@@grimreapers Good old RAF... Secure the building: Army - Set up a perimeter, don't let anyone enter. Marines - Storm the building, clear it out, don't let anyone enter. RAF - Make sure the lights are turned off and the doors are locked. ;)
The army, navy and the marines are all relatively independent and can call anywhere home, the AF have practicalities to be considered - then they can perform their job as bravely and diligently as any SAS. Kind of ironic that those with the most freedom of movement and lofty POV are so constantly reminded of their need for a safe place to land, personnel and resources, without which they cannot perform their unique service to the mission at hand. It's fitting that pilots in RAF/USAF have to be officers.
I found the briefing and input by Matrix very interesting, especially coming from someone who served in the armed forces. His insights and detailed explanations added a lot of depth to this fascinating piece of history. Great job, guys! 👍
One other story about South Georgia and Grytviken, When Shackleton's expedition to the Antarctic went wrong and he and his men got stuck on the Antarctic after their ship sank, Shackleton and his expert navigator took a small open boat from the Antarctic to South Georgia, successfully landing on the South of the Island, Shackleton then completed the first ever crossing of South Georgia from South to North, walking into Grytviken. When he arrived the locals were so scared of this thing coming out of the interior that they ran away, he then led a rescue party back to Antarctica to rescue the rest of his party. Nobody died (you can read his book - "South")
A bloke I was at university with was a junior officer on HMS Endeavour when the Falklands was invaded (he said he thought counting penguins in the Antactic was going to be the safest Royal Navy assignment duting the cold war). Luckily he was on leave when the invasion happened, unluckily in Argentina! He was smuggled out of the country in the luggage compartment of a coach of British tourists. One of the most astonishing stories I've ever heard from someone I actually knew. Great video as ever!
A great simulation to do, well done guys. I read the Sunday Times Insight team history of the conflict many years ago and I remember vividly the quote from one of the naval officers that the attitude of the SAS was "we're the SAS, we can walk on water".
This is one of the most interesting videos you've done. Recreations of exceptionally inhospitable environmental conditions are an opportunity to get an approximation of the real world skill needed to navigate a situation that actually occurred.
To help put the difficulty of what these pilots were dealing with, I heard a statistic that a helicopter pilot that accidentally flies into IMC (clouds) that isn't rated for it will crash within 100 seconds due to spatial disorientation. Add in the extreme winds and it's utterly amazing they didn't all crash. Respect!
As much as I enjoy the silly stuff and PvP these reenactments and hypotheticals are my favorites. Thank you guys for what you do. I Joined in 2002 retired now and for a knuckle dragging ground pounder the aviation aspects always fascinate me.
Thank you for the briefing Matrix, it was very informative, I absolutely love coming here and learning history and then seeing it reenacted to show how difficult the situations would have been like. I really appreciated the usage of Google earth to really emphasise distances, adversity of environment and locations. GR should consider (although I understand the difficulties) making small documentaries akin to "Liveth for Evermore" or "The Operations Room" and "The Intel Report" where you show top down battles of events in briefings and then incorporate the DCS reenactments of those events highlighting the heroism and bravery of those who took part. Expanding the channel to new userbase of historically minded viewers, other than just the hardcore aviation fans. In doing so I believe the reenactments in the sim will show (success or not) the challenges those men and women may have faced bringing a first person perspective to history. No matter what, I absolutely love how this channel treats and respects history as a neutral event showing from all sides to better understand that bravery is not just on one side in conflict. I really respect the videos that showed the Argentinean A4 attacks in the Falklands, and the dangers those pilots faced while bringing a new perspective to the conflict overall. The same goes with the old Egypt vs Israel videos and the tactics and strategies both sides implemented it was educational as much as it was entertaining. Thank you, all of the Grim Reapers that bring history to life. P.S. Also, thank you for the ridiculous videos and the futuristic ones and the carrier battles. May your digital skies be clear and have favourable winds.
Really liked watching this mission guys! You'r doing a great job entertaining us! Because of GR on YT i have bought myself a Hotas setup to start flying some sims. Hope i some day can get on a skill level like you guys :) Cheers
Why do people always forget about the SBS, who were extremely effective on South Georgia? To be fair to the SAS, they wanted the Mountain and Arctic Warfare Cadre who are better trained for the type of mission being planned, but as there aren't very many of them, weren't available. The SAS/SBS joke we used to tell was: What's the difference between the SAS and SBS, the SAS go in make lots of noise and kill everyone, the SBS ......................... (There a version with the SBS go in make no noise and kill everyone, but hey Mountain and Arctic/BPT do things differently haha) PS The SAS don't Yomp, Royal Marines Yomp.
Makes sense. Someone should have recommended that they land Any where other than a glacer and they had better consider the climate. I know both the SAS And SBS have a way of doing the impossible. But this was sheer Idiocy. Whoever came up with that plan should have been on the Lead Chopper.
Really interesting mission! Great use of the South Atlantic map and DCS' dynamic weather. OK that it didn't have any combat. Great visuals and tense flying, along with a strong historical background.
Highly recommend the book “Across an angry sea” by Cedric Delves. He was the SAS commander and he tells this story from his perspective. As he tells it the whole mission went ahead on the basis of a misunderstanding between him and a subordinate. “You’ve got to get on John.”
I was deployed to the Falkands in 1986 on RFA Diligence. We made what you'd call something of a "plant the flag" trip to South Georgia whilst I was there. My memories include terrible seas (flat-bottomed ship) and the stench of the penguin colony at South Georgia, never smelled anything that bad before!
Well done guys - BZ - nice briefing Matrix ta. ex Antrim here. For us 'on the ground we renamed this event Operation Paraquat (as in weedkiller) - there is a book by that name by Roger Perkins 1986 very good. Can not be over stated the weather horrendous weather conditions, possibly the worst I ever experienced. We were a large (for the RN) County Class destroyer but still we were being tossed around by the mountainous S.Atlantic seas. Prior to the glacier op we had inserted SBS by sailing into Grytviken in the middle of the night under the noses of the land based enemy troops there, SBS set off in standard Gemini inflatables, again in terrible weather conditions (another story), (personally I felt this was more stressful than the later events in San Carlos even though we got bombed). Tidespring was our RFA tanker supplying us with all required fuels all the way from Ascension and beyond (great guys). Plymouth was a Rothesay class frigate similar to the Leander class. Brilliant joined us in time for the attack on the Santa Fe and re-taking of South Georgia. It would be worth one of you trying to get a chat with Ian Stanley, really nice guy - I think he still has HMS Antrim's ship's bell, (edit: after seeing a comment here, I should’ve said Chris Parry - bell owner & regular commentator - that's where I last saw it lol. Humphrey was the crew's name for the HAS3 Wessex on Antrim, it is displayed, complete with battle scars at RNAS Museum Yeovilton. Another great account is the book 'DIVER' by Tony Groom, one of the small but indispensible team of bomb disposal teams hopping around the fleet down there saving our lives, literally. Antrim features quite a bit in the overall Falklands war because it had been the Admiral's ship for Exercise Springtrain which was being conducted in the north Atlantic (we were just out of a short break in Gibraltar when the orders to proceed south came). Antrim had the capacity to act as command ship (comms etc) - Sandy Woodward & Co then hopped to sistership Glamorgan, then eventually to HMS Hermes which had by far better comms and capacity to act as command ship. Once again, well done & thanks. end note: All during this, wildlife film maker Cindy Buxton & Annie Price were camped out in a shed on the south side of the island not far away, they were picked up later and accomodated on Antrim after completion of the re-taking.Note 2: :) Emission Policy was the 'silence' no radar, no sonar etc because of the intel that at least one of Argentina's submarines was operating in the area (Santa Fe ex WWII US Guppy Class). but also Soviet long range reconn aircraft had be over flying our little task force. For some reason Northwood wouldn't allow us to engage it, strange that lol.
@@potusuk Well, nobody down there on the British side was younger than 18, so everybody is at least 60. Guy from my ATC Squadron joined the Navy as an Aircraft Weapons / Electrical Mech in 1981 aged 16 1/2. He was 6 months short of being 18 when his ship (Hermes) sailed for the Falklands. When she got to Ascension, he was taken off the ship and went back to the UK on a VC-10. I joined the RAF in 1983 and did three tours in the Falklands in 1988/89. 99 and 2010. The place changed a lot in those 22 years.
From what I’ve read, it seems that the elements of D Sqn SAS who were involved in the South Georgia landing also took part in the Pebble Island assault three weeks later.
Until you experience a whiteout, you can't really imagine how disorienting it is. I've only experienced one once (on the summit of Skiddaw in winter), and, to be frank, we were lucky. It only lasted about a minute; and there were so many footprints in the snow at our feet that we had no real likelihood of straying off the path. But, for that brief time, visibility was literally no more than 3 metres, and you could not tell what was ground or what was cloud.
1:47 The picture was taken (it looks like) on 14 December 2015. That's summer, not winter, in the southern hemisphere. Makes South Georgia look even more inhospitable!
Matrixs' briefing is spot on as always! Such a shame they're flying Hueys rather than Wessex! Not knocking the Huey, but it would be cool to see the real thing!
As an Airmobile vet I can say the flying truck pilots come in two forms. Exercise pilots were an absolute pain, the slightest weather excuse and the beggars would cancel, and go have a nice breakfast. On Ops, just wow, still not sure how they did what they did, in awe, still, and eternally gratefully for the oft unsung aircrew heroes.
With the pebble island raid i think it was Woodward who vetoed it for some reason. At that stage he was still in overall command as the amphibious stage still hadne started. Apparently someone on the sas recon team then reported he "saw" a radar site that could have been a threat so Woodward gave the go ahead. On completion of the raid the sas co flew out to Hermes to report and Woodward said what about the radar and the sas said " what radar?"
SAS commander: "hello? hello? London? we request immediate extraction from a small island almost the opposite end of the globe from Wales! London: WTF ARE YOU DOING ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE GLOBE
Amazing re-enactment! I'm enjoying this look into the Falklands war. The story of the Black Buck missions would be another that would be most interesting (does DCS have a Vulcan bomber?). ED: Oh NM, I just needed to look :)
Falklands war is full of amazing stories. In fact, the whole war is the story of professionalism, training, overcoming adversity and - frankly- warfighting culture overcoming a decade of governmental neglect of the military (particularly the Navy). Of course, the Argentinian Air Force and Naval air arm put up a brave fight (and the conscripts did the best that could be expected); but so much of the difficulty presented by this excursion was due to the lack of a conventional carrier capable of launching EW aircraft, refuelers and longer range/ more capable fleet defense fighters. Had the Brits still had a conventional carrier with Airborn EW and F-4M phantoms, I don’t think any Argentinian aircraft get near the islands… let alone the fleet. The UK would have been able to bring significantly more helicopters (limited room on the small carriers with the Harriers on board), been able to provide a constant CAP over the islands as well as constant overhead CAS support (both with longer ranges F-4s and airborne refueling). As it was, despite the incredible professionalism and training of the British forces, had the Argentinian bombs that didn’t detonate, been properly fused, it very well may have ended differently; maybe not except for more British casualties. But it seems to me, it was a wake-up call for the UK concerning how much capability had been lost as a result of continual cuts (which is EXACTLY what the British Admiralty was warning throughout the 70’s)
Were those the Bell Wessex clones? 😁 And once again: I have to wonder about the SAS command Rupert that thought a glacier landing was a good idea..........
By the way, for those interested, I've looked up the book mentioned. It's called "Down South" A Falklands War Diary by Chris Parry. Currently, £6.99 on Kindle. 😊
It’s so dangerous trying to hover in IMC conditions because without good visual references, you can easily tilt the wrong way and get behind the helicopter
Quick question, how did you guys miss the new Thrustmaster AVA base? This looks like a proper contender to compete with Winwing, Virpil and VKB and I only found out about via accident through another youtuber. Usually I get my hardware info from you guys and you have really dropped the ball this time
Sad military Fact....the last 3 HMS Ardent have all been sunk in Combat. 1916 Battle of Jutland, 1940 Protecting HMS Glorious from Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and the last one in the Falkland's 1982
@@grimreapers One atempt ended crashing and ditching a Sea King under a veil of secrecy in Chile and the unit involved who had been inserted first, aborted the mission due to terrible weather, and were smuggled out of the country via the British embassy. 2nd and 3rd attempt, launching SFs from submerged submarines & C130s "landing" in Rio Grande and Rio Gallegos were both scrubbed before they were "on". The Israeli Entebbe Raid were the inspiration for operation Mikado.
Yes. It is very interesting as a battlefield. Many of the battles were fought on a very small scale. The famous gorse-filled gulley in which the Paras took cover is very small, and it's possible to walk the battlefield in less than one hour. Other than that the Falkland Islands are wild and remote, a truly epic place.
@36:08 having driven in whiteout conditions where you can't even see the front edge of your hood which is 4 feet in front of you this is not even close to being considered whiteout conditions.
@@grimreapers At the Fleet Air Arm Museum at Yeovilton, she was basically given to the museum as soon as the ship got back to the UK and still has all of the battle scars from when the ship was strafed by Daggers on 21st May 1982.
Tea & biscuits = cookies & milk and location depending. Biscuits & gravy. I’m only kinda joking about the biscuits & gravy. Besides I’m pretty sure British biscuits equate closely to cookies.
@@grimreapers In this case named after King George III. A lot of the places called Georgia which were British controlled were found or taken over while there was a King George on the British Throne. One Captain James Cook was the guy who named most of them.
