Talk:5th Naval Infantry Battalion (Argentina)

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[edit] Harrier XW919

I've removed the full text claiming a Tiger Cat hit on Harrier XW919. The aircraft was damaged while dropping CBUs on Sapper Hill, either by small arms fire or (most probably according to Argentinian accounts) by AAA splinters. The suggestion that a Tiger Cat is to blame came from a misrepresentation of the following paragraph of John Smith's book:

"The Tiger Cat missile battery up behind the power station was on full alert with the missile covers off. Two Harriers over at 4.30, very high. A bit of firing at the them from the ground batteries. Went indoors to draw the study curtains a few moments later, just in time to see them flash through Fairy Cove gap, firing their cannons and being fired at." (...) "Les Harris, Assistant Superintendent at the Power Station, with the rest of the staff, all managed to get up there about 9 this morning, and were having a brew of tea when the Argentines fired a Tiger Cat missile, from the launcher just to the back of them, at a Harrier. This exploded prematurely, sending chunks of it through the power-house roof. The Harrier dropped a cluster bomb, the nose of which also went through the roof, landing in the station and bringing the tea-break to an abrupt end." Smith, page 229.

It's obvious that the "power-house roof" hit by shrapnel from the Tiger Cat was the roof of the power station, not the engine bay of the Harrier, as previously suggested.--Darius (talk) 01:26, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

David Morgan's book deals with the Harrier XW919, as I recall it was a rifle bullet that damaged the rear reaction control valve assembly. It also deals with a different incident where the pilot of a Harrier observed an attempt to launch Tiger Cat and it exploded prematurely. I'd therefore support removal of material that is clearly erroneous. Justin talk 12:25, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I think the misrepresentation was made in good faith; after all, the official RAF diaries about the Falklands campaign assert that XW919 suffered the fracture of the aft reaction pipe after being struck by shrapnel (see here).

A first hand account of the pilot, McLeod, mentions a first incident also over Sapper Hill, on June 9, when his Harrier was hit, in his own words, by splinters from an AAA shell (see June 9th entry here). --Darius (talk) 16:24, 21 April 2008 (UTC)