Crazy Low Flying Argentinians

[robwerwe]

This one is the attack of a Ship by the victims.
https://www.youtube....xB4Z2SvNgHfdEwV

This is the attack of the HMS INVENCIBLE by the AR pilots
https://www.youtube....h?v=i-SMjupOdJs

Was HMS Invencible wasn't attacked?

 

[camberiu]

Was HMS Invencible wasn't attacked?

It was attacked. It was just never hit. The Exocet that struck HMS Atlantic Conveyor was intended for the Invincible.

 

[robwerwe]

If you didn't know much about the war you might have thought the Argentineans had won it by the way the go on about it.

 

[camberiu]

If you didn't know much about the war you might have thought the Argentinean had won it by the way the go on about it.

Yes, they feel very strongly about it. Back in the day, the war provoked lots of strong emotions in Brazil too, but those more ambivalent.

I think part of every Brazilian felt sympathetic towards the Argentinians. We are neighbors after all and the war brought to the surface a lot of the anti-colonialist feelings that permeate the entire region. After all, it was a Latin American country against a former colonial power. So we kind of cheered for them.

On the other hand, their swift defeat brought in a lot of relief. Brazil up to that point always had tense relations with Argentina. And Argentina always openly claimed to be smarter, more competent, whiter, truly European and superior to everyone else in the region (the ignorant/lazy black and brown folk). It was hard for Brazilians to dismiss those claims back then, so there was the fear of having this richer, expanssionistic, militaristic and potentially much more capable neighboring opponent to contend with sometime in the future.
Their humiliating defeat at the hands of the British served to show that they were not this "European like power" in South America. Instead, it clearly demonstrated that they were as impulsive, inept, disorganized, unprepared, and foolish as the rest of us. The myth was shattered, and people quickly realized that the Argentinian buggy man did not exist. It produced a dramatic change of attitudes towards the Argentinians in Brazil and with the fears dispelled, it pretty much laid the foundation for the creation of the Mercosur and the dis-militarization of Southern Brazil.

 

[GS_Dirtboy]

Nice summary, Camberiu! It's interesting to get another perspective besides the UK version or the Argentine version.

 

[French jurist]

Their humiliating defeat at the hands of the British

I agree with your other points or learned from then (BR/AR relations) but I don't think it was an humiliating defeat (in the other Malvinas thread you had mentioned something like inept pilots or something like that if I recall).

Without having to rewrite the same thread again, Argentina did great with what they had, against GB backed by the US (promised to give an aircraft carrier if one was sunked, intelligence, etc.).

Also to mention that without the help of France (who played on both sides too, but sided in fine with the Brits - France lost quite a few weapons contracts in SA after that but on the other hand the French would have never tolerated Brits or Americans being killed by French weapons), this war would have been different.
The Exocets would have made all the difference and I doubt the US would have offered boats/carriers (USS Stark a bit later) if there had been more of them (they would have been sunked quickly).

I paste again those interesting articles from "Ouest France" (a provincial newspaper from France for the regions where there are military ports on the West side):
http://lignesdedefen.../07 01 2011.pdf
http://lignesdedefen.../24 12 2010.pdf
http://lignesdedefen.../31 12 2010.pdf

Like usual, the guys "above" made mistakes & the brave guys on the ground (or behind the sticks) paid the heavy price, on both sides.

It would be interesting to know if those Galtieris & such sent their own sons to fight. Seems this way of behaving doesn't exist anymore nowadays (when Charles de Gaulle was in charge, his sons were sent to fight in a few conflicts and De Gaulle asked for them to be on the first line of combat... Times have changed)

rock on

 

[camberiu]

We had this discussion before, but here is the highlight again of the mistakes made by the Argentinians:

1) Did not know how to properly use the bombs. Many hit the target but failed to explode because the arming mechanism were not set correctly.
2) All the torpedoes fired by the Argentinians failed to explode due to wrong wiring (done by the Argentinians). Had they not committed this elementary mistake, they could have ravaged the British task force.
3) Improper dog fighting. The Argentinians repeatedly tried to engage the Harriers on their element (low altitude) instead of trying to bring the Harriers to fight on their terms.
4) Not moving high performance planes to the Falklands, instead forcing them to operate from the continent
5) Not properly securing the Pucara planes that were in the Falklands. Almost all of them were left unguarded and destroyed by the SAS.
6) Keeping the entire Argentinian surface navy inside the port.
7) Exposing the Belgrano the way they did, FOR NO REASON and NO PURPOSE whatsoever.

The Argentinian side of the conflict is full of 'If they only had done X". That to me is symptomatic of what we are talking about. They had all the tactical advantages and lost because they made poor decision and mistakes.

I do agree with you about the Exocet. It was such a formidable weapon at the time that, if the Argentinians only had more of it (here it is again), they could have changed the outcome of the conflict, despite all of their other short comings.

 

[camberiu]

To complement the previous message, at the strategic level the Argentinians:

Picked a fight with the 2nd biggest western military power in order to quell and internal crisis. I cannot express enough how apoplectic the Brazilians generals were with this decision/course of action. Remember, these Argentinian generals were the guys who had the aura of intellectual superiority at the time, while the Brazilian generals suffered from an inferiority complex when comparing themselves to their Argentinian counter parts. I remember several Brazilian generals saying on interviews that the Argentinian military leaders were either the most brilliant strategists in the world, or the dumbest fucks to ever walk the earth, for picking a fight with the UK to appease domestic discontent at home. After the war ended, we can guess which opinion became the prevalent one.

So yes, this also helped give the impression in Brazil of a humiliating defeat on a war of choice for ridiculous reasons. Also, it was obvious to the Brazilians, as the war progressed, the Argentinian generals did not have a define strategy and they were improvising, mostly with knee jerk reactions, to the well planned and methodical British offensive. Once again breaking the myth of the Argentinian intellectual superiority and showing that they were as clueless as the rest of us.

 

[French jurist]

We had this discussion before, but here is the highlight again of the mistakes made by the Argentinians:

1) Did not know how to properly use the bombs. Many hit the target but failed to explode because the arming mechanism were not set correctly.
2) All the torpedoes fired by the Argentinians failed to explode due to wrong wiring (done by the Argentinians). Had they not committed this elementary mistake, they could have ravaged the British task force.
3) Improper dog fighting. The Argentinians repeatedly tried to engage the Harriers on their element (low altitude) instead of trying to bring the Harriers to fight on their terms.
4) Not moving high performance planes to the Falklands, instead forcing them to operate from the continent
5) Not properly securing the Pucara planes that were in the Falklands. Almost all of them were left unguarded and destroyed by the SAS.
6) Keeping the entire Argentinian surface navy inside the port.
7) Exposing the Belgrano the way they did, FOR NO REASON and NO PURPOSE whatsoever.

The Argentinian side of the conflict is full of 'If they only had done X". That to me is symptomatic of what we are talking about. They had all the tactical advantages and lost because they made poor decision and mistakes.

I do agree with you about the Exocet. It was such a formidable weapon at the time that, if the Argentinians only had more of it (here it is again), they could have changed the outcome of the conflict, despite all of their other short comings.

1) For the bombs I don't know. For the Exocets that didn't work, it was the ones that were adapted (the Sea-Sea MM38 I guess) that did not function because they were not intended to be used that way, the Air-Sea ones worked 100%
2) I guess you mention the Telefunken ones bought to the Germans. In fact they had to set a "compensation device" and did not ( http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA307350 = keyword "Telefunken")
3) We have enough ex pilots on the forum to answer that but did the Argentinians have enough fuel to fight other airplanes?
4) From what I've read (but from the theory to reality..), indeed. This could have changed many things (I recall reading something about making the runways longer with some kind of pads?)


Anyway, if things had turned out in favour of Argentina, Miss Maggie had her little red button ready.

 

[French jurist]

And actually, if Argentina is to get the Malvinas back someday, Brazil will need to appear somewhere in the equation. That's Camberiu, the funny side of the story, and I'm sure that will please you.

Only way for the Malvinas to be Argentinian: diplomacy. Stuff in it some commercial considerations (weapons contracts, etc.) on the Latin American scale and the legendary British pragmatism will do the rest, he he. (Since so many centuries we are neighbours with the ones across the Channel, we know their weak points )