of time to approach, firing at non-maneuvering targets) did not exceed 40%, and then according to the most optimistic estimates. But there is another important factor - one of the problems of the Sparrow missiles was the poor performance of its semi-active seeker against the background of the underlying surface. Despite the fact that the landing site of the British in the Falklands Strait was just one continuous underlying surface: attacking aircraft against the background of mountains. Those.one can, of course, assume that the Sea Sparrow will show a slightly greater efficiency than the Sea Cat, but in the specific conditions of those battles this difference would hardly be significant. In any case, Sea Sparrow was losing to Sea Wolfe, and therefore, even if British frigates received Sea Sparrow without exception, not to defeat Argentine aviation, but at least just inflict losses at the VTOL level, they would have beyond the power.
And what else? French "Naval Crotal"? A very good (at least - according to the passport specifications) complex, but it also entered service only in 1979-80, and could not be massive by 1982.
Of course, there is also barrel artillery. For example - "Volcano-Falanx", which, in theory, could shred attacking aircraft in batches. What is its real effectiveness, we still do not know, but do not forget that the "Falanx" was adopted only in 1980 and could not be massive by 1982 either. A very perfect "Goalkeeper", according to some reports, significantly surpasses the "Falanx", but it entered service only in 1986 and did not have time to the Falklands conflict.
It would be interesting to try to imagine what a squadron of Soviet ships could do in those conditions - aircraft-carrying cruisers of type 1143, BOD project 1134-B, etc. with their air defense systems of various types and a bunch of 30-mm "metal cutters". Here (possibly!) The result could be different. But for British ships, no matter what western air defense systems you put on them, there was no solution that could replace the Sea Harriers.
Battleships.
Battleship "Vanguard"
What would happen if the British sent the modernized Vanguard equipped with the latest air defense systems to the Falklands? The answer to this question is diametrically opposite, depending on whether the battleship will go together. E with the aircraft carriers "Hermes" and "Invincible" or together O these aircraft carriers. If, nevertheless, together, then the defenders can only sympathize - after the landing of the landing, 380-mm high-explosive shells will very quickly discourage any urge to resist from the Argentine infantry. The British already note the significant role of naval artillery in this conflict, and after all, only 114-mm guns of British frigates and destroyers fired. The effect of 885-kilogram landmines would be truly mind-blowing. So if the British had managed to keep the Vanguard in service by 1982, it could have provided extremely important and perhaps even decisive support to the British ground forces in the Falklands.
But if the battleship was sent instead of aircraft carriers - alas, nothing good would come of it. Yes, of course, "Vanguard" is completely indestructible for bombs and missiles of Argentina (except that the submarine "San Luis" could get it with torpedoes), but the battleship, even being equipped with the latest air defense systems at that time, could not do the most important thing - to provide air defense of the landing zone landing. As a result, the Argentines, almost without suffering losses from the ship's air defense systems and artillery, would inflict heavy damage first on the destroyers and frigates, and then on the British transports. Without the Sea Harriers, the British simply would not have inflicted enough casualties on the Argentine Air Force to force them to abandon ship attacks and switch to land targets. So sending an amphibious formation under the protection of a battleship would most likely lead to the destruction of this amphibious formation from the air, which the battleship would not be able to prevent …
… Or could it still be possible? One of the authors of TOPWAR, singer of battleship power Oleg Kaptsov, in the discussion proposed the following reconstruction: the mighty battleship a la Missouri, equipped with Tomahawk cruise missiles, first blurs Argentina's military airbases into dust - and that's it, Argentine aircraft have nowhere else to fly! Then - the landing of troops and the demonstrative incineration of the defenders' field fortifications (also for the most part unfinished). This is the end of the fairy tale!
It is difficult to imagine how many Tomahawks would have to be spent in order to completely destroy the airfield-based system with which Argentine aviation could "work" in the Falkland Islands. In total, Argentina has over 140 airfields with artificial runway surfaces, but how many of them are located close enough to the coast for Skyhawks and Daggers to reach the Falklands from them is unknown to the author. It is even more difficult to predict how the world community would react to the destruction of civilian airfields by cruise missiles - after all, they would have to be destroyed in the same way as the military. But we will not ask these questions, but simply take it for granted that all this is possible and permissible. So it turns out that a missile battleship could solve the issue of ownership of the Falkland Islands?
With such initial ones - probably yes, but here's the bad luck … It is completely unclear why a battleship is needed for all of the above. If we admit the possibility of destroying Argentina's airfield network with cruise missiles, then such missiles can be launched even from a destroyer, even from a submarine, a battleship is absolutely not required for this. But for the artillery support of the landing, the battleship is not needed either - for this it is more than enough to equip each of the British landing transports with one or two powerful 152-203-mm guns with sufficient ammunition. One glance at the map suggests that the ship's artillery system with a firing range of 25-30 km reliably blocks any defensive positions of Gus Green, Darwin, Port Stanley … Maginot”was not there. Of course, 381-mm shells would have been both more effective and destructive, but the power of 203-mm artillery was quite enough to suppress the Argentine defense. And the waterfowl "Iron Kaput" of several tens of thousands of tons is absolutely unnecessary for this.
Aircraft carrier.
Possible view of an unbuilt British aircraft carrier of the Queen Elizabeth class. Instead of them, "Invincibles" were built …
Where could he get it from the British? There are plenty of options: in the mid-60s, the British were going to build full-fledged ejection carriers of the Queen Elizabeth (CVA-1) type, but the program was closed for reasons of economy. As a result, instead of CVA-1, the British fleet received vertical takeoff and landing aircraft carriers of the Invincible type. Still, if their Lordships hadn't been hit by the most unbridled economy, full-fledged aircraft carriers could have been built. However, there is another option - having two aircraft carriers of the Odoyshes type, which entered service in 1951 and 1955, the British managed to withdraw both of these ships from the fleet by 1978. "Arc Royal" served for some 23 years … But this ship could carry modern aircraft at that time ("Buccaneers" and "Phantoms").
Take the Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carrier. This ship with a total displacement of 54,500 tons does not at all pretend to be a supercarrier, but if it were built, it could carry an air group of about 50 aircraft and helicopters. It is interesting that such performance characteristics roughly corresponded to the capabilities of the Hermes and Invincible, which fought at the Falklands. Both of these aircraft carriers (together) had 48,510 tons of full displacement and carried 49 aircraft before the start of the battles. But, of course, if in real history the decks of British aircraft carriers were decorated with rather indistinct Sea Harriers, then the CVA-1 would have had 36 Phantoms and Bukanians, as well as 4 AWACS aircraft Gannet AEW.3. And if the former do not need special ideas, then the last of the above aircraft should be told separately. The Gannet AEW.3 was a rather strange sight - a relatively small (maximum takeoff weight - 11,400 kg), propeller-driven and low-speed (speed not exceeding 402 km / h) aircraft, nevertheless, it had a crew of three (a pilot and two observer) and a very ancient, but still operational radar station AN / APS-20 (which was equipped with the Argentine "Neptune"). And, what is extremely important, he could stay in the air for 5-6 hours.
Gannet AEW. 3. Photo from the collection //igor113.livejournal.com/
What would have happened if the British had such an aircraft carrier near the Falkland Islands? As we recall, the original British plan was to destroy the Argentine air bases in the Falklands, simulate a landing, lure the Argentine fleet to the islands and destroy it there in a general engagement. As you know, only the second point succeeded - the Argentines really believed that the British were about to start an amphibious operation and withdrew the fleet to strike at the amphibious group. But, without waiting for the British transports, they retreated - neither to break the Argentine airfields in the Falklands, nor to find the Argentine fleet, the British carrier-based aircraft could not. The inability of the Sea Harriers to carry anti-radar missiles led to the fact that Argentine air monitoring radars, as well as fire control radars were not suppressed, which caused the VTOL strike capabilities to be reduced to almost zero.
At the same time, the Phantoms and Buccaneers would easily have trampled the entire Argentine air control system together with the air defense system into the freezing Falkland soil, because the Phantoms could easily carry and use the Shrike PRR, and the Buccaneers could carry suspended containers. Electronic warfare. After that, British attack aircraft, capable of carrying up to 7 tons of ammunition under their wings, would have destroyed both the runways of both Argentine air bases and the entire infrastructure that was located around them, along with light aircraft. Air defense fighters operating from Argentine continental airfields could not help in anything - as we know, only the guidance of ground services allowed them to engage in battle with British aircraft, and without external target designation, Argentine pilots could only patrol 5-10 minutes over the islands and fly home due to lack of fuel.
If the Argentine Navy tried to intervene - well, remember that the one and only "Neptune", which was in extremely poor technical condition, could easily open the location of the British order and observe the British for several hours. Can we assume that four British AWACS aircraft with a similar radar will not be able to find the Argentine squadrons? Of course, anything can happen in war, but the likelihood of British success is extremely high. Therefore, it can be argued that if the British had a full-fledged aircraft carrier, they would have achieved their goals from the very beginning, first destroying the air force, air defense and airspace control in the Falklands, and then finding and drowning the Argentine fleet.
It cannot be ruled out that this would have been quite enough for Argentina's surrender. But even if not, then … The presence of four AWACS aircraft, each of which is capable of staying in the air for 5-6 hours, made it possible to provide constant watch during daylight hours (the Argentines did not fly at night) both over the British squadron and over the amphibious forces in the landing area. The attack on Sheffield would have been thwarted with a 99% probability - the English Gannets would hardly have allowed Neptune to feel so at ease with the British order. Of course, the decimeter AN / APS-20 of the British AWACS is far from being a treasure of Peru, and it sees poorly against the background of the underlying surface, of course, one aircraft could unexpectedly fail (the technical readiness of the British aircraft was over 80%, but not 100%) and a "hole" would have formed, of course, "it was smooth on paper, but they forgot about the inevitable accidents at sea", etc., etc., and all of the above did not give the British an absolutely impenetrable shield. But one thing can be said with complete certainty: if the Gannets with Phantoms were patrolling the skies over the Falklands, then a significant number of Argentine strike groups would have been discovered and intercepted long before they left the British ships. Yes, some planes could break through, yes, they caused some losses, but the Argentines would have to pay for these successes twice or three times more than it actually happened. Including taking into account the fact that neither the Canberra YOU, nor the Skyhawks (and, in fact, not the Daggers) were able to successfully break away from the Phantoms capable of accelerating to 2,231 km / h - but how many times the British on the Sea Harriers could not catch up with the enemy fleeing from them! Accordingly, the hopes of the Argentine High Command for inflicting unacceptable damage on the British during the landing would melt much faster than it actually happened. And the heavy "Buccaneers" of the British were much more successful than the "Sea Harriers" could convince the leadership of the Falklands defense of the complete futility of positional defense. Recall that
"In general, during the campaign, only the Sea Harriers of the 800th AE dropped forty-two 1000-pound bombs and 21 BL.755 cassettes, and the Harriers of the 1st Squadron dropped 150 bombs, of which 4 were guided."
Well, one of the options for the standard load of the Buccaneer attack aircraft is eight 1000-pound bombs. Accordingly, a dozen "Bukanians" were quite capable of dumping as much and even more ammunition on enemy positions in one sortie, as the squadron of "Sea Harriers" had during the entire war.
Thus, it would not be an exaggeration to say that the presence of only one, not the largest and by no means super-, but still an aircraft carrier with catapults and a full-fledged air group would lead to a quick victory for the British, and much less blood than it actually happened.
During the discussion of the articles of the "Falklands" cycle, the following opinion was also expressed - the effectiveness of the "Phantoms" would be lower than the "Sea Harriers", because the latter had the best opportunities for maneuverable combat. Moreover, the "Phantoms" could have suffered defeat at all from the Argentine "Mirages" and "Daggers" much more adapted to "dogfight" (close air combat). This is extremely doubtful, if only for the simple reason that there were practically no maneuverable air battles over the Falklands, but, in any case, the following should be borne in mind.
When the British were still planning to build full-fledged aircraft carriers of the Queen Elizabeth type, the composition of the air group had not yet been determined, and there were at least two applicants for the role of a carrier-based fighter. One of them was, of course, the Phantom, but France offered to develop and deliver to the British a carrier-based fighter based on the Mirage. The proposal was considered seriously, and now it is hardly possible to say what exactly the British would prefer. The problem of choosing a carrier-based fighter lost all relevance when they put an end to the catapult aircraft carriers. But if the British nevertheless built the Queen Elizabeth, it is possible that the deck version of the Mirage was in its hangars, and here the Argentine fighters, even in the dogfight, would have absolutely nothing.
AWACS helicopters.
Sea King AEW 7
Many respected regulars of TOPWAR, without denying the role of airborne early warning radar, consider it possible to provide the latter at the expense of helicopters equipped with powerful radars. As far as possible, and could it help the British in the Falklands?
The first thing to note is that an AWACS helicopter in its capabilities will always be inferior to an AWACS aircraft. The same AN / APS-20 was installed on the Neptuns and on the deck Gannets without any problems. But an attempt by the Americans in 1957 to install such a radar on a Sikorsky helicopter was unsuccessful - the radar turned out to be too big for a rotary-wing aircraft. During the Falklands Conflict, the British converted two Westland Sea King HAS.2 helicopters, installing Searchwater radars on them, but at that time this radar was focused on finding surface targets, not air ones, and could hardly provide decisive support in identifying hostile aircraft … However, it was not possible to verify this in practice - the helicopters did not have time to go to war. In addition to the British, AWACS helicopters were engaged in France (helicopters based on "Puma" and AS.532UL Cougar), in the USSR (Ka-31) and in China, but nowhere could they attach a radar to the helicopter at least somewhat corresponding to the AWACS aircraft. In addition to the quality of the radar, the limited flight altitude also plays an important role - the higher we raise the radar above sea level, the farther the radio horizon, and here the Ka-31 with its practical ceiling of 5 kilometers is difficult to compete with the E-2C Hawkeye. whose similar figure tends to 10 km. And besides this, it should be taken into account that the AWACS aircraft of the Hokai, Sentry or domestic A-50U level is not just a flying radar, but also an aviation command post, which is not possible to place in a helicopter.
But the main disadvantage of the AWACS helicopter lies not in the above. The Achilles heel of the AWACS helicopter is a combination of low speed with short patrol time. While the same Gannet is able to stay in the air for 5-6 hours, and the E-2C - and 7 hours, despite the fact that the cruising speed of the latter exceeds 500 km / h, the same British Sea King AEW can patrol no more than 2 hours, and the Ka-31 - 2.5 hours, having a cruising speed of 204 and 220 km, respectively.
As a result, the American E-2C usually patrols, moving away in the direction of a potential threat by 300 km, and is able to spend at least five hours at this line, and if necessary, the American AUG sets up two air patrols - 300 and 600 kilometers from the order in the direction of the potential threats. The helicopter, obviously, is not able to do anything like that - having moved away almost 200 km from the order, it is immediately forced to return. Accordingly, three British "King" in the performance of AWACS (the standard air group of British aircraft carriers after the Falklands), making two departures daily, are able to provide only six hours of patrolling 100 km from the order. Such helicopters can control the airspace during at least daylight hours only by patrolling directly above the order.
For the Ka-31, the situation is even worse. On the one hand, it is likely that it carries the most powerful radar ever installed on a helicopter. At the same time, the Ka-31, although it cannot perform the functions of a flying aviation control center, is capable of transmitting data from its radar in real time directly to the carrier ship, which performs the "headquarters" function. But you have to pay for everything - the Ka-31 has a huge rotating antenna (weight - 200 kg, length - 5.75 m, area - 6 sq. M), and stabilization of our rotorcraft during its rotation is a rather difficult task. The developers did it, but the Ka-31 in the search mode has a very low speed, much less than the cruising speed.
Therefore, the AWACS helicopter is all the same "foremast defense aviation", capable of seriously controlling only the airspace directly above the squadron. This has its advantages, because it is better to have at least such control than none at all, but there are also disadvantages - having discovered a working radar of an AWACS helicopter, the enemy will know exactly where the ship's order is located. But this is extremely secret information - the same Argentines, having lost the ability to use their own reconnaissance aircraft "Neptune", were able to "calculate" the location of British aircraft carriers only on the fifth day of the landing operation. But the AWACS helicopter hangs over the Hermes and Invincible … The fact of the matter is that having found an enemy AWACS aircraft, one can only guess where the aircraft carrier is located at that time, and the AWACS helicopter unmasks the position of the ship group.
Thus, the AWACS helicopter is an ersatz, and is unable to replace a full-fledged AWACS aircraft. As in the case of vertical take-off aircraft, it is able to expand the capabilities of a ship's connection, but not enough to successfully withstand a full-fledged air group of horizontal take-off aircraft.
What would happen if the British had AWACS helicopters at the Falklands? Alas, but, most likely, it would not have helped them to find the Argentine fleet - due to the meager radius of action of the helicopters. According to Sheffield, the situation is fortuitous, but it cannot be ruled out that the helicopters could nevertheless find the Neptune and disrupt the Argentines' operation, although there are not so many chances for this. But where AWACS helicopters would really come in handy, so it is in the defense of the landing area. In this case, British aircraft carriers had the opportunity to leave three helicopters, say, from the Hermes to cover the aircraft carrier formation, and transfer three AWACS from the Invincible to one of the dock ships or even to a ground bridgehead. And then the British had a good opportunity to control the airspace directly above the landing area, and practically during the entire daylight hours. Although the radars of the then “Kings” were not good, there is no doubt that their presence would have significantly increased the effectiveness of the Sea Harriers, and, of course, the British would have suffered much less losses, shooting down much more Argentine aircraft.
