The Falklands in Retrospect

The fact that the Argentines did not adequately equip or motivate their land forces on the Falklands is perplexing. The battle for Port Stanley was virtually given away when the Argentinians evacuated the high ground surrounding the town. Despite the fact that the Argentines knew a landing was commencing at Port San Carlos they did not even take the opportunity of airlifting in troops to defend the beachhead, a move that would have bottled up the British task force in the confines of Falkland Sound longer than desired by the British, a move that would have guaranteed a high attrition rate on the vulnerable landing craft.

Again, why didn’t the Argentinian navy dispatch say, the cruiser General Belgrano, the carrier Veinticinco de Mayo and two Type 42 destroyers and an oiler to intercept and observe the second wave of the support force as it left Ascension Island?

This far out in the Atlantic the British would have been powerless to strike first and would have had to deploy at least half their Falklands fleet to track the Argentine naval threat. This would have weakened their position in the region of the Islands as they would have had only one carrier available, assuming that either Hermes or Invincible would have had to be assigned to the second convoy due to the presence of the Argentine carrier near such vulnerable as Canberra, Uganda and the dozen or so civilian ships.

This would have enabled the Argentines the unfettered opportunity to resupply their garrison and to even introduce strike aircraft which should have been based on the island at the first opportunity. Instead, the Junta had the Belgrano stooging around the southern rim of the combat zone to no great tactical advantage. It is also distressing that the primary cause of such a relatively high fatality figure in the sinking of the Belgrano was the cruiser’s escorts fleeing the scene as soon as the first torpedo struck. As the Belgrano was equipped with Exocet launchers she represented a threat potential far greater than merely an ageing ex-World War Two cruiser. Combined with the two West German diesel/electric submarines, the two recently delivered English Type 42 destroyers (sisters to Sheffield and Coventry) and the carrier, the fleet could have become a real force if used tactically by the Argentine navy.

Why the Argentines did not use their navy more effectively will always be unclear, just as it is even more perplexing why the air force did not take the obvious initiative and base Skyhawk and Mirage fighters at Port Stanley. Logistic and support problems there certainly would have been, but the British fleet would have had a very difficult, if not impossible, task in retaking the Islands if the Argentinians had had Island-based air power.

The ace in the British pack was always the implied threat presented by the three to four RN nuclear-powered conventionally armed hunter-killer submarines. Indeed, a ‘ghost’ in HMS Superb was enforcing the initial weeks of the blockade through the mere suggestion that she had been deployed to the South Atlantic. The fact that Superb was safely moored in Scotland during that period was only discovered later when elements of the primary fleet had arrived on Falklands station.

All the same the stunning effectiveness with which Conqueror dispatched the Belgrano is a grim testimony to the total effectiveness of this form of modern naval warfare. No doubt if the Argentine navy had launched a massive strike against the British fleet at the height of the battle in late May the RN submarine force would have sent the majority of that fleet to the bottom of the South Atlantic without too much inconvenience. In the long term this will undoubtedly be Britain’s ace in the pack in keeping future Argentinian Malvinas ambitions at bay.

On the other hand, though they ultimately did not actively participate in the campaign, the two Argentine diesel/electric West German-built submarines did contribute just by their mere presence in the Argentinian order of battle. The fear that they were silently lying off the Falklands consumed many Sea King flying hours and necessitated the British commander dedicating much effort and time to constant ASW operations with what was essentially an already grossly over-taxed helicopter force. As a deterrent, and indeed as a weapon of offense the submarine is superb.

If tactics certainly won the day for Britain then what of the overall performance of the individual types of equipment?

The war of course had great interest to Australia. Here we had aircraft types we operated, Skyhawks and Mirages, with some of the Skyhawks being carrier operated, Sea Harriers, in which we were deeply interested and indeed the very ship that would soon, it was planned, be bearing the RAN ensign from her stern.

If anything, the most important lessons of the war were: the absolute necessity of presenting a deterrent against potential aggression, the ability of aircraft to wreak havoc upon a maritime force lacking in-depth integral air support, the importance of ECM, AEW electronic information gathering (Elint) and tactics and, lastly, the need for fighting ships to have total in-depth defence against missiles and aircraft.

The Mirage (and IAI Dagger variant) as operated by Argentina always suffered from operating at the extreme razor’s edge of their tactical radius. The Falklands were roughly 400 miles from the primary air base of Comodoro Rivadavia which meant that the Mirage Ill would carry two one thousand-pound bombs at the most, coupled with cannon armament, two early model Sidewinders and long-range tanks. Use of afterburner over the target area was extremely restricted, and any Mirage pilot will tell you that use of the afterburner on a Mirage in the ground attack mission is essential if you want to maintain your energy, and energy management in a Mirage, as in any delta-winged aircraft, is paramount to survival. Get under 450 kts in a Mirage and you are in trouble.

Therefore the Argentinian pilots performed creditably despite the fact that they would have fared better against the Sea Harriers if they had tried to ignore them to the point of not being continually lured into losing airspeed to fight with the subsonic Sea Harriers. This tactic of course was used continually by the RN pilots who knew that if they could slow the Mirage escorts down then they were as good as dead considering the Sea Harriers’ low Infra-Red signature and devastatingly effective AIM-9L Sidewinder air-to-air missiles. While Britain claims it destroyed a total of 71 Argentine combat aircraft, US intelligence sources are quoting figures closer to 105 which could take into account a number of aircraft that simply did not make it back to the mainland due to fuel starvation or battle damage. A few extra minutes over the combat area, an extra stab of afterburner and an unexpected westerly wind and suddenly a Mirage, or even Skyhawk, could find itself in grave trouble almost within sight of its base. Whichever figures you use, the fact remains that more than two-thirds of the Argentine Air Force’s combat aircraft were lost in the campaign. Indeed some missions claimed attrition rates of three quarters, an insane figure that cannot be absorbed for more than a few short days.

The Skyhawks used by Argentina were the early model variant originally built for the USN and supplied to Argentina when the original A-7s were introduced into USN service in the late sixties. Re-designated A-4P the aircraft were modest in avionics even by our own A-4G standards though they did possess the traditional Skyhawk qualities of durability, long range and small target size. Like the Mirages though they soon fell prey to the Sea Wolf SAMS and the Sea Harriers though Skyhawks were responsible for damaging or destroying a large number of ships including the Sir Tristram, Sir Galahad, Antelope and Ardent. What would be the single most frustrating aspect of the operation from an Argentine pilot’s viewpoint is the large number of bombs to precisely impact the target but not detonate. At least five British ships were saved through bombs not having time to fuse due to the extreme low-level attack profiles flown by the Skyhawk pilots in particular and the fact that some of the munitions were probably outdated. Overall the Argentine pilots showed great courage in the face of formidable odds as they carried on their battle in a manner not shared by their naval and army colleagues.

The number one catchphrase of air force officers worldwide on mention of the Harrier was that it was a ‘once around the football field’ aircraft. For an aircraft that was neither a fighter nor a fighter/bomber, was supposedly useful only in daylight and in clear weather and lacked endurance, the Sea Harrier did pretty well!

A total of eight BAe Harriers were lost, three in weather-related accidents and four to ground-based missiles (Shorts Tigercats) and gunfire. Considering that at the peak of the air war, around late May, Sea Harriers were facing onslaughts by waves of thirty and forty aircraft at a time the fact that not a single Skyhawk or Mirage claimed one Harrier is testimony to the type’s ability to fight and survive. Sea Harriers destroyed between fifteen and twenty Argentine aircraft, largely with the incredible all-aspect AIM-9L Sidewinder which in retrospect will undoubtedly prove to be the single most important air-to-air combat breakthrough of recent decades.

So effective is this latest marque of the established Sidewinder family that RAF Nimrods were carrying a brace of four such missiles on their underwing Martel pylons as self-defence against Argentine fighters. We could see a rethink on tactics in this area where our own Orions carried a similar missile, Asraam or Amraam when available, if operating in a precarious environment. Such an installation could prove just as effective on tankers and AEW aircraft.

What the British (and Argentines) lacked that would have doubled the effectiveness of aircraft like the Sea Harrier was Airborne Early Warning. The AEW Nimrod is not due to become operational till 1984, while the currently available MR2 Nimrod is primarily an ASW maritime reconnaissance vehicle. Its role in a true AEW function was severely limited by both capability and range. Operating more than 4000 nm from your base in a hostile environment is the stuff an aircrew’s nightmares are made of. This of course points out the need for a carrier-based AEW capability, something that the RN is now investigating as a modification of the Sea King or Lynx helo. In the long term, aircraft concepts such as Bell’s Tilt Rotor or Grumman’s Project 698 could provide operable solutions to this problem.

One could write for hours on the contribution made by the tanker force, indeed without their presence the Vulcans (which were virtually in their final days of service) and Nimrods would not have been able to reach the Falklands while the massive Hercules airbridge formed between the UK and Ascension Island would not have functioned at all. The majority of RAF GR. 3 Harriers flew direct from their UK bases to Ascension in company with tankers where they were then loaded onto the ill-fated Atlantic Conveyor for shipment to the combat zone. While all the Harriers were safely transhipped from the Atlantic Conveyor at the time of its destruction by an Exocet, at least three RAF Chinook helicopters were still aboard and consequently lost. Certainly, the need for both tankers and AEW aircraft for future RAAF use was soundly brought home. The use of such a capability would greatly extend the effectiveness of the F-111C, the F-18A and our P-3Cs. Indeed if Argentina had had Australia’s present air force (and personnel) the Royal Navy would not have even reached the Falklands. That is without doubt.

One of the most important aircraft types to be used in the campaign were the helicopters. The taking of South Georgia, the elimination of the Santa Fe, the numerous commando assaults, the vital ASW screen and the ship-to-ship replenishment and medivac operations were all the domain of the helo. The Sea King suffered fairly heavy attrition, particularly in the early days of reaching the Falklands though in proportion to hours flown and the appalling conditions endured their effort was very good indeed. In most cases the larger helicopters operated in weather conditions that in peacetime would have had them safely tucked away on the hangar deck. The Lynx certainly deserves praise, this type operated faultlessly and proved its worth on a number of occasions operating from the smaller frigates and destroyers in the attack role. Proof of the effectiveness of the Lynx/Sea Skua missile combination was well demonstrated when just such a team took out a blockade-running patrol boat with a minimum of fuss. Lynx of course is one of the four helos shortlisted for the RAN FFG Frigate helicopter requirement.

The most revealing lesson of the campaign was the effectiveness of the latest technology missiles and the need for a complete in-depth defence against air attack by surface combatants. The Exocet certainly proved itself as a diabolically effective anti-shipping weapon. The fact that the Harpoon is even more potentially lethal, largely due to its greater range, augers well for the defensive capabilities of our navy and air force once this weapon is installed in the RAN FFG Frigates, the DDGs, the Oberon submarines, the RAAF P-3C Orions, the F-111Cs and the F-18As. That combination spells deterrent in capital letters and that is what the entire basis of defence is – deterring the war before it starts and making a potential aggressor pay too high a price for aggression to be viable.

Where Australia, or at least the RAN, looks vulnerable is in defending her surface ships against just such a threat as the Harpoon or Exocet and their numerous Soviet-built brothers. Take the new FFGs. These ships, which feature an aluminium superstructure, have the new General Dynamics Vulcan Phalanx close-in cannon coupled with the effective Standard medium-range SAM. Of the four vessels ordered only the latter two were being supplied with Phalanx installed and it seemed that Navy would not retrofit the first two, Canberra and Adelaide, till around 1989. This has all changed and these ships will now be fitted with Phalanx within the next two years. More importantly, though, every major surface combatant of the RAN should be equipped with this most effective weapon system. The Phalanx unit is fully self-contained and at a programme cost of around $A6 m each they equate to cheap insurance. Such a system installed on Sir Tristram and Sir Galahad would have saved the two vessels and the dozens of men who perished so needlessly at Bluff Cove. The Phalanx could be fitted to our River Class destroyer escorts, the DDGs, Tobruk, Jervis Bay, Stalwart and Supply greatly ensuring their ability to defend themselves against the new generation of surface skimming anti-ship missiles. There are other defences of course such as chaff, ECM and the BAe Sea Wolf which itself proved extremely effective at close quarters, though its tracking radar was spoofed at times in the tight and hilly confines of Falkland Sound. Australia’s DSTO is hard at work developing the Project Winnin cruise missile decoy system and it will be interesting to see what actually develops in this promising project.

The Australian Army would be well pleased with the performance of the Rapier SAM system. Our two potential man-portable Redeye SAM replacement contenders, the Shorts Blowpipe and General Dynamics Stinger were seen to be effective in differing circumstances. Generally, it was felt that in the hilly terrain, the IR tracking system of the later generation Stinger would be more effective as often attacking aircraft were masked from the Blowpipe’s radar sufficiently long enough to be ineffective.

And so it ended in mid-June, exactly three months after the fleet had sailed from Portsmouth. The lessons learnt will not be fully understood for many months as a painstaking analysis must take place to sift through the reams of information available to defence planners both here and abroad. Locally the RAAF won with its case for an Airborne Early Warning and tanker force while the RAN lost their carrier yet again and are now forced to fight the entire carrier acquisition battle over again, albeit at least in the knowledge that they can testify to the cost-effectiveness of STOVL aircraft.