Talk:Exocet

message: Can anyone confirm that this thing was named after the Exocoetidae, the flying fish family?  If so it would be nice to make the link. --seglea 05:35, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: In a way; "exocet" is actually one of the common French words for flying fish, according to this info-nugget from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (part of their List of Canadian Acceptable Common Names for Fish and Seafood). --Wernher 21:03, 5 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Exocet <nowiki>=</nowiki> Flying fish 

message: The Patents Office have no ability to require inventions to be kept secret. A patent is a form of legal protection against copying, not a reservoir of secrets.GraemeLeggett 12:45, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lokata 

message: Israeli sources state that the Exocet is not a French design at all, but merely a licensed copy of their highly successful Gabriel ship-to-ship missile, first used in combat in 1973. I can understand the French reluctance to admit this -- after all, they tried to abort the Gabriel by embargoing the ships intended to carry it. It should be noted that the Exocet was introduced shortly after the the Gabriel was developed.
: Never heard such a thing... The Gabriel III does look a little bit like the Exocet (similar wings), but it entered service in 1982, while the Exocet was designed in 1967. The earlier versions of the Gabriel were quite different . The Gabriel was one of the first sea-to-sea missiles, so perhaps this is what they mean, but licenced copy doesn't seam very plausible to me. Rama 06:59, 12 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Gentleman.  This is an article about a weapon, not politics, etc.  FYI, the first Gabriel were radio controlled to line of sight.  A lot like modern wire guided antitank missiles.  Only the data wire link is a radio data link and the optical line of sight is a radar.  Also, the Gabriel would be manually controlled through the radio link like an R/C aircraft.  The Exocet was a different kettle of fish.  It was launched with a location programmed in it to fly to before launch and when it reaches that "X" its radar turns on for the final attack phase.  To wit, where human control is over the Gabriel from launch to impact, with the Exocet, once it was launched, the human touch was devoid. Jack --Jackehammond (talk) 06:02, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is Exocet really the "Gabriel"? 

message: Can I just point out that the possibility of mistaking a frigate for an oil tankers are slim to none, or if the pilot of the plane in question was acting outside of orders then could someone please rephrase "On March 17, 1987, an Iraqi Mirage F-1 accidentally fired two exocets against the US Navy Guided missile frigate USS Stark (FFG-31) (an Oliver Hazard Perry class frigate), mistaking the vessel for an Iranian tanker", as this still implies that the plane was under Iraqi control.
: Well, the possibility of mistaking an Airbus A300 at high altitude for an attacking F14 is even more slim, but it also appened (Iran Air Flight 655) in that region. And 1904 a Russian fleet fired at fisher boats in the North Sea because they thought being under attack of Japanese torpedo boats (Dogger Bank incident). Such things happen. - Alureiter 13:07, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Radar cross sections are not the same as what the human eye can see.  You can take two pieces of steel as tall as a man and a yard wide and notch them half-way up and slide them together and a radar will think it is a tanker.  The USAF and other air forces have glide decoys that have an item in the nose the size of a softball which is so efficient in reflection of radar waves that it makes a small drone look like a B-52.  Again, as slab sided as the Stark was, it was very easy to mistaken for a tanker.   Also,  tankers at that time were being fitted with primitive radar absorbing material (ie a type of paint the Germans developed in WW2 for submarine periscopes and snorkels) and when fully loaded are low in the water with only about two yards of the hull above the ocean surface. Jack --Jackehammond (talk) 06:08, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Accidentally" attacking the USS Stark 

message: Towards the bottom of the 'history' section of the article, regarding the falklands war, the following line appears:
Claims that the French gave out the electronical countermeasures to the British has been made, so they could trick the robot. But this hasn´t been vertified.
It is not very clear to me what is meant by this sentance. What are the electrionical countermeasures? and what is the robot? Canderra 16:44, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  electronical countermeasures 

message: The one hit Sheffield failed to explode? or laterly be detonated by the fire? Could anyone show me the relative evidence ?
84.163.160.191 16:12, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  exploded or not? 

message: Should the claim that Margaret Thatcher obtained the self-destruct codes from the French be included? 
Margaret Thatcher forced François Mitterrand to give her the codes to disable Argentina's deadly French-made missiles during the Falklands war by threatening to launch a nuclear warhead against Buenos Aires, according to a book.
Thatcher 'threatened to nuke Argentina'  
Mcspiff 13:33, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  British Disabling of the Exocet? 

message: 1. Argentina ridiculously claimed that a combined Exocet/A-4C Skyhawk aircraft attack on May 30 damaged HMS Invincible; the British didn't need to deny it.
To someone who isn't British this smacks of clear POV. It's also unclear - is it the combination that is unlikely, or is it something to do with the ship itself? It wasn't there, wasn't manufactured yet, etc.
2. There are persistent claims from Israeli sources, vigorously denied by the French, that the Exocet is not an original French design but a licensed copy of the Israeli Gabriel sea to sea missile.
I would imagine these were 'vigorously denied'. Wikipedia's policy requires sourcing of claims - this is unsourced and should be removed.
3. Secrecy of the Exocet suffered a blow in the late 1970s when a civilian in Falmouth in Cornwall, England accidentally independently duplicated the Exocet’s navigation system and, despite order from the Patents Office to keep it secret, sold it to the public as a small boat type navigation system called Lokata.
This is also unclear and unsourced. Why should a missile have a navigation system? I can think of several ideas but it isn't self evident. In any case it should probably be 'accidentally AND independently'.
4. Overall, this article appears less polished and more coloquial than other missile articles. It also feels as if it were written by a Brit with a specific POV. It's an interesting read and I can't find anything else to improve other than the above, I'm still left with an nagging itch...
89.0.157.123 16:08, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV and general quality problems 

message: The claim that the CIA provided Exocets to the Iraqis sounds a bit odd. After all, they didn't need the CIA, they could buy them from the French with no problem at all, as far as I know KostasG 23:07, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not "a bit odd" - it is completely and totally absurd!  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.146.44.246 (talk) 00:57, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  CIA providing exocets 

message: This article was automatically  assessed because at least one article was rated and this bot brought all the other ratings up to at least that level. BetacommandBot 03:14, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  WikiProject class rating

message: "In many cases, the near-obsolete Exocet missiles have been replaced by more modern and updatable ship to ship missiles such as the American Harpoon Missile on newer warships, including those in the Royal Navy."
Can anyone give specifics to prove this? Both the Exocet and Harpoon (as well as other missiles) have long operational histories and have been updated by the introduction of new versions with improved performance over the years (for example, the ranges of newer Exocet and Harpoon missile have both been marked increased, and both missiles have received electronic/guidance enhancements). Specifically, one cannot compare the newer Harpoons that the UK is receiving to older Exocets in its inventory (or vice versa) and claim that the Exocet is obsolete.
Also, the Exocet (and most tactical missiles) are very "updatable", as proven by the many versions of this (and other missiles). For example, the latest versions of the Sidewinder are still in service in the U.S. and many other countries.
If not, I will remove the above paragraph.
:15:45 & 15:46, 26 September 2009 User:96.246.125.189
::Good call. Ryan4314  (talk) 13:27, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  After the Falklands war the Royal Navy could not buy any more Exocets for political reasons. Therefore they shifted to buying American made Harpoon missiles at a higher cost for all new vessels. There may have been a technical advantages but they were alwasy described in public sources as less important. 62.143.155.113 (talk) 19:01, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
replies: text:  Cobblers, the RN switched to Harpoon as they were cheaper, the installtion lighter (a key consideration on the Type 23), range longer and they had more reliable fuzing.  Wee Curry Monster talk 20:41, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Exocet as obsolete? 

message: I feel that the text "contrary to some claims it is no serious threat to large warships, like aircraft carriers" is probably misleading for the vast amount of readers encountering this claim. If this serious threat is supposed to be understood to mean "effective enough to sink an aircraft carrier", i think it need to be pointed out that a direct hit from an Exocet on an aicraft carrier, at least for the smaller non-supercarrier classes like the Invincible class aircraft carrier or the Principe de Asturias (R11), is likely to at least adversely affect the combat power of the ship. 
The information that is used to motivate the "no serious threat" claim is supposed to be "a recent study by the Russians about the effect of missile boat antishipping missiles. 3 hits to destroy a light cruiser, 1 to 2 hits for a destroyer or frigate. Russian missile boat antishipping missile have far larger warheads than the Exocet", the information taken from the refernce book World Naval Weapon Systems from 1994 by Norman Friedman. I've checked this source up, and the source talks about destroying a ship in the sense of sinking it and the missile in question is the SS-N-2 Styx. In other words, the information from this source does not preclude a hit from an Exocet having a big effect on the combat effectivness on a ship. It is easy to see how for instance a hit on the island, on any carrier, will destroy most of the sensor systems, leaving the carrier blind. It is also easy to see that a large part of all possible hits are likely to adversely affect air operations at least for a time. And if the carrier can't launch planes, the combat effectiveness of the ship is close to zero. Thus, it is not at all unlikely that a hit will in effect negate the whole combat power of the ship. In other words it is a at least a serious threat to the combat effectiveness of carriers (If perhaps not a serious threat to the carriers themselves). 
But, all the above conclusions is based on the premise that the attack consists of a single missile. The claim in the article that the Exocet is no serious threat to an aircraft carrier is probably meant to say that a single Exocet is no serious threat to an aircraft carrier, which would follow from the Russian source. However, as the text stands now, one gets the impression that the weapon system Exocet is no serious threat to an aircraft carrier. But, nowhere a source is cited, neither have i ever heard about such a source, that claims that for instance four or five simultaneous Exocet hits would pose no serious threat to a carrier. Indeed, the russian study gives some support to the notion that with an increasing number of missiles, you could sink most types of ships. With saturation attacks becoming common doctrine for many navies, it is likely that any attack on an aircraft carrier would involve at least a couple of missiles. I think most will agree that for instance four simultaneous hits near the waterline would bring a huge risk to a small carrier (Remember that the Principe de Asturias is only a bit shy of 200 meters long, probably not much larger than the "light cruiser" that the russian study is talking about), even if the warheads in the missiles are smaller than russian AShMs. So, the fact of the matter seems to be that the weapon system Exocet, which is what the article is about, poses a large and extremely dangerous threat to any carrier, especially smaller ones. 
Also remember, that the russian study had to have been performed well before 1994, which was the publication date of the book it is cited from, and the missile was the SS-N-2 Styx, one of the earliest and most primitive AShMs. I would be surprised if the Exocet, in it's current and most modern form, Block III, isn't one hell of a lot more likely to hit it's target (Thus a larger threat) than a missile of the late 1980s/early 1990s. The SS-N-2 Styx didn't even have sea-skimming capability at first (Don' know about later versions)and flew at about 100 meters height. The Exocet, which is meant to hit a ship low, near the weaterline, would probably be more dangerous (eg more likely to sink a ship because of the low hit) in this sense also.
I can't reach any conclusion but that the text has to be changed from it's present form. I'm going to change the article and write something along the lines that a single exocet poses no serious threat to an aircraft carrier, however it is likely to render the carrier combat ineffective, but a few missiles are likely to sink most, even larger, ships. Comments appreciated.
--MusicToDieTo (talk) 17:57, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: This bit stood out - the original wording implied that it couldn't even hit larger vessels, and the claim that it posed no serious threat to aircraft carriers and so forth seemed oddly worded. Nonetheless I can understand the point that was being made - the missile is not a magic death-bolt that can crack a battleship in two - and I've tried to rewrite the line so as to get that across. The description of a detonating but not fatal-to-the-ship hit on the Glamorgan helps get this across as well. -Ashley Pomeroy (talk) 22:19, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Regarding effects against aircraft carriers 

message: Can someone explain the  on the lead affecting the whole article ?
:Was added by MiliHist co-ordinator, admin and all-around decent guy, MBK004, here, would be best to ask his permission before removing it? Ryan4314  (talk) 20:45, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Citations

message: An image used in this article, , has been nominated for deletion at Wikimedia Commons in the following category: Deletion requests February 2012 
;What should I do?
Don't panic; a discussion will now take place over on Commons about whether to remove the file. This gives you an opportunity to contest the deletion, although please review Commons guidelines before doing so.
* If the image is non-free then you may need to upload it to Wikipedia (Commons does not allow fair use)
* If the image isn't freely licensed and there is no fair use rationale then it cannot be uploaded or used.
To take part in any discussion, or to review a more detailed deletion rationale please visit the relevant 
This is Bot placed notification, another user has nominated/tagged the image --CommonsNotificationBot (talk) 15:03, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: File:Exocet ITB.jpg Nominated for Deletion

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified  on Exocet. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20101122064540/http://falklands.info/history/hist82article17.html to http://www.falklands.info/history/hist82article17.html
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20061001005953/http://www.damen.nl/Upload/Downloads/mID_5708_cID_4719_DAMEN-NEWS-7-LR.pdf to http://www.damen.nl/Upload/Downloads/mID_5708_cID_4719_DAMEN-NEWS-7-LR.pdf
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 18:10, 9 November 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 2 external links on Exocet. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120206212020/http://www.mod.uk/NR/rdonlyres/9D8947AC-D8DC-4BE7-8DCC-C9C623539BCF/0/boi_hms_sheffield.pdf to http://www.mod.uk/NR/rdonlyres/9D8947AC-D8DC-4BE7-8DCC-C9C623539BCF/0/boi_hms_sheffield.pdf
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090223051413/http://www.britains-smallwars.com/Falklands/Exocet.html to http://www.britains-smallwars.com/Falklands/Exocet.html
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 06:30, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Hi - what do these puppies cost? I'm a dictator of a small banana republic, and I think we need something like this to keep the low life from the small banana republic next door from stealing our thunder.
But seriously folks, the price tag is a key peace of information, pun intended. Humans need to assess their priorities, and writing articles that gloss over the folly of believing in the mythology of "military intelligence" is a pretty sure way to terminate our species early.
just sayin'  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.69.174.194 (talk) 07:26, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Quanta Questa ? 

message: This is not true the MM38 was not longer produced since 1970, probably the production was not started in 1970, it go in service in 1973 Francomemoria (talk) 22:48, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  MM38 (surface-launched) ... No longer produced (1970) 

message: The discussion about the HMS Invincible was closed "because there was consensus", then I want to ask which consensus are you talking about when the users BilCat, kahastok and Nick-D are found as "Some of the good guys" on WCM's profile page. The discussion was closed withouth even letting me answer WCM's comment. Hehex2020 (talk) 17:08, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: The "Argentine version" is a fictional account, considered a WP:FRINGE theory and which contradicts the overwhelming weight of material in the written literature.  In a wiki which consider WP:RS and WP:V it would never see the light of day.  I am closing this as an attempt to re-open a closed discussion.  WCMemail 09:27, 18 August 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Without consensus 

message: Text and references copied from Exocet and Attack on HMS Invincible,  See former article's history for a list of contributors. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 15:36, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Text and references copied from Exocet Talk to Attack on HMS Invincible,  See former article's history for a list of contributors.  7&6=thirteen (☎) 15:45, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
thread_title: Attribution

message: The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion:
* 
You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 01:52, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion