Falklands 1983

Something that I've wondered is if the Army units that were garrisoned the Falklands from April were the same ones that were slated to garrison the islands in the original planning? These same units that were 'poorly trained conscripts' in May could have been well trained and specifically equipped troops 6 month later.
 
Another huge factor will be timing and time.

With the April invasion the British were against the clock to get the war finished by mid-late June, ie the southern winter. This is why everything was so rushed, and the right ships were not deployed etc, I've even recently learned that HMS Exeter didn't have a full Sea Dart magazine when she sailed south.

From my reading, and I won't die in a ditch over it if it's wrong, was that the Argentines wanted to invade in late 1982 early 83 after about a year's planning and preparation. This makes sense, IIUC they would have taken delivery of all of the Super Etendards and Exocets among other things.

However, this gives the British more time to prepare a response before June (winter) 1983. Sure, a naval Task Force will sail in quick time and even likely retake South Georgia. The main invasion force could take more time to gather and prepare; the most appropriate ships could be rotated out of their current assignment, for example all 3 1022 radar equipped Type 42s could be in the CBG as well as all 4 Type 22s. Harrier GR3s could be modified for LGBs and and Shrike ARMs and 2 Sea King AEWs were ready in 11 weeks.

The problem is that 15+ weeks instead of 10 might be long enough to halt the hostilities before the counter-invasion occurs.
 
Rule of cool said:
Something that I've wondered is if the Army units that were garrisoned the Falklands from April were the same ones that were slated to garrison the islands in the original planning? These same units that were 'poorly trained conscripts' in May could have been well trained and specifically equipped troops 6 month later.
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It has to be noted that the Junta took the military threat from Chile far more seriously then they ever took the UK. Which helps to explain why the professionals were along the border and why the Argentine reaction verged on panic , when the Brits responded.
They simply refused to believe that the British would do anything asides from rollover.
 
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GK Dundas said:
It has to be noted that the Junta took the military threat from Chile far more seriously then they ever took the UK. Which helps to explain why the professionals were along the border and why the Argentine reaction verged on panic , when the Brits responded.
They simply refused to believe that the British would do anything asides from roll overnight .
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Even though the Junta believed the British wouldn't retaliate they still planned to garrison the islands and would have identified units. The fact that these were conscripts may not be a big deal depending on the conscription scheme. Australian scheme in the Vietnam era was a 2 year stint that fully integrated the conscripts within the Regular units, so there was no difference between regulars and conscripts.

On other hand there are other schemes that have shorter terms and separate conscripted units. Such units need a focused training program to get them up to a high standard. I wonder if the April invasion cut short a training program that would have created quality garrison units by late 1982.
 
Arjen said:
I am slightly disturbed to see something called warshipporn showing an image of the sinking Belgrano - 323 sailors went down with her.
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Good thing there was not a typo of 323 sailors went down on her !!!
 
Rule of cool said:
Even though the Junta believed the British wouldn't retaliate they still planned to garrison the islands and would have identified units. The fact that these were conscripts may not be a big deal depending on the conscription scheme. Australian scheme in the Vietnam era was a 2 year stint that fully integrated the conscripts within the Regular units, so there was no difference between regulars and conscripts.

On other hand there are other schemes that have shorter terms and separate conscripted units. Such units need a focused training program to get them up to a high standard. I wonder if the April invasion cut short a training program that would have created quality garrison units by late 1982.
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I know (online friend levels) an Argentine gentleman who was a sniper during the Falklands war, he was very much not impressed with the quality of the conscripts he was working with. I'm not sure if he was conscripted in the same batch or an earlier batch, and it hasn't been convenient or appropriate to ask.
 
Rule of cool said:
On other hand there are other schemes that have shorter terms and separate conscripted units. Such units need a focused training program to get them up to a high standard. I wonder if the April invasion cut short a training program that would have created quality garrison units by late 1982.
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As I understand it, it did. One of the reasons the Argentine Army was pissed at the Navy for precipitating things.
 
Purpletrouble said:
I did a paper a few years back on the Falklands, looking very much at the Argentinian side, of which there is relatively little published.

It was quite clear the Vulcan's had nothing to do with the Mirage IIIs removal, it was (a) fears over countering Chile and (b) lack of infra to operate them.

Above all what came out was the total failure of thinking on the Argentinian side at any of the levels of war: Strategic, Operational or Tactical.

Strategic - completely underestimated the affront to the UK and that everyone would either turn a blind eye, or support them viz Argentina. Especially the Americans. Hadn't even considered having to plan for fighting for the Islands. They really expected to be able to waltz in and present a fait accompli and that would be the end of it, perhaps at worst with a UN force and transitional arrangement before they got complete control.

Operational - Air Force the junior service, not involved barely at all in the planning or initial Op, Army not a lot better. This was a Navy first, Army second, Air Force distant third, yet the actual fight was, and could only be, overwhelmingly by Air Force. Hence they had no plans, no infra, wrong aircraft and so on. Their logistics wasn't even a distant third in the planning and was abysmal, units literally almost starving. The actual defence was static, which reflected lack of vehicles and logistics but effectively sat and waited for the Brits to beat them. A key part of this was total failure to put an proper air component in the islands. Even a sqn of A4s with bomb stores would have changed it a lot, let alone Daggers there - again the Air Force hadn't been consulted or included, and so the planning to extend the runway (and they did have some kit) wasn't done/a priority. As we saw post war, it could have been done by them, and the Air Force knew very well the importance of that. Similarly they'd have expedited Exocet procurement if they'd known this was coming. This one failure probably doomed them as their air support was minimal, jets operating at end of their range with no margin for manoeuvring plus reduced bomb loads. Thus whilst the Brits never achieved Air Supremacy, they did achieve enough Air Superiority when and where they needed it.

Tactical - wrong troops, wrongly equipped with wrong logistics to support or change that. Some good outliers (tanking Etendard Exocet, countering Vulcan raids). They were right about low level attacks given how Sea Dart/Wolf dealt not too brilliantly with that, but they'd have been slaughtered at medium or higher. However they didn't join that up to arming their bombs! That is a sign of a very incompetent/non joined up engineering to aircrew talk if nothing else!

All in all, their Air Force and troop son the ground did a decent job, against horrifically bad Senior Leadership and planning. But of course that reflects that these were Leaders who sincerely thought the way to deal with difference was to chuck people out of aeroplanes, murder them generally and remove their children. So with absolute scum like that, you cant really expect inspired or even competent military planning, necessarily considering what if/problems you can't just murder away!

So, to get back to the point - 1983, not a huge change really, more Exocets, harder for Brits to generate task force (but not impossible), but given the road to war was scrap merchants and so on (to some extent, doing their own thing independent of the Junta), Britain may have started to take quiet steps to counter that and have something, anything in the pipeline to be there or reinforce it (ships sent south as before, additional troops), or even just some actual intelligence effort that would make the invasion less of a surprise.

Hmm this has ended up as a long response!
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I would add to that, with somewhat better planning, the Argies bring several merchant / container ships with the invading force and land a larger contingent of troops along with supplies for a siege. If not more Exocets, then find another antiship missile, or even some suitable artillery, that can be used for coastal defense.

What they needed was a way to draw the war out to a point where the British couldn't maintain operations at that distance from Britain. Of course, the British might ask for, and get, more US assistance to keep things going but the RN really wasn't prepared to stay on station in mass for say several months without the islands being retaken.
 
There's heaps of stuff the Argentine command could have done, but given the planning time and tiny team available its hardly surprising they made huge mistakes.

Britain was in the same position, which explains their mistakes to an extent as well.
 
Rule of cool said:
There's heaps of stuff the Argentine command could have done, but given the planning time and tiny team available its hardly surprising they made huge mistakes.

Britain was in the same position, which explains their mistakes to an extent as well.
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The biggest Argie blunder was wishful thinking that the British wouldn't try to take the Falklands back but rather negotiate some sort of peace. They should have prepared up front for the possibility that Britain would fight rather than negotiate.
 
T. A. Gardner said:
The biggest Argie blunder was wishful thinking that the British wouldn't try to take the Falklands back but rather negotiate some sort of peace. They should have prepared up front for the possibility that Britain would fight rather than negotiate.
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"Bah, they're led by a woman, what's she going to do?"

Cultural blindness.
 
Scott Kenny said:
"Bah, they're led by a woman, what's she going to do?"

Cultural blindness.
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I think it's more of this rather than a calculation of the forces available. I think that if the British had maintained a powerful out of area capability such as they had a mere 10 years previously (CAV01 & 02 etc) the Argentine Junta still would have reacted the same way. After all Op Journeyman had ended with a whimper and the FCO never stopped stringing the negotiations along.
 
Rule of cool said:
I think it's more of this rather than a calculation of the forces available. I think that if the British had maintained a powerful out of area capability such as they had a mere 10 years previously (CAV01 & 02 etc) the Argentine Junta still would have reacted the same way. After all Op Journeyman had ended with a whimper and the FCO never stopped stringing the negotiations along.
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The more I look at the Falklands war.
The more it I realized that it wouldn't mattered if the British had the same fleet they possessed during the Suez crisis. ( Suitably modernized of course. )
They were desperate they were looking at ending at either ending up ala Mussolini hanging upside down on a lamp post. Or if they were very lucky shot by one of their own firing squads.
They desperately needed a way of distracting the baying mob . Any way .
They had two choices start a fight with Chile over over the Beagle channel dispute or the UK over the Falklands.
Unfortunately for the Argentinian Junta the Chilean option had been closed when they and the Chilean's opted for arbitration . They weren't happy when the Roman Catholic Church ruled against them the general consensus amongst the Junta was the reason for it was quite simple. The Pope was a Communist...
Now the Falklands were far more intriguing. The British were a dying decadent failing society.
Good Lord ! They'd elected a woman of all people.
How you possibly take them seriously ?
It has to be mentioned that Anaya the head of Navy had been a military attache in London a few years previously. He held the UK in utter contempt.
The FCO's underground campaign against it's own political leadership didn't help. They were actively underming the Government of the day.
Ironically they both shared the same goal of basically giving the Falklands away. What the Government and the Civil servants differed on the price they were prepared to offer.
Then you bring in the Defence cuts the Thatcher Government were planning .
It was a Heaven sent opportunity for the Junta it wasn't ideal there really wasn't time to properly plan or prepare.
But they were counting on two factors one environmental the other political.
They were counting on the British being unable to operate in Southern hemispheric winter .
Which makes the North Atlantic in winter look almost benign .
The political ,their working theory was that that Margaret Thatcher being a mere woman and that they ,the British were a corrupt decadent effeminate society doomed to collapse in to political anarchy. The Brits would be unable to sustain the political momentum to fight a war come the southern summer.
Had they able to wait another year there's no doubt in my mind that they would not only be able to take the Islands they would quite frankly still possess them .
But events as they do often do drive these things forcing choices on the regime that proved to be based on strategies that were at best premature and unsound at worst delusional.
 
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Archibald said:
Anaya was a massive idiot and a supremely arrogant prick. Mercifully ! ... since ARA was leading the show.
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Sure, but the British did nothing to show they'd fight for the islands in the previous couple of years. The RN forces in Op Journeyman didn't even eject the Argentine presence on South Thule despite all the effort to get there.
 
uk 75 said:
… and scrapped Fearless and Intrepid as well as Sir Lancelot et al.
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IIRC hadn't the retirement of Fearless and Intrepid – the decision that they didn't need replacing having been made in 1975 – already been reversed, or at least postponed, prior to the invasion after a ministerial tour of Portsmouth?
 
Siberia said:
IIRC hadn't the retirement of Fearless and Intrepid – the decision that they didn't need replacing having been made in 1975 – already been reversed, or at least postponed, prior to the invasion after a ministerial tour of Portsmouth?
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IIUC the Intrepid was de-stored in anticipation of disposal, but wasn't parked somewhere and left to rot at that point as it was hoped disposal could be by sale to a foreign navy. I think the Fearless was to be kept on for a bit as a training ship but didn't have a long-term future.
 
Rule of cool said:
IIUC the Intrepid was de-stored in anticipation of disposal, but wasn't parked somewhere and left to rot at that point as it was hoped disposal could be by sale to a foreign navy. I think the Fearless was to be kept on for a bit as a training ship but didn't have a long-term future.
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Trying to recall whether it was Fearless or Intrepid that Argentine Navy expressed an interest in purchasing.
 
Not to mention both the Harrier and Sea Harrier, along with interest in various V/STOL carrier designs!
 

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