Crazy Low Flying Argentinians

[camberiu]

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.

I will not shed a single tear if Argentina NEVER gets the islands.

 

[robwerwe]

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.

People go on about this if 'only they hadn't made those mistakes the islands would be ours!' It stinks of a bad looser
War is won by the side that makes the least mistakes.

Move on, Argentina lost.
Get over it.
Focus on fixing the country.

 

[robwerwe]

If an English guy had punched the ball into the back of the net there would now be a national holiday in Argentina and a campaign to FIFA to change the result.

 

[camberiu]

Yes they are sore looser and yes, they cheat a LOT on football.

 

[Dublin2BuenosAires]

Yes they are sore looser and yes, they cheat a LOT on football.

But enough about the English....

In Ireland Thierry Henry is now chief handball criminal.

 

[French jurist]

But enough about the English....

In Ireland Thierry Henry is now chief handball criminal.

Indeed, and I really feel sorry for that (furthermore I have some Irish blood from the late 19th century)... but the football world is all about business now. Refs can decide on the outcome of a game (business... that sucks big time).

In France, we really aren't proud about Henry's "handballing". Even more, guess who the French prefer the most between Scots, Welsh, Irish and such... (easy answer).

This "joke" ended up with an even bigger "joke".

As a French (and proud to be), really sorry for that. What a shame.

Thierry Henry is not really at fault though imho, the whole "system" is.

 

[D.B. Cooper]

As Maradona would say, it was ... "Le main de Dieu"
If he could speak French That is...

 

[French jurist]

As Maradona would say "Le main de Dieu"
If he could speak French That is...

La main de la honte

 

[GS_Dirtboy]

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/...oc?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.

Here is my summary.

1. Both sides underestimated the other's will to fight and neither were really prepared for this conflict. The Argentines were less prepared than the Brits.
2. Nothing the Argentines had was really a competent adversary of the Sea Harrier with an AIM-9L sidewinder. That was the Queen on the chess board.
3. The Brits had extensive ACM experience with the Harrier against practically every aircraft that wasn't part of the Russian Block.
4. The Argentines hadn't fought against anyone but each other.
5. Black Buck raids cratered the runway at Port Stanley that prevented any jets from operating there. It also scared the crap out of the military high command and from then on kept some of their best air assets back home to protect Buenos Aires against a long-distance air attack.
6. Once the Belgrano was sunk the Argie carrier 25 de Mayo ran for port and never came out. From then on all of the air fighting for the Argentines was done at long range. They had marginal capacity for air-to-air refueling. The Mirage III, one of their most competent fighters, had no air-to-air refueling capability. I think at this point the air war was really over. It was just a matter of time before they ran out of assets.
7. The bombs dropped from Skyhawks were armed correctly - enough to give the aircraft time to get away from the blast. The Argie pilots just dropped at too low of an altitude trying not to get shot down by British Sea Dart Missiles.

We could go on ... over beers. B)

 

[Frinkiac7]

And now the Argentine armed forces don't even have enough money to maintain or fuel their airplanes, so they practice low-flying runs like this: