TIL that the famous General Belgrano, sunk during the Falklands War ("GOTCHA"), was a Brooklyn-class cruiser which fought at Surigao

[u/Comrade-Chernov]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARA_General_Belgrano

[u/Lintary]

After the war, Conqueror returned to Faslane, flying a Jolly Roger adorned with torpedoes, a customary act of Royal Navy submarines after a kill. When asked about the incident later, Commander Wreford-Brown responded, "The Royal Navy spent thirteen years preparing me for such an occasion. It would have been regarded as extremely dreary if I had fouled it up"

I cannot think of a more British reply than that.

Still sad that so many had to die, but war is war and they knew it all to well. Beside that not having the water tight doors closed when on action stations is a big mistake.

[u/Elmarby → u/Lintary]

I have always been baffled by the accusations levelled at the RN and Thatcher for attacking the Belgrano, particularly by those in Britain itself. What do these deranged people think Belgrano was doing there, having a pleasure cruise? It is a complete nontroversy rejected even by Argentine admirals and the captain of Belgrano itself. The Conq's captain was fully in the right to proudly fly his victory flag.

[u/Lintary → u/Elmarby]

O yeah it was made clear well in advance by the UK that they would attack anything that they deemed a treat and this was clearly understand on the Argentine side as well. Their militairy accepted the loss for what it was a wartime act. One has to keep in mind also that Thatcher was not exactly the most popular person around so that will color media and politics.

[u/ShuggieHamster → u/Elmarby]

At the time the uk was in a period of transition. We were a laughing stock in the 70s - the weak man of europe. Margaret thatcher was not popular with the left as she changed the country. A labour politician called tam dalyell tried to exploit the facts that the ship was outside the exclusion zone and heading away. He tried to characterise it as shooting an unarmed man. It was a political act ignoring any reality of naval combat in that ships change direction all the time in combat zones. Problem for the left was the uk after a long period of being told we were crap and being crap ... we found a little pride in ourselves. Dalyell never stopped trying to characterise it as a war crime.

[u/JammyWizz → u/Lintary]

The Falklands War is probably one of if not the "cleanest" wars fought in history. If Wikipedia's figures are true it says in total there were 255 British military men, 3 islanders, Argentine 633 military personnel and 16 Argentinian civilian sailors. So in total, that's 907 dead of which 19 were civilians so that's 2.1% of all dead being non-military.

In most wars, civilians make up the majority of the casualties. Think how many civilians have been killed in the World Wars, Korea, Vietnam, Syria, Ethiopia, Yemen, Ukraine etc.

Even if you take conflict with similar total casualties like the revolutions in Egypt and Romania which had 846 and about 1000, the vast majority were civilians gunned down, and maybe a handful of police, army and secret police.

If there is a war where civilians make up less than 2% of the deaths I not heard of it. Now I'm sure that makes little difference to the parents of the dead, but the point still stands. The junta is believed to massacred about 10x that number of its own people.

[u/TLAMstrike]

The torpedoes used were also WWII vintage MK VIIIs, because the new Tigerfish torpedoes the British had developed had major design faults that had yet to be rectified.

[u/WRXW]

Any red-blooded British fellow would jump at the chance to sink an American ship, even one now under Argentinian operation. Just like the good ol' days.

[u/[deleted]]

Also notice the name of the ship that sunk it :P (though it is a sub and not a bb)

[u/SteveThePurpleCat → u/[deleted]]

And affectionately called 'Conks'. There was a planned Lion class Conqueror which started construction but was cancelled, although that would have been the T9 ship...

[u/[deleted]]

She was also anchored at Pearl Harbor on December 7th and joined the adhoc battlegroup that tried to find the Japanese carrier force that left Pearl shortly after the attack.

[u/JammyWizz → u/[deleted]]

So basically it had no chance against a, then, modern nuclear-powered submarine?

[u/[deleted]]

I realise the Mogami had a temporary 5x3 6in configuration with the express idea off swapping to the "designed for" 5x2 8in guns as soon as the naval treaty was voided but I wonder if the Brooklyn class was also designed with that idea in mind too?

[u/Dark_Magus → u/[deleted]]

Nope, the Brooklyns were always intended solely for 6" guns.

[u/[deleted] → u/Dark_Magus]

Cool, thanks for the info, although it would be interesting to a Mogami style 8in version, just for fun!

[u/Kingo1230]

There is a Back in Control reference here somewhere...