Shackleton Operations

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om15
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Shackleton Operations

#1 Post by om15 » Sun Aug 30, 2020 11:48 am

I didn't know of this event, I remember Buccaneers, Hunters and Sea Vixens sinking the Torrey Canyon, they used rockets, dropped cans of kerosine and finally used napalm to sink the tanker. In this event Shackletons used depth charges.


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Re: Shackleton Operations

#2 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Tue Sep 01, 2020 5:48 pm

An accurate depiction of the disaster which resulted in a proper coastal watch being set up on the Cape coast with two powerful tugs, the John Ross and the Wolraad Woltemade, being commissioned to prevent a similar debacle again. I am pleased to see that the narrator recognises Cape Agulhas as the most southerly point of Africa and not Cape Point, which is not.
Holder of the World’s Most Powerful title for a short tine were the South African pair, John Ross and Wolraad Woltemade. Built in response to the closure of the Suez Canal, when then supertankers were rounding the Cape of Good Hope, they were to be capable of towing the largest ships then in service. Completed in 1976, S.A.John Ross was built by Robb Caledon in Leith, Scotland and S.A.Wolraad Woltemade by James Brown and Hamer in Durban. They were given the radio call sings ZTUG and ZTOW respectively and took up station in Cape Town, but were also available for world wide towing when the Suez re-opened.
I was able to visit both ships in Cape Town while undertaking a project on Voith Schneider Propeller modelling as part of course I was studying at the time.

8532-14 Wolraad Woltemade.jpg
8532-14 Wolraad Woltemade.jpg (20.68 KiB) Viewed 1261 times
https://www.defenceweb.co.za/sea/sea-se ... -turns-40/
The world had not seen their like before. A little over 30 years ago, a pair of massively powerful South African tugs patrolled the high seas. Named after two maritime heroes, Wolraad Woltemade and John Ross were the salvage tug equivalent of guns for hire. They were also the most powerful vessels of their kind on the planet.

Laid down in Scotland’s Clyde shipyards in 1976 at the height of South Africa’s urban unrest, the salvage tug Wolraad Woltemade was joined by the identical but locally built John Ross. With two main Mirrlees-Blackstone diesel engines developing an eye-watering 19 200 horsepower – well over 14 000 kW – they provided unmatched brute pulling power.

They owed their existence to the popularity of the Cape sea route among bloated supertankers. Clearly, there was a need for a powerful fast-response to emergencies. So, in terms of the Standby Tug Contract with the South African authorities, at least one of the two tugs had to be available in a local port. For the sister tug, there were always lucrative tows or salvage work. It was an idea picked up by others. Current-day equivalents include monsters such as the Russian Nikolay Chiker, which dwarfs the South African design and whose engines develop about 30 000 kW.

In their illustrious service life, the South African pair passed through the hands of Safmarine, Pentow Marine and the Dutch operators Smit. Under new ownership John Ross was renamed Smit Amandla and remains in service as the standby tug.

Not so, Wolraad Woltemade.

Old salts shed a quiet tear when, in early 2010, Wolraad Woltemade slipped out of Cape Town. There would be no return. Her one-way trip ended forlornly on the beach at Alang, in India, awaiting the breakers.
https://www.popularmechanics.co.za/stuff/super-tugs/

Some reprobate brought this subject up on TOP some years back before he managed to snag his tow rope on his own prop...

https://www.pprune.org/jet-blast/492920 ... iving.html
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Re: Shackleton Operations

#3 Post by Boac » Tue Sep 01, 2020 6:14 pm

My thanks to the venerable Caco for introducing the Voith Schneider to me. Clever stuff! Presumably the draught of a ship is significantly increased by this?

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Re: Shackleton Operations

#4 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Tue Sep 01, 2020 6:20 pm

Boac wrote:
Tue Sep 01, 2020 6:14 pm
My thanks to the venerable Caco for introducing the Voith Schneider to me. Clever stuff! Presumably the draught of a ship is significantly increased by this?
Yes, definitely to be utilized in deeper berths and deep sea going situations, as I am sure that chap you mention would have concurred! Although Voith would point out that integration into the hull of modern ships means that the draught/draft is not a big issue with solutions such as the Voith Linear Jet.


https://voith.com/ita-it/1344_e_g2012_e ... 11_web.pdf


https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/b2d7/8 ... e8712d.pdf
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Re: Shackleton Operations

#5 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Tue Sep 01, 2020 6:59 pm

The Shackleton 1716 (Pelican 16) story...

https://www.ops-normal.org/viewtopic.ph ... on#p130972
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Re: Shackleton Operations

#6 Post by Undried Plum » Tue Sep 01, 2020 7:38 pm

During my time as a Catman in Oman the fighting was almost entirely over. We did have a few sporadic firefight type incidents, but they were very rare.

One time some recalcitrant Adoo lobbed a few mortar shells at us. The Battman radio operator sent a signal to Salalah HQ requesting a bit of air support.

Within half an hour a Shacking great big **** rocked up from Masirah and lobbed a couple of 500 pounders in the vicinity of the mortar and then did an ultra low pass at a very high power setting to scare the gollies and to make the point that we six Brits had some powerful backup if we wanted to use it. One wingtip was no more than 50' from the rockface in a 60° aob turn within a steep-sided valley.

It was a very impressive sight and sound in the craggy mountainous terrain of Dhofar. Not the usual habitat for a ****, so all the more impressive was the high precision low flying. :YMAPPLAUSE:

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Re: Shackleton Operations

#7 Post by G-CPTN » Tue Sep 01, 2020 8:56 pm

Being a descendant of the Lancaster (my favourite aircraft) I had a soft spot for the Shacklebomber, especially as my interest was 'maritime aviation' (I wanted a career in the Fleet Air Arm until I realised that I wouldn't be able to return home to my friends at weekends).
The Gannet was another drool.

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Re: Shackleton Operations

#8 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Wed Sep 02, 2020 4:01 am

UP's post reminded me of this piece by a Shackleton Navigator Bill Tyack.

“Operation Turquoise was much more interesting, a visual search of the Omani coastline to interdict arms smuggling. In the late ’60s two Marxist groups, the PFLOAG (Popular Front for the Liberation of the Occupied Arabian Gulf) in Dhofar Province to the south, and the NDFLO (National Democratic Front for the Liberation of Oman) in the north were fighting the Sultan’s forces. Britain provided military support to the Sultan that ultimately led to the defeat of the rebels in 1976. Meanwhile the rebels were supported by the usual suspects – China, Iraq, Soviet Union and Yemen – and were receiving arms shipments via small boats landing at remote spots on the coastline. We undertook our reconnaissance by flying through the Straits of Hormuz, and then descending to fly at 100 feet along the shore looking for suspicious boats or signs of landing. With two pilots, nose gunner, bomb aimer, tail and two beam lookouts we could bring seven pairs of eyes to bear on the task. Flying as far south as fuel would allow, we then returned the same way but flying about a mile out to sea. Anything suspicious was reported by HF radio to the Trucial Oman Scouts, a local para-military force raised by the British. The scouts were able to intercept a group of arms smugglers as a result of a report from our crew. “British military support to the Sultan took several forms, which included special forces, RAF Regiment field squadrons and RAF pilots flying Omani Strikemaster aircraft in the close-support role. The Shackletons were held in reserve as a ‘big stick’. The MR.3 could carry 12 x 1,000-lb bombs, while the MR.2 could carry 15. Although we did not drop any weapons in anger during my detachment, all navigators had to qualify at bomb-aiming from medium level (around 12,000 feet). To this end the aircraft were fitted with a variant of the World War 2 Mk.XIV bombsight. We did find a bullet hole in our aircraft after one sortie, but we judged that this had more likely originated from a wedding celebration rather than a hostile act! “Apart from one or two ports, such as Muscat, there was virtually no sign of human habitation – it was a wild and beautiful coastline. We would spot a couple of fishermen launching a small boat, or a single man standing in the water casting a net apparently miles from anywhere. Every so often we passed a ‘Beau Geste’-style fort, many of which were originally built by the Portuguese in the 16th century, with armed warriors patrolling the ramparts. It was astonishing to think that at the same time as Neil Armstrong was making the first footprints on the moon (20 July 1969), we were looking for footprints in the sand on the coast of Arabia. Looking back, this was a fascinating few months for me when I was part of a short chapter in Britain’s long involvement in the Gulf. It gave me glimpses of a way of life that has all but disappeared as a result of the oil money and tourism that have flooded into the region.”

From Shackleton Boys 2.
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Re: Shackleton Operations

#9 Post by Pontius Navigator » Wed Sep 02, 2020 8:26 am

Once we were flying low overland, it looked like a salt Marsh with scrub bushes when we came upon a single pair of well defined wheel tracks. We followed them for a few minutes, say 16-20 miles, then they stopped dead. Curious.

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Re: Shackleton Operations

#10 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Wed Sep 02, 2020 8:49 am

Another reminiscence from the excellent "Shackleton Boys 2"

A number of South Africans who were to fly with 35 Squadron SAAF started out in the RAF. One such was South African Rex Wickins, ex KES schoolboy (Seenenough would remember them) author and well known anti-Apartheid activist (where is Capetonian, I can hear his cries of anguish from here?)...
Spurred on president Colonel Nasser, rebels were trying to cut the road to a largish inland town which was under the protection of Britain. Marine commandos and the SAS (Special Air Service) were defending it on the ground, while two Hunter fighter squadrons provided daylight support. Our job was to fly at night and attempt to keep these rebels tired and uncomfortable by looking for their camp fires etc. and dropping bombs on them. Ridiculous actually, we may as well be hunting rabbits from 6,000 feet. “In order to try and accomplish this we carried 12 1,000-lb bombs. If we thought we had identified a light or fire, we would drop one of these ineffectual monsters on the perceived enemy – you had far more chance of winning the lottery than harming any rebel. The only thing accurate about the bomb was that it hit the ground. An almost direct hit was required if we stood any chance of causing major damage. Anything or anyone outside a ring of 30 feet, which was the extent of the eventual crater, would cause no more than a bloody big head ache and a ringing in the ears for about a year. Finding yourself within the bounds of the crater however was clearly fatal. “This supposedly ‘inhuman, ungodly attack on poor defenceless, innocent tribes-men’, which some may well have been, somehow came to the notice of the British press. As a result, there was an eventual compromise. We were ordered to drop ‘aerial grenades’ instead, which sounded so much better than a 1,000-lb bomb! As opposed to the innocuous huge bomb, of which you carried 12, we were carrying instead, 60 aerial grenades. But they were anything but harmless. Mincing machines of some 20 kgs, these lethal monstrosities consisted of a coiled, heavy metal spring, surrounding a deadly concoction of explosive and ball bearings. On impact this would jump up a metre off the ground and spread a deadly spray of shrapnel that would level everything within a radius of 200 yards. “The fickle conscience of the minister of defence, the journalists and all their shocked readers had to be placated. Now instead of the actually useless bomb, the tribesmen would panic when they heard the ominous drone of the Shack’s four Griffons. They, their families, their mud houses and even surrounding crops and livestock would be in grave danger of being decimated – and we had not 12 weapons to drop, but 60 of the blighters. “We were to visit again on more and longer occasions; in fact, whenever the natives were restless. For us this was without doubt the worst place in the world to spend a day, let alone a few weeks. Suffice to say one could not wait a moment to get the hell out of the place. We commenced our flight back to Gib, briefly transiting through Khartoum in the Sudan. On landing there, I could not help but reflect on the night I had landed in the very same place on my way to London, some three years earlier, flying in a BOAC Comet. Back then I had chatted to the captain about my aspirations of flying for the RAF. Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that I would arrive one day at this same airfield, only this time in a Shackleton. The flying time to London by Comet would have been around five hours; a Shack would probably take 20.
Yemeni Village.JPG
Yemeni Village.JPG (94.1 KiB) Viewed 1154 times

Plus ca change in Yemen it seems given the current imbroglio in Yemen.

PS - As an ex Parkhurst resident and an incorrigible South African chauvinist I recommend Rex Wickins' book...

http://www.kes.co.za/kes-old-boy-rex-wi ... -and-me-2/
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Re: Shackleton Operations

#11 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Wed Sep 02, 2020 10:24 am

Portrait of a SAAF Shackleton by SA aviation artist and ex-Shackleton Flight Engineer Tino Vorster...

Shackleton Tino Vorster.jpg
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Re: Shackleton Operations

#12 Post by Pontius Navigator » Wed Sep 02, 2020 11:40 am

In the late 60s the Vulcans at Waddington were warned to prepare to bomb the military HQ in Sana'a. At the time mapping was more wistful thinking than actually a representation of fact. Best mapping was paper maps of photo mosaics printed by the Royal Engineers, all grey, with tracks overturned in orange. For target maps we had the small 1:1,000,000 WAS which were generally purple and yellow. Airfields were marked with a purple circle symbol that represented either a landing ground, a civil airfield, a military one, or joint user. Not very useful.

Intelligence was a bit lacking too. When we plotted the target position inn the WAC it was about 16 miles from the symbol that represented the capital. The size of the symbol (square or circle) represented the size of the population. As targeting officer I asked Command if the target was indeed 16 miles from the city or actually in the middle of the city.

Whether that question brought the Air Staffs back to sense I don't know but the whole think was quietly shelved.

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Re: Shackleton Operations

#13 Post by larsssnowpharter » Wed Sep 02, 2020 12:25 pm

Larss' dad flew Shacks for the second half of his flying career: OCU at Kinloss, 37 San Aden, Ballykelly, Gib and his final flying tour on ASWDU at Ballykelly.

He tells the story while on 37 of being tasked to bomb some 'rebels' who had holed up in caves half way up Jebel whatever. The plan was to 'toss' 1000lb bombs into the entrance of the cave. Needless to say, said technique met with a singular lack of success. Other bombing missions included fearless attacks on qat plantations!

On a personal note, 1988 found me at RAF Lossiemouth the home of 8 Sqn and a grand total of 6 AEW Shacks. It was decided that, on 8/8/88 8Sqn would have a big party and they duly invited all of the other 8 Sqns from around the world. Rumour has it that even the Russians were invited!

Part of the celebration was to be a flypast of six Shacks in formation. I was lucky enough to see the rehearsal a few days before the big day. Believe me, 6 Shacks, 24 RR Griffons and 240, 000 rivets is impressive!

As it happened, only 5 aircraft could be made serviceable on the day but still good to see and hear.

I think there may be a video of the event on you tube if anyone can find it.

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Re: Shackleton Operations

#14 Post by om15 » Wed Sep 02, 2020 1:54 pm

I was in a small group of new highly polished J/T A/Fitt/A's posted to Kinloss in Oct 1970, most of us were sent onto Nimrod type courses, but a couple were sent onto the nearly retired Shackletons, whilst we spent the next few years working in a cave like hangar grinding out corrosion in Nimrod fuel tanks they went on the Majunga detachment, where, to our envy, they acquired exotic infections and got into bother with the SIB over their smoking habits.

This has some interesting bits


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Re: Shackleton Operations

#15 Post by Pontius Navigator » Wed Sep 02, 2020 2:50 pm

Larss, until I checked my logbooks I would have said you were wrong. In 1980/81 the Nott cuts cut 8 Sqn down to 6 crews and 5 aircraft. Checking my log book I actually logged 9 aircraft after the cuts. In 1981 we lost 745 and 756 but gained 960. The following year we lost 960 and regained 756. From 1983 we had just 6 aircraft, the same 6 until Roncoroni piled in 965 in 1990.
Getting 6 airborne the same day would have been a big ask especially with only 5 operational crews and a trainer flight crew.

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Re: Shackleton Operations

#16 Post by barkingmad » Wed Sep 02, 2020 3:04 pm

As a (by then) ex-AEW 'frame driver I also attended the 8/8/88 for 8 bash and was suitably impressed by the 5 a/c noise and vibrating metal flypast.

I have no 'war' stories worth posting and the role by then is portrayed very well in the BBC2 'Perpetual Motion' prog, so I will follow this thread with interest.

My time at Lossie was 01 Jan 1974 until 23/04/1979.

On my hearth is a RR Griffon piston, complete with rings, which has been cleaned up by soda-blasting and acts as a conversation stopper/starter... :-ss

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Re: Shackleton Operations

#17 Post by Pontius Navigator » Wed Sep 02, 2020 4:54 pm

BM, the other prized bit was a valve from the radar. I forget the procedure but it was possible to blow it and then claim the trophy. I have none from 8 but I do have a pewter model representative of the oldest type in which I flew and a 27mms Mauser round from the newest aircraft when I retired.

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Re: Shackleton Operations

#18 Post by PHXPhlyer » Wed Sep 02, 2020 5:45 pm

BM:
Piston pic please. B-) ^:)^

PP

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Re: Shackleton Operations

#19 Post by barkingmad » Thu Sep 03, 2020 11:13 am

For more nostalgia amongst the 8 AEW veterans here is an idea to while away the winter lockdown hours and to stay out from under their feet of SWMBO;



I currently have mine boxed and await procurement of paint, adhesive etc. Aah, the heady fumes of plastic solvent!

Though why the box pic shows an AEW Shack “celebrating” finding a submarine is unfortunate.

PHXPhlyer I will attempt that task with pleasure but not very good with posting pics on O-N. It took me an inordinate amount of time, effort and failures just to get my avatar onto the page.

Maybe better success if you PM me with e-mail please? :-?

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Re: Shackleton Operations

#20 Post by Pontius Navigator » Thu Sep 03, 2020 12:39 pm

At least it doesn't have the 6 inch rivets of the previous one. Was that Revell too or Frog?

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