Since january 24, 1954, the world's first nuclear submarine, the United States, the Nautilus, has been tested, marking the entry of submarines into the era of nuclear power, and since then, several major powers in the world have joined the nuclear submarine club.
However, compared with conventional submarines, nuclear submarines have not undergone the test of actual combat since their inception. The Anglo-Armagh War of 1982 gave nuclear submarines the opportunity to unleash their power.
On April 2 of that year, the Falklands War broke out, and the British immediately sent a task force to travel thousands of miles across the Atlantic Ocean to the vicinity of the disputed Falklands.
With their superior equipment and will to fight, the British first took South Georgia, which is adjacent to the Falklands, captured an Argentine submarine, then surrounded the Falklands, and declared 200 nautical miles around the Falklands as restricted areas, and all aircraft and ships entering the 200-nautical-mile restricted area around the Falklands would be attacked by the British.
What was the Argentine Navy doing at this time? They all hid far away from the 200-nautical-mile restricted area designated by the British task force, trying to avoid conflict with it, because there was a gap in strength and the British, and they were not opponents.
But this kind of thing can only be done and cannot be said, and it must be pretended, otherwise it is impossible to explain to the people.
The British want to play, but the Argentine does not take the call, does not enter the 200 nautical mile restricted area, what to do? The British thought about it, then they had to fight, or they would do it.
Moreover, although the strength of the Argentine Navy cannot be compared with the British task force, its strength is actually not weak in scale, and its navy is not only equipped with another aircraft carrier called "May 25th", but also the cruiser General Belgrano purchased from the United States, and even a British-made Type 42 destroyer. You know, the main destroyer equipped by the British task force at that time was also a Type 42 destroyer. Similarly, the Aircraft Carrier May 25 was purchased from the British-made Giant-class aircraft carrier Respectable during World War II.
Typically taking the spear of the British and attacking the shield of the British, can they do it?
The Argentine Navy's equipment naturally could not reassure the British, even if it was just around the periphery of the forbidden area, in case it was unexpected to give itself a look, it would not be good, so the British were very concerned about the movement of the Argentine fleet.
But at this time, the British did not make up their minds on whether to attack argentine ships that were not within the restricted area.
Because the Argentines hid farther away, the British did not find anything special.
On the evening of 30 April, the british had a chance to make up their minds, as they noticed that the Argentine warships appeared to be not far from the perimeter of the restricted area.
It turned out that Argentina, as the British had predicted, did not want its navy to do nothing. On 26 April, with the cruiser HMS Belgrano as its flagship, escorted by the destroyers Buchard and Buena Piedra, they left Ushuaia and made a mobile patrol in the direction of the Falklands, reaching the southern part of the Falklands on the 29th, the edge of the restricted area demarcated by the British.
But what the Argentines did not know was that their whereabouts were detected by the advanced sonar system aboard the British nuclear submarine Conquistador on the night of the 30th.
The Argentines, who were still in the dark, did not know that they had been discovered by the British, and thought that there was no reason to be attacked on the outskirts of the forbidden area drawn by the British, but the Argentines clearly miscalculated this time.
This time, whether to launch an attack on the Argentine warship outside the forbidden area was really in front of the British, and it had to be decided. And the British also needed a chance to hit their opponents and boost their morale, and that opportunity was the cruiser General Belgrano.
Therefore, after some operation, the British up and down became consistent, for the Argentine ships outside the forbidden area, they had to be strong first, and then say it!
In this way, the final fate of the cruiser General Belgrano has been decided.
At 15:57 on May 2, the Royal Navy's nuclear submarine HMS Conquistador entered an attack position 36 nautical miles outside the restricted area and fired three Type 4 4 torpedoes each with an 800-pound warhead at the cruiser General Belgrano, which was unaware of the imminent arrival of death, opening the world's debut of nuclear submarine combat.
With a deadly roar, two of the torpedoes hit the hapless cruiser General Belgrano. A torpedo hit the armored belt 15 metres behind the bow, where there were no casualties. But the other one dealt the cruiser General Belgrano a fatal blow, burrowing through 3/4 of its hull and penetrating near the mechanical chamber, causing an explosion that exploded upwards through two floors of the dining room and recreation room, killing 275 Argentines on the spot.
The smoke from the violent explosion soon filled the cabin, but it did not cause a fire, and because of the distance, the two destroyers escorting it did not detect the anomaly of the cruiser General Belgrano.
The explosion damaged the power supply system of the cruiser General Belgrano, preventing it from sending a radio distress signal after being attacked.
The torpedo punched the cruiser General Belgrano into a huge gap, and the raging waters poured into the ship in large quantities.
Because the cruiser General Belgrano had lost its power supply by this time, the pumping system could not work, and the warship began to sink slowly.
By 16:24, seeing that it was about to sink, Colonel Bonso, the captain of the cruiser General Belgrano, immediately ordered the ship to abandon the ship, and the crew escaped in a lifeboat.
When the two destroyers escorting them found that the situation was not good and rushed back to the rescue, it was actually too late, it was already dark, and it was impossible to see clearly on the sea. Coupled with the harsh climate at night and the cold sea, some of the soldiers who fell into the water suffered misfortune, and some people were frozen alive on the lifeboat because they were not found in time.
From 3 to 5 May, hastily arrived Argentine and Chilean rescue ships that rescued 770 people, and 323 people were killed in the attack, which is almost half of argentina's total of 649 casualties in the war.
This successful attack made the British Conquistador nuclear submarine the first nuclear submarine in the world to sink an enemy ship in actual combat, and correspondingly, the cruiser General Belgrano unfortunately became the first warship to be sunk by a nuclear submarine.
It is said that the British discovered the whereabouts of the cruiser General Belgrano because the Soviet spy satellite obtained the location information, which was intercepted and deciphered by the Norwegian intelligence station and passed on to the British Navy.
Although the cruiser General Belgrano was sunk, the origin of this cruiser is not ordinary, with an extremely complex experience and a glorious combat history.
The cruiser USS Phoenix in Pearl Harbor
The cruiser General Belgrano, formerly known as the Phoenix, was an American Brooklyn-class cruiser launched in 1938 with a full load displacement of 12,242 tons.
During World War II, its experience, like its name "Phoenix", belonged to the kind that could not be killed. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, it was the first warship to rush out unscathed. It was also once The Ship of General MacArthur and experienced the entire Pacific War. But miraculously, whether it was hit by shells or torpedo attacks, it was successfully resisted by it, and even the suicide attack of the Japanese kamikaze special attack did not make it lose its vitality.
But in the end, after it was sold to the Argentines, it was sunk by the British nuclear submarine, I don't know if it was because of the name change, if it is still the original "Phoenix", will it once again escape the disaster?