Britain Strengthens Falklands Defense

[camberiu]

I wouldn't be so worried about the Argentine armed forces but I would be more worries about their pals in Venezuela.
I wouldn't be surprised if Miss K is trying to drag them into it with a promise of shared oil.

Wait....what???? How did Venezuela get involved into this?

 

[JamJam]

Wait....what???? How did Venezuela get involved into this?

Didn't you know Miss K is best pals with them? Might be the reason behind all this 'Its a Latin American / world cause.

Only a small chance it would happen though.

 

[scotttswan]

Wait....what???? How did Venezuela get involved into this?

Chavez

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2096978/Falkland-Islands-Venezuela-threatens-Britain-Hugo-Chavez-vows-Argentina.html

 

[camberiu]

Well, leaving all the political considerations aside, Venezuela lacks a blue water navy. This means that the Venezuelan navy is unable operate far from its territorial waters. If you check on the map, you will see that the Venezuelan coast is thousands of miles away from the Falklands. Therefore, the type of military help Venezuela could give if a conflict with the UK over the Falklands were ever to arise would be very limited at best.

 

[JamJam]

Well, leaving all the political considerations aside, Venezuela lacks a blue water navy. This means that the Venezuelan navy is unable operate far from its territorial waters. If you check on the map, you will see that the Venezuelan coast is thousands of miles away from the Falklands. Therefore, the type of military help Venezuela could give if a conflict with the UK over the Falklands were ever to arise would be very limited at best.

Yep your probably right on that one.
But I wouldn't put anything past this bunch of loonies.

 

[French jurist]

July 27[sup]th[/sup] 1982, a nuclear bomb exploded 50 miles North of Rio Gallegos, in an unpopulated area. This British strike comes afterward the loss of most of its fleet, most notably the HMS Hermes that got sunk on june 20[sup]th[/sup] and HMS Invincible that got sunk two days later, after successful strikes by Exocets AM39. Those two aircraft carriers along with the other 30 vessels that got lost marked the end of the first part of the Falklands conflict, the Albiceleste flag flying over the islands.​

Second part of this conflict was global, with Spain seizing the opportunity to attack and conquer Gibraltar, Cyprus conquering the two sovereign bases.​

Ironically, France, who provided Peru with the Exocets that were later to be used against the British fleet, faced similar problems with disputed territories: Clipperton island got invaded by Mexican troops on July 3[sup]rd[/sup].​

That was for the fiction part… If Argentina could have had more Exocets to launch.​

As usual, history is written by the victorious side…​

Argentina did quite well during this conflict facing the UK, strongly backed by the US, with a helping hand from France. Argentinean pilots were not that inept –as it’s been mentioned on this forum- considering the resources they had (very short on fuel, just a few minutes to drop a bomb before eventually being able to fly safely back on some planes on which the ejection seat was not even working, using old bombs bought from surpluses –like the 9 Telefunken torpedoes used by an Argentinean submarine that did not explode-, etc.). For a great homage to the Argentinean pilots, it’s possible to read the text written by Pierre Clostermann, one of the greatest French pilots of all times (and the most decorated too, even has the Distinguished Service Cross, the Silver Star & Air Medal too).​

At that time, Argentina was among the 4 biggest clients of France for weapons.​

During march-july 1981, Argentinean pilots got trained in Landivisiau (France) for air-sea attacks (See one of the links at bottom for more details) and it seems they were quite efficient. Later, when the British fleet was heading for the South Atlantic, France organized a training for the UK and simulated air-sea attacks using Mirage III and Super Étendard nearby the city of Brest. Those simulated attacks proved to be a real problem for the Brits but at least they got well informed about what to expect from the Argentineans (and anyway, the Argentinean planes were mainly used to send missiles & bombs, not to fight other airplanes).​

Regarding the Exocets, if Argentina would have had 10 or 15 times more of them then the Malvinas would be Argentinean again (and the British navy would have been seriously reduced). In fact, with more Exocets, it’s not even sure that the US would have offered that much of assistance to UK (at least not an aircraft carrier to be used as a replacement if a British one had been sunked). Only the MM38 version of the Exocets did not work very well (not used the way they should) but the AM39 one was almost a sure hit. France played a bit for both sides but mainly for the British interests (some French technicians working for Dassault/Sagem stayed in Argentina during the conflict to help with the Exocets -> interesting testimonials in the links at bottom). It seems that indeed Mitterrand gave information to Thatcher as to neutralize/divert those Exocets. It also seems that the Exocets that sunked the Atlantic Conveyor were initially meant for the HMS Hermes (who managed to successfully divert them. Of course, I don’t know if that’s because of the information the French passed to the UK). Also, while it’s unclear if that’s really true or not, it seems that HMS Invincible got hit too (denied by the UK but a few months after those events, the HMS Invincible had a clearly repainted portion).​

British pilots are of course excellent, but the Argentinean pilots can hardly be described as “inept”: it was a small country (Argentina) facing a strong one (UK) backed by the US against the treaty it had with Argentina (US satellites were used to warn UK when AR planes were taking off, US gave UK better missiles –AIM-9- than they previously had, gave to use promise to give an aircraft carrier if one was to be sunk, etc.) + a helping hand from France and it was still quite a close call.​

Argentina maybe would have won waiting a few more months (some of the British boats were to be sold, one of the aircraft carriers to Australia, etc), with a bit more luck (one submarine was under maintenance), using more skilled troops on the ground (18 yo conscripts facing experienced British soldiers = ouch), etc.​

This conflict was a real close call for UK and fact is that the UK was not prepared at all to deal with Exocets… But they don't publicize it too much indeed. Argentina should not play it on the fighting field, but rather play it using the legendary pragmatism of the British.​

Now for the links (some Wikipedia articles still wonder if there were some French technicians or not in Argentina during the conflict... Beware of Wikipedia backed debates... lol):​

Life of the technicians in Argentina:​

http://lignesdedefen.../07 01 2011.pdf​

About the French training of the Argentinean pilots (The son of Pierre Clostermann, mentioned above, was one of the instructors, what may explain also the homage):​

http://lignesdedefen.../24 12 2010.pdf​

Another testimonials about the life of the French technicians in Argentina:​

http://lignesdedefen.../31 12 2010.pdf​

 

[camberiu]

Yep your probably right on that one.
But I wouldn't put anything past this bunch of loonies.

I think you take their statements on the Falklands too seriously. Both K and Chavez are very savvy and do a lot of theater for their domestic audiences. It is more posturing than anything else. They are not loonies. Very ruthless, conniving, corrupt demagogues, yes. But loonies, not so much.

 

[camberiu]

[background=rgb(252, 252, 252)]British pilots are of course excellent, but the Argentinean pilots can hardly be described as “inept”[/background]

If you look at my original post, where I called the Argentinean pilots "inept", you will see that I CLEARLY distinguished the Argentinian Navy Pilots from the Argentinian Air force pilots.
Let's not forget that besides the Super Etendard, which was the most modern European naval attack aircraft at the time, Argentina had the Mirage III, The IAI Finger/Dagger and the A-4 Skyhawk. All these planes were battle tested and had performed SPECTACULARLY at the hands of the Israeli Air Force during the Yom-Kuppur war less than a decade before the Falkland conflict. At the outset of the war the Argentinians had THE BEST equipped air force any western country outside of NATO could hope to have. On the other hands, the British had to rely entirely on a small number of the untested Sea Harrier, which up to that point was considered a jug rigged flying contraption that was slow, short ranged and carried a very small payload.

And there is more, the ineptitude was not restricted to the air force. It was wide spread across the entire military structure. Mistakes in planning, execution and evaluation were wide spread. Forget the "if they had more Exorcet they would have won the war" theory. The Argentines could have won the war if they could just be competent enough to use what they already had! Look at the case of the ARA San Luis, Argentina's most modern submarine at the time. The San Luis was able to get close enough to fire several torpedos at the British task force. Bit none hit their target. Why? See bellow:

After the Falklands War ended, German and Dutch engineers were sent to Argentina to discover what went wrong with their torpedoes. The problem was so simple as to be unbelievable: one of the Argentine sailors who was in charge of periodic maintenance of the torpedoes had inadvertently reversed the polarity of power cables between the torpedoes and the submarine. This meant that when the torpedoes' gyros were spun up, they ran "backwards" and thus tumbled on launch, preventing the weapons from taking up their proper heading.
http://en.wikipedia....ki/ARA_San_Luis

 

[French jurist]

Didn't know that version about the torpedoes, but the other one yes (would be cool to find an Argentinean confirmation).

Indeed, the Argentinean strategy had many defects, and they face a British fleet which was also not prepared to deal with Exocets. In both cases, the guys who made poor decisions were not the brave guys on both sides who put their lives at risk.

Hence I wonder if Lady Thatcher would have pushed the nuke button or not (I believe yes... likely on an unpopulated area as a warning).

Has a novel ever be written about this subject? That would be interesting to envision all the aspects.

 

[dennisr]

We (USA) would never do something like that: offer intelligence. Peru was expecting a shipment of ship killer Exocets and Argentina was lobbying Peru for the shipment. They would have got them except for some James Bond shenanigans. Got tied up in shipping by the Brits. Know a local who was a POW, three times. Must have been a handful to keep captured. Anyway, he has about had it with this Malvinas BS. F.. Politicians. Never ever underestimate the resolve of an adversary.