Operation Sutton was the landings at San Carlos and within 5 hours all the personnel were ashore. In conjunction with MEXE, Laird Anglesey developed the ubiquitous Class 30 Trackway and subsequently won the manufacturing contract. Modular Z Drive propulsion units from Sykes Hydromaster provided the motive force when used as a powered raft and although it might not look particularly seaworthy can be used in 1.5m wave conditions. San Carlos is a settlement in northwestern East Falkland, lying south of Port San Carlos on San Carlos Water. Second, in San Carlos water they were used in overload conditions, the pontoon actually underwater, the deck awash whilst carrying loads approaching 200 tonnes. Sergeant Boultby’s dedication to his tasks in dangerous conditions was outstanding. In the final analysis, Operation Corporate was a logistical triumph but there were definitely opportunities for improvement and resultant changes, especially in organisation and command arrangement, reflected this. Once in the Falkland Islands they were floated off the heavy lift vessels and installed by ITM staff and Royal Engineers who had previously built all the necessary connecting roads, including one to the Mount Pleasant construction site. Since VE day and Suez the UK’s amphibious capabilities had dwindled both in scale and capability, the Royal Marines concentrating on their Northern Europe role. After construction was complete it was transported south on two heavy lift FLO FLO vessels.

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The existing techniques of offloading using Mexeflote’s and RCL’s, whilst ideal for amphibious operations, simply could not cope with the increasing volumes and the offload facilities at Port Stanley were still woefully inadequate despite some improvement works completed by the Royal Engineers. The manually operated, demountable articulator is mounted in a recess in the aft section and is connected to the forward section by an articulator ram. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Because of concerns about severe weather ripping the Mexeflote off their normal side loaded locations they were carried as deck cargo and craned overboard when needed. The LSL’s were not large vessels, but that was deliberate. LCVP Foxtrot 7 is on display at the Royal Marines Museum. The sea state for dock operations is not high and in severe conditions because it is free flooding landing craft may bottom out, not for nothing is the interior lined with large timbers to provide some degree of protection to both. The vulnerability of his position to constant enemy air attack did not deter him from his task and he was an inspiration to his crew and other RCT personnel.
The Falkland Islands commemorated on Thursday Landing Day, 38 years ago when British Forces took several beaches in San Carlos settlement beginning the recovery of Islands territory. [/tab] It was not used until a few years after the conflict but worth describing here as it sets the scene for a number of subsequent posts. When the Royal Engineers established the FOB at San Carlos they also constructed a bulk fuel facility but this was for aviation fuel only although it did use large rubber dracone’s in lieu of a pipeline. Welcome to the Itinerary Planner. Argentine commanders considered the most likely British landings would be in the same place as they did, close to Port Stanley. Under the codename Operation Sutton the British forces planned amphibious landings around San Carlos, on an inlet located off Falkland Sound, the strait between East Falkland and West Falkland.

Two things stood out for me whilst reading about Mexeflote operations in the Falkland Islands. Accommodation is available at San Carlos and Port San Carlos, or the river can be reached by day trip from Stanley. The pontoon ramp is hinged to the forward section and slides over the forward end of the aft section to bridge the gap between the sections.

The first was that Mexeflote’s were used as causeways between ships in open ocean, stores were driven between ships over a mexeflote causeway with Fiat Allis forklifts, incredible. The Knights of the Round Table LSL’s were designed to provide additional logistic support for deployed forces. Capacity 60T, The Type B raft is 38.41 metres x 7.32 metres x 1.45 metres. [tab title=”HMS Fearless Image 2″].

And that is before you read about the Military Medal awarded to Sgt Boultby for using his Mexeflote to rescue survivors at Bluff Cover. Apart from the small number of CVR(T) and BV 202’s the vehicle fuel load was very light. The large ships also carried a crane barge that was used in the construction process. In the week after the landings during which so much punishment was doled out by both sides there was an overwhelming pressure to get going and move out of the beach head but because of the inability of the task force to build up a sufficient logistics strength to do so would have invited much greater casualties and the real possibility of a strategic failure. Providing you with color coded visuals of areas with cloud cover. To provide you with the best experience, cookies are used on this site. A couple of years after its initial deployment FIPASS was gifted to the government of the Falkland Islands today. The Tractor, Wheeled, Fork Lift 4,000 lb was developed and manufactured by  the Royal Ordnance Factory in Nottingham to meet a requirement for a lightweight, air droppable fork lift truck. the Dyvi Teal and the Dyvi Swan in a phased lift that matched the construction schedule, the heavy lift ships were faster and safer than towing. It was one of the very few modern conflicts fought without the benefit of large numbers of wheeled vehicles and this resulted in a reliance on individual fitness and a finite number of helicopters.

The propulsion units, or outboards to you are me, are rather special. All this cost £23 million, or about £50 million in todays money but it saved a small fortune in keeping refrigerated vessels offshore and floating cold stores and speeded unloading up immeasurably, in fact, it paid for itself in less than 2 years due largely to the excess shipping costs being eliminated. At Ascension Island, during a massive re-stow operation he worked all hours under difficult conditions to move cargo quickly. In 1968, Mexe also outlined a requirement for a heavier version of the Class 30 product and the Class 60 was developed, trialled and placed into production soon after. A lack of palletisation and poor-quality packing materials, MFO boxes used for stores, for example, created many needless delays. These delays meant naval vessels had to endure more punishment in Bomb Alley and ammunition dumps established at various locations which because of the slow build up were vulnerable. Probably the most ingenious and revolutionary bit of ship to shore logistics capability that no one has ever heard of, FIPASS was deceptively simple. Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. HMS Intrepid was in preparation for sale to Argentina (yes, honestly) and HMS Fearless was without satellite communications facilities and only one secure VHF link available for ship to shore communications.

A key point is that it was not only a berthing facility but also had significant storage. To build your own Itinerary, click to add an item to your Itinerary basket. One of the LCU’s ended up being bought by the Barclay brothers to transport construction supplies in the Channel Islands.
The first cargo ship to use Flexiport (MV Leicesterbrook) unloaded 500 tonnes of general cargo and 60 ISO containers in 30 hours, by way of comparison, the same load, offloaded using Mexeflote’s took 21 days. The centre pontoon is a box-shaped unit with an internal lateral bulkhead dividing the interior into two watertight compartments. This is the perfect place for walking, fishing or exploring Paloma beach and… Skip To Main Content [/tab] Four of the barges carried warehouses, with provision for refrigerated storage. These ranged from the forward support ship Stena Seaspread to the hospital ship Uganda, in between were the Atlantic Conveyor, tugs, tankers, RORO ferries, general cargo vessels and mooring support vessels. They were ordered in the early sixties and initially managed by the British Indian Steam Navigation Company before coming under the control of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary in 1970. We even had remote control and armoured versions for use in Northern Ireland, click here for a picture. Another breath-taking feature of Operation Corporate was the speed in which it was mounted and the degree of improvisation that would in the end, be needed. Six North Sea oil rig support barges (300×90 ft and about 10,000 DWT each) were connected together and linked to the shore via a 600 foot causeway with a final and smaller barge acting as a floating linkspan which was also used as a RORO interface. It was also the only attack at Ajax Bay where most of the stores and ammunition were. From the exposed position which such a raft offers, Sergeant Boultby worked continuously throughout daylight hours and in extreme weather conditions. Ask accommodation providers or the Falkland Islands Tourist Board for further details. Better intelligence might have led Argentine aircraft to press home more attacks on this area. Clearly, the inability to build up the BSA at speed was having a very real impact on losses and if the Argentine commander was sharper and used this delay to counter attack who knows what would have happened. Luck as ever played its part, good and bad. This meant a considerable influx of construction personnel, equipment and materials. Located in the northeast of East Falkland, the San Carlos river is a slow flowing river with some pools and good fishing at the estuary in the main season.

Working in perfect harmony with the mexeflotes were the Eager Beaver fork lifts. In San Carlos Water, the MEXEFLOTE rafts played a major part in the logistic landing of equipment to ensure the success of the fighting troops. [CDATA[ In little over a month from the invasion, the first ships had departed the UK on their 8,000 mile journey South. The government advertised for innovative solutions to the problem and the tender was won by the Middlesbrough company ITM Offshore who had considerable experience in offshore construction.

In 1960, MEXE in Dorset designed the modern trackway after extensive exercising in Germany showed that assault and logistics bridgeheads needed some form of ground stabilisation system to prevent vehicles getting bogged down. In addition there was accommodation offices, which include a galley and messing facility for 200 persons. Falkland Islands Intermediate Port and Storage System, The Type A raft is 20.12 metres x 7.32 metres x 1.45 metres. This quick unloading allowed the slow mexeflotes to get going back to the ships. The ever fascinating British Pathe has a short clip here.

When used as a powered pontoon they use what are in effect, large outboard motors. The Landing Platform Dock (LPD) was the main means of landing an amphibious force and there were two available to the task force. The linkspan and causeway were designed and installed by MacGregor Navire (now Cargotec), Harland and Wolff the accommodation facilities and Nuttall installed the mooring dolphins. Total payload depends on the size of the assembled pontoon. Eager Beavers came into service in the late sixties and served until the mid-eighties when they were replaced with heavier all terrain forklifts with cabs and a reasonable degree of safety. There is no need to recount the general history of the campaign but from a ship to shore logistics perspective there were a number of equipment and capabilities available to Commodore Clapp and Brigadier Thompson worth describing.