American spy satellites and the Falklands War

[Blackstar]

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2258/1

The Lion and the Vortex
by Dwayne Day
Monday, March 11, 2013

In early April of 1982, Argentine forces invaded the small, sleepy archipelago known as the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic. Very quickly British forces mobilized in response to retake the islands. One of the long-standing questions about the conflict is the degree of help provided by the United States to Great Britain. A newly-declassified document from the US National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) reveals that a top secret American signals intelligence satellite launched only a few months before the conflict was pressed into service to provide intelligence to the United Kingdom. The satellite was known as VORTEX (classified code words are often printed in all-caps) and it was launched in October 1981 from Cape Canaveral.

British warships sailed from ports in the United Kingdom only a few days after the invasion, but it took them several weeks to arrive at the cold, wind-swept islands. After that, the war became a bloody slug-fest. The Argentines suffered 649 killed, including 323 men lost when the cruiser General Belgrano was sunk by a British submarine, and Great Britain suffered 258 of its soldiers, sailors and marines killed. The Royal Navy lost two destroyers, two frigates, and three other vessels to Argentine Exocet missiles and bombs.

Last year was the thirtieth anniversary of the war and, in response, the British government released a number of new documents, many of them concerning diplomatic relations with the United States soon after the Argentine invasion. The Reagan Administration initially sought a diplomatic solution in order to maintain favor with Latin American countries that it was enlisting in opposition to communist influence in Cuba, Nicaragua, and El Salvador. The public American position created the impression, even among some within the British government, that the United States was not helping out its longstanding ally. The reality was that the United States was offering extensive support to Britain, but in such a low-key manner that even many in the British government were unaware of it.

[kevin-rf]

I really liked the article, thanks for writing it.

[Targeteer]

Some of the weapons provided included 100 brand new AIM-9L Sidewinder air-air missiles--the best the US had at the time .  The Sea Harriers used them to great effect against Argentine aircraft.

Great article as usual and thanks for the link to the GovernmentAttic.org website.  I'm finding the Byeman classification re-org document an interesting read--I'm a geek what can I say.   

The Byeman system was eventually completely retired.  See
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB225/doc06.pdf

[Blackstar]

There's a question on the site that I'm too lazy to answer at the moment, which is what American imagery satellites were in orbit during the conflict.

[kevin-rf]

I thought imaging satellites where useless since the Falklands are covered in clouds 365 days a year

[Targeteer]

There's a question on the site that I'm too lazy to answer at the moment, which is what American imagery satellites were in orbit during the conflict.

According to the Wiki--dangerous I know--there were

2 KH-11s (launch, designation, de-orbit)

7 February 1980 1980-010A 30 October 1982
3 September 1981 1981-085A 3 November 1984

KH9-17

1982 May 11    1982-041A    1982 Dec 05

KH8-52    

1982-01-21    1982-006A    1982-05-23

[Blackstar]

I thought imaging satellites where useless since the Falklands are covered in clouds 365 days a year

That would not have been true of every interesting site. For instance, the Argentine ports and airfields. Also, I believe that they had clear weather over the Falklands at least a few days. While searching for images of ships sinking to illustrate the article (I decided to simply go with one of the best-known ones of HMS Sheffield) I came across some images of HMS Antelope sinking. Note that the skies are blue in the dramatic image here:

http://transformersuk.blogspot.com/2011/01/hms-antelope.html

[Danderman]

IIRC Nicholas Johnson described orbital maneuvers by Soviet assets to optimize coverage of the war, but I don't what they did with the end product.

[kevin-rf]

Blackstar, I was joking ... But with the Falklands being so far south, I wonder if the alignment for each asset was such that you had daily imaging opportunities.

Playing with Heavens-Above and an assumed modern KH-11, USS-224 it looks like it typically passes overhead once a day, but oddly gets into a pattern of several days in a row of having daily high angle passes, then several days of daily low angle passes.

http://heavens-above.com/PassSummary.aspx?satid=37348&lat=-51.696&lng=-57.812&loc=Unspecified&alt=0&tz=Arg&showall=t

I think we need to dig up the historic orbits of the assets then on station.

[Blackstar]

Blackstar, I was joking ... But with the Falklands being so far south, I wonder if the alignment for each asset was such that you had daily imaging opportunities.

I assumed a joke, but didn't want to miss an opportunity for more data. I imagine that somewhere there is a daily weather log of the cloud cover during the war, and it would be important to match that up with any recon coverage data.

I have a number of books on the war, but have not read them in quite awhile. What is still rather appalling is how unprepared the British were for air attack, as evidenced by the fact that they lost a number of ships to dumb bombs--and would have lost even more if they had not gotten lucky. Their missiles were useless against low level attack, and they didn't have much in the way of guns. They really needed a lot more AA than they had. And they needed effective AWACs. They learned these lessons the hard way.

[kevin-rf]

I suspect you would have to enlist someone like Ted Molzcan to reconstruct the orbits from historical data, assuming the archived TLE's are even accurate.

As for the AWAC's, with the limited tankers, they could barely nurse a Vulcan bomber into place for a bombing run, much less maintain an extended AWAC patrol. The only way that would have happened is if the US had lent them a carrier group.

Even today, I kind of find it funny the British plan forward carrier force projection without a ship based AWAC solution. Though to be fair, in keeping shipping lanes open, the US has plans to forward project airpower with F-35B equipped LHD's and no LHD based AWAC's. Blackstar I don't think people have absorbed all the lessons.

[alexw]

What is still rather appalling is how unprepared the British were for air attack, as evidenced by the fact that they lost a number of ships to dumb bombs--and would have lost even more if they had not gotten lucky. Their missiles were useless against low level attack, and they didn't have much in the way of guns. They really needed a lot more AA than they had.

Dwayne,
     It's very important to place the war in historical context, because many of these weaknesses were known, and partly accepted given incredible budget pressures on the MOD coming out of the 1970s. In 1982, a/the principal role of the (diminished) RN was closing the North Atlantic to Soviet submarines, so the RN was overwhelmingly an ASW fleet. The Sea Dart missile and the radar fitted to the earlier Type 42 AAW destroyers was poor at low level (partly known going in), but excellent at high altitude/high speed targets -- like Soviet aircraft ranging about the North Atlantic. The Sea Wolf point-defense missile was very good at low level, but there were only ~3 Type 22 destroyers yet in service. The iron bombs were effective (and would have been much more so had they been fused properly for low level attack), but this was not on the open ocean -- it was right up against or even surrounded by hills, when aircraft could appear with only seconds warning. Ships suffered horridly shooting down the Argentine air force. They knew that part was going to be rough, if not how rough, but the RN sailed to war with what they had available.
    Consider also the USN at the time: no Aegis cruisers yet, Phalanx less than two years in, the New Threat Upgrade program in testing -- the USN in 1982 was hardly the anti-air capability of the USN in ~1990 (the world of _Red Storm Rising_ one perhaps finds easier to remember today).

    The Falklands war made brutally clear to both the Pentagon and the MOD how critically vulnerable ships were to Exocets, or even Skyhawks with land cover, and both the RN and the USN commissioned a lot of modern ships and better short and long-range weapons and radar in the 1980s. Probably the war accelerated that.

And they needed effective AWACs. They learned these lessons the hard way.

Even today, I kind of find it funny the British plan forward carrier force projection without a ship based AWAC solution.

     The appalling lack was well known, and thought practically unbelievable even at the time. Again, the key context was the reality of operating "out of area" as the Treasury had hoped/presumed to avoid and the RN worried would inevitably come. The Falklands were of course too far from Ascension for Shackleton AEW (as would have been P-3 Orions in the USN, and perhaps E-3 Sentry); the Gannet AEW (the role of E-2 Hawkeyes) had only just gone with Ark Royal's recent decommissioning. What they ought to have done before the war, in the late 1970s, apparently got funded immediately at the outbreak -- the first Sea King AEW were coming south right at the end. Future carriers will presumably fly AEW from Sea King, Merlin, or V-22.

   -Alex

[Archibald]

The Argies had lot of dumb bombs that did not exploded becuse the fuse was ill-suited. They were just flying too low and too fast.

As for the AEW, the Hermes (the last CATOBAR carrier in RN service) could have handled the Gannets - if the catapults had not been removed !

The Falkland war itself is straight of an alternate reality - or a very bad techno-thriller.

[Blackstar]

     It's very important to place the war in historical context, because many of these weaknesses were known, and partly accepted given incredible budget pressures on the MOD coming out of the 1970s. In 1982, a/the principal role of the (diminished) RN was closing the North Atlantic to Soviet submarines, so the RN was overwhelmingly an ASW fleet.

Oh, I get that. Nobody needs to tell me that you have to consider events in their historical context. I'm all about the context, baby!

But I still find it pretty appalling at how unprepared they were. Just insufficient AA. Now the US Navy was not much ahead of them, but it had introduced the Phalanx CIWS in 1980. I don't know how many ships had it by April 1982, but the Royal Navy knew that it would have to get in close to the islands and could have figured that they would be facing a low-level threat and would need more guns. And at least some of the British losses were not due to insufficient equipment, but poor decisions (i.e. the best location for troops and helos is ashore, not on sinkable vessels).

[hoku]

... But with the Falklands being so far south, I wonder if the alignment for each asset was such that you had daily imaging opportunities.

Playing with Heavens-Above and an assumed modern KH-11, USS-224 it looks like it typically passes overhead once a day, but oddly gets into a pattern of several days in a row of having daily high angle passes, then several days of daily low angle passes.

http://heavens-above.com/PassSummary.aspx?satid=37348&lat=-51.696&lng=-57.812&loc=Unspecified&alt=0&tz=Arg&showall=t
...

There is also the (unknown) side-looking capability of the first generation of KH-11. As far as I can remember, Gambit's and Hexagon's side-looking capability was at least partially revealed in the past document releases, indicating that intelligence can be gained from passes not exactly overhead.

The attached image from a presentation by a former secretary of state also suggests the possibility of quite oblique viewing angles. Clouds would be even more of a problem in this case.

[ChileVerde]

There's a question on the site that I'm too lazy to answer at the moment, which is what American imagery satellites were in orbit during the conflict.

According to the Wiki--dangerous I know--there were

2 KH-11s (launch, designation, de-orbit)

7 February 1980 1980-010A 30 October 1982
3 September 1981 1981-085A 3 November 1984

KH9-17

1982 May 11    1982-041A    1982 Dec 05

KH8-52    

1982-01-21    1982-006A    1982-05-23

What orbital elements that are available for those are, in the order listed, available at

http://www.planet4589.org/space/elements/11600/S11687
http://www.planet4589.org/space/elements/12700/S12799
http://www.planet4589.org/space/elements/13100/S13170
http://www.planet4589.org/space/elements/13000/S13040

[Blackstar]

As far as I can remember, Gambit's and Hexagon's side-looking capability was at least partially revealed in the past document releases, indicating that intelligence can be gained from passes not exactly overhead.

In the case of the KH-9, each swath covered 370 nautical miles east-west, so the satellite could be almost 180 miles to the east or west of its target and still image it.

[Star One]

Great article. One point surely the VORTEX satellite would not be needed now with the MENTOR system?

[kevin-rf]

Assuming they have more assets than areas of concern... Notice they had three different models of imaging satellites in orbit during the crisis.

[Jim]

Great article. One point surely the VORTEX satellite would not be needed now with the MENTOR system?

How so?  Do you know the capabilities of each? and their taskings?  What other systems were around in 82?