France refused vital intel to save lives - Falkland’s

[Ymx]

France urged to come clean about Exocet missile ‘kill switches’

MPs call for inquiry into claims that secrets about anti-ship weapons that killed 46 British sailors in Falklands were deliberately withheld

Senior MPs have called for an inquiry into claims that France deliberately withheld secrets about missiles that killed 46 British sailors in the 1982 Falklands War.
The Telegraph has been told that French-made Exocet guided missiles contained a "kill switch" that could have disarmed them, but that France denied such a device existed.

Ahead of Wednesday's 40th anniversary of an Exocet attack on HMS Sheffield – which caused the first British fatalities of the conflict – France has been urged to come clean about what it did and did not share with Margaret Thatcher's government.

Tobias Ellwood, the chairman of Parliament's defence select committee, said the matter "warrants further investigation", while Liam Fox, a former defence secretary, said France – a vital defence partner of the UK – should be "open and honest" about what happened.

Three Royal Navy ships were hit by Exocets during the Falklands conflict, two of which – HMS Sheffield and the merchant vessel Atlantic Conveyor – sank. Sailors died on all three ships.

The missiles were made by the French firm Aerospatiale and, as the Royal Navy task force sailed south to retake the islands from their Argentinian occupiers, Britain appealed to its ally for information about how they worked and whether they could be disabled.

British experts believed the Exocets contained a kill switch, which arms manufacturers sometimes secretly build into weapons so they can be disabled if they fall into the hands of a hostile state.

According to a highly-placed source, France denied that the kill switches existed, but British officials became convinced it was not telling the truth, partly as a result of investigations carried out on an earlier variant of the missile that had been bought by the UK.

On Tuesday night, Admiral Lord West, the former First Sea Lord who commanded the frigate HMS Ardent during the Falklands war, told The Telegraph he had heard of the alleged kill switch in Exocet missiles and had been told Britain was denied the technology.

He said: "I was told that the French were very helpful in terms of letting us see the flying of Mirages and the Super Etendard [French-built fighter aircraft, used by Argentina] so we could get their flight profiles.

"They did give us a certain amount of material about Exocet, but I was also told there was a mechanism within it so that foreign people couldn't fire an Exocet at a French ship without them being able to do something to mean it wouldn't be able to hit them.

"They were making a lot of sales of Exocet, and if the people they were selling them to found out that there was a way of defeating it, they would not have been happy."
Aerospatiale, later broken up and taken over by other companies, was run at the time by Jacques Mitterrand, the brother of Francois Mitterrand, then the French president.
The president was approached directly by Thatcher for information about the missiles and, according to one report, she threatened to launch a nuclear attack on Argentina if Mitterrand did not hand over the information needed to disable Exocets.

Mr Ellwood said the suggestion France could have shared knowledge about the Exocet that could have saved British lives "warrants further investigation".
He added: "We don't know the wider decision-making that surrounded this. Indeed, those responsible might not even be alive today. 

"As we look to future battles we must learn from past events, and that includes how we work with allies and how we share critical intelligence. It certainly would have been game-changing had France chosen to share this characteristic of the Exocet."

Dr Fox pointed out that in 2010, David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy, then the prime minister and French president, signed the bilateral Lancaster House treaties for defence and security cooperation.

"I would have thought in the spirit of those treaties the French would want to be as open and honest as possible with us," he said. "It would not change anything about that relationship, but it would set the historical record straight."
Bob Seely, a Tory MP and former Army captain who sits on the foreign affairs select committee, said: "If Exocets contained what was effectively an on/off switch, the French should have shared that with us.

"If it turns out that information was withheld, that would be one of the most shameful episodes in Anglo-French relations. A lot of British sailors died because of those weapons, and we owe it to the families of those who died, and to history, to get to the truth.

"It may be that the French did tell us all there was to know, but we need them to be transparent."

A memorial to the 20 sailors who died aboard HMS Sheffield will be unveiled at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire on Wednesday after the HMS Sheffield Association raised funds for it to mark the 40th anniversary.

Exocet missiles also killed 12 people aboard the Atlantic Conveyor and 14 on HMS Glamorgan before Argentinian forces in the Falklands surrendered in June 1982.

Both the Ministry of Defence and Downing Street declined to comment.

[Ymx]

A tough trade off between a military contractor business interests v saving lives of an “Ally”

[fishfoodie]

Oh look; another dead cat from the cunts that brought you the Bumblecunt as PM !

[Ymx]

It’s definitely some stirring going on.

[GogLais]

Apart from anything else how were we going to access this “Kill switch”?

[fishfoodie]

It’s definitely some stirring going on.

Maybe they should complain to the US who sold the Argies the Skyhawks that sunk other ships ?

Or perhaps they could complain about whoever sold them their Py class destroyers ?

The French cooperated with the UK, & didn't sell any more Exocets once war broke out; beyond that they had no right to expect the French to wipe their arses, if they couldn't defend themselves against weapons they'd often sold to Argentina themselves.

[laurent]

The french stopped delivering the Missiles.

They could have completed the order for shits and giggle...

[petej]

Pathetic from the telegraph. Might get a rise out of some of their readers provided they have taken Viagra first.

[TheFrog]

Timing is great with a war in Ukraine to deal with...

Amusing thing is that they highlight Thatcher's Putinlike behavior with her nuclear threats on Argentina.

Pathetic really.

[Paddington Bear]

The French did as much as could be expected of them. Was certainly Thatcher's view.

[Margin__Walker]

Apart from anything else how were we going to access this “Kill switch”?

Yeah, that would be my question too.

How does a kill switch 40 years ago get activated once Argentina have the missiles? Seems a bit nonsensical on face value.

[fishfoodie]

Apart from anything else how were we going to access this “Kill switch”?

Yeah, that would be my question too.

How does a kill switch 40 years ago get activated once Argentina have the missiles? Seems a bit nonsensical on face value.

The whole idea of kill switches is mad anyway. Why would you put something in a missile, & risk your opponent reverse engineer it, & make all your missiles useless ?

I don't think there was ever a shred of evidence that the French, or anyone else put them in missiles.

[inactionman]

Apart from anything else how were we going to access this “Kill switch”?

Yeah, that would be my question too.

How does a kill switch 40 years ago get activated once Argentina have the missiles? Seems a bit nonsensical on face value.

The whole idea of kill switches is mad anyway. Why would you put something in a missile, & risk your opponent reverse engineer it, & make all your missiles useless ?

I don't think there was ever a shred of evidence that the French, or anyone else put them in missiles.

Given the way the Ukranians have pressganged any kit they've taken, I'd say the Russians certainly haven't fitted any.

I'd anticipate that getting design info would be important, to be able to identify how best to set countermeasures, and I gather this was done - although traditionally sharing trade secrets between UK and France is uncommon outside of joint ventures, mostly due to competition between the defence manufacturers.

[laurent]

Apart from anything else how were we going to access this “Kill switch”?

Yeah, that would be my question too.

How does a kill switch 40 years ago get activated once Argentina have the missiles? Seems a bit nonsensical on face value.

The whole idea of kill switches is mad anyway. Why would you put something in a missile, & risk your opponent reverse engineer it, & make all your missiles useless ?

I don't think there was ever a shred of evidence that the French, or anyone else put them in missiles.

Doubt it as the Exocet was used against US Ships too during other conflicts. the Exocet is also Fire/forget so unlikely has any com post launch. It relies on inertial guidance + radar in terminal sequence.

[Line6 HXFX]

We can expect lots of this "lets be mad at the french" stuff now Brexit and the Brexit government are an unmitigated disaster.

Turns out the tories could have prevented the 135 thousand preventable deaths due to Austerity, and prevented millions of people using Foodbanks, and prevented the massive rise in child poverty, the absolute terror of living on Universal credit and prevented the cost of living crisis, and tens of thousands of care home deaths too..
But yeah let's be mad at the French.
It beggars belief.

[TheFrog]

We can expect lots of this "lets be mad at the french" stuff now Brexit and the Brexit government are an unmitigated disaster.

Turns out the tories could have prevented the 135 thousand preventable deaths due to Austerity, and prevented millions of people using Foodbanks, and prevented the massive rise in child poverty, the absolute terror of living on Universal credit and prevented the cost of living crisis, and tens of thousands of care home deaths too..
But yeah let's be mad at the French.
It beggars belief.

Nationalist regimes gonna find enemies to reign. China - Taiwan / US, Putin - Ukraine / NATO etc...

[Torquemada 1420]

Maybe Maggie should not have tacitly encouraged the Argies to invade in the first place, thinking that the outpost was nothing more than an economic liability that the British public would not give a sh*t about.

Not like she would have ignored repeated intel from the Yanks that Galtieri was about to do exactly that....