By Les Mader, 8 April 2024
It is my personal belief that the 1982 Anglo-Argentine Falklands War was largest and bloodiest naval campaign fought since World War II. Clearly, there have been campaigns since then that have involved larger navies and which have occurred over a longer duration. However, these have been fairly one-sided affairs – such as Korean War, Vietnam War, First Gulf War, Second Gulf War, and Global War On Terror – where one side had complete naval and air superiority and deployed larger (mainly American) forces off the coast of an adversary who could not seriously attack them. At the other extreme there have been several naval skirmishes – such as off the coast of Syria in 1973 – which involved small forces and were costly (in relative terms) but of very short duration.
Compared to these two extremes, the Falklands War was a see-saw, multi-month conflict which saw significant losses on both sides. These included (for the two adversaries combined): one light cruiser; one conventional submarine; two guided-missile destroyers; two frigates; one landing ship logistic; one large container ship; numerous landing craft and small vessels; at least 40 jet fighter aircraft; two bombers; numerous other aircraft and helicopters; as well as numerous other ships and aircraft damaged.
The attached two videos discuss the war from start to finish in a well presented, knowledgeable manner that will provide new or better-analyzed information even to those who have a good understanding of what occurred during its 74 days.
These videos are brought to the attention of the Forum for its information.
Part 1 – Air-Sea Battle in the South Atlantic - A Military History of the Falklands War Part 1: Air-Sea Battle in the South Atlantic (youtube.com)
Part 2 – From San Carlos to Stanley - A Military History of the Falklands War Part 2: From San Carlos to Stanley (youtube.com)
4 thoughts on “The 1982 Anglo-Argentine Falklands War”
We learnt a lot from the Falklands and indeed today we seem to forget many of those lessons.
On the naval side of things it was pretty one sided in favor of the British. Argentina had no way of combating a nuclear submarine hence why the invasion was called off back in 1981 and the key Argentine objective was to deploy in secrecy before a SSN could get south, it is also why they bought their plans forward.
Our SSNs were kept on a very tight leash, the reality being that conks could have easily sunk the entire Belgrano group conversely HMS Splendid which had been in and out of contact with the carrier could have wiped her group out too. That was a major failing for the Argentine navy in that they didn’t have the right or even best ASW counter and this shows that submarines can command entire areas even when not there and most importantly influence commanders of the other side to make decisions that may not always turn out in their favor.
The Argentine had two key advantages though, their logistical supply chain was much shorter than ours and their air force had many more assets than what we could field. Our problem was combating the air force element and this is where the failings of the defense reviews of 1966 & 81 came in to play in a big way.
We had scrapped Ark Royal 3 years prior meaning fixed wing mach 2 capable fast jets, subsonic low level strike aircraft and AEW aircraft were not available to us any more, all of which would have given the Royal Navy much more flexibility and as a fleet in being may have persuaded the Junta not to invade anyway.
The losses we suffered were due to politicians dictating naval policy through a prism, that prism left out the need for certain types of warfare beyond what they had planned. Our navy in 1982 was solely optimized for operations in the North Atlantic and our AAW destroyers the type 42 main arm was to take down medium and high flying Soviet MPA and bombers, not low level fast jets and sea skimming missiles.
That left us vulnerable and in all honesty I am surprised we didn’t lose more ships, after this engagement the type 42 got the nickname “Pompey Gash Barges” (Portsmouth garbage ship). The 42s were not overly well liked they were incredibly limited in their role and had to take point defense protection from type 22’s.
What came out of all this though well a half-cooked attempt at acknowledging expeditionary warfare is something the Royal Navy is likely to undertake as part of its role globally. From the type 42 we got the half-baked type 45 which is more than twice the potency of the 42 yet when they first came into service they had no anti-ship capability (since revised) and some clever civil servant cooked up the phrase “fitted for but not with” to save money so that they didn’t fit the T45 with the second system of VLS.
The frigates fared much better the 21 & 22’s being replaced by the 23’s which have a 32 cell VLS and harpoon AShM capability, they are dedicated to ASW and GP roles the key problem was again numbers.
Since 1982 the numbers of escort vessels have declined rapidly and today there are so many issues in the RN it’s unreal. We can also thank the Falklands as well as GW1, Kosovo, GW2 and other skirmishes that the Invincible class while they look OK on paper and did do well had a lot of short comings, the positive outcome being that we got the Queen Elizabeth class to replace them which are 3 times the size of the older carriers each.
In conclusion we learnt a lot with this war and it was in fact this war that largely saved the Royal Navy as a whole considering the Knott review was to scrap Hermes, Fearless, Intrepid and sell Invincible basically gutting the RN to a coastal defense force.
Thankfully that review was scrapped and despite its limited size today the Royal Navy is one of only 3 navies that have true blue water capability the others being USA & France.
Good afternoon Blair,
Thank you for your insights.
There are so many lessons to be learned (relearned) from this war that I had hoped that this post would include the following search keywords:
– Falklands War,
– Amphibious Operations,
– Aircraft Carrier Operations,
– Aerial Combat,
– Naval Gunfire Support,
– Submarine Operations,
– Combined Arms Land Combat, and
– Logistics Operations.
As an aside, I found that the relevant books by the following authors really brought home various important points:
– Cdre Michael Clapp, CATF,
– BGen Julian Thompson, Comd 3 Cdo Bde,
– Maj Mike Norman, OC Naval Party 8901 and later J Coy, 42 Cdo, and
– Gov Rex Hunt.
Ubique,
Les
There are many lessons to be learnt especially in my field (Logistics) that we seem to be throwing away again. I have the unique ability to know and talk to people who went south – RAdm Dr Chris Parry the guy that depth charged Santa Fe who back then was a FLT Lt, I converse with him regularly, two family friends one was a Royal Marine, the other Aircraft Engineer HMS Hermes, two of my cousins also sailed south Warfare officer (Submarines) HMS Splendid and Marine Engineering Officer HMS Invincible.
Today and currently the RFA has shrunk beyond belief. They have also recently voted to strike, this affects deploy-ability of RN vessels as well as some other low key missions such as operation Klipon in the Gulf and the yearly hurricane patrol in the Caribbean.
To show how dire it is, we currently have 6 oilers (2 waves 4 tides). Both waves are laid up in extended readiness along with 1 tide, our only multi store vessel Fort Victoria is laid up, and forward repair ship Diligence is being scrapped.
On the RN side both our LPDs are now laid up, the LPH we had sold with no replacement, the frigate fleet has been reduced to 9 vessels. We have 6 SSNs that are reduced sea time status, our SSBNs are doing 200 day patrols. 4 of the 6 T45 destroyers have anti ship missiles and don’t forget fitted for but not with extra VLS, mine warfare ships from 22 down to 8 Crows nest AEW helicopter entering service 2024 will be withdrawn in 2029.
Simply put our fleet is in tatters but there is a ray of hope, we will be replacing the 13 type 23 frigates (9 are active) with a mix of 8 type 26 and 5 type 31s with the potential for a further 5 T31 or 32 SSN Aukus may or may not increase (I’m not allowed to say the number). More F35Bs have been ordered for the carriers (joint ops with RAF), lastly there are plans to replace the two LPDs with two new ones.
On the RFA Side 3 dry stores vessels being built in Belfast, 2 purchased ships one for seabed the other for mine warfare mother ship. I don’t think we will see the waves deploy again and the Tide that’s laid up will likely come back to service as will Fort Victoria, continued use of the RoRo point class and a commercial tanker for resupply and consolidation.
There was an article done by the UKDJ (1) which made a poor assumption based on vessel numbers and completely misses the point. Here’s why, in 1982 the ships that went south were much smaller than they are today, to give you an idea MV Norland a RoRo vessel sailed south it had 1,300 lane meters of capacity, the vessel that has since replaced it has 3,300 lane meters.
Consider this as well the type 42 Batch 1 & 2 had 22 sea dart missiles which used a twin arm launcher and if the type 963 lost the target for a split second would render the missile dumb and it would miss, the Type 45 has 48 missiles launched via a VLS and can engage 48 targets at once (can do more but stores don’t allow) so we are leaps and bounds beyond 82 today.
We have also beefed up island defenses with 2,000 troops always stationed on the islands plus a armed FIDF militia, a dedicated RAF base with a squadron of typhoon jets and a constant presence by either a OPV or our ice research ship on the odd occasion a T23 or 45 might make an appearance and no comment about our SSNs.
Argentina today has no capability to attack anything they have a few naval vessels no major fighter aircraft no logistics capability and no amphibious capability.
The one key lesson we learnt was logistics and it was a farce at the start but once we got rolling the conclusion was always inevitable even though it was a close run thing in many ways.
If i had to suggest a book to you it would be Adm Sir Sandy Woodward, the task force commander, it’s titled 100 days.
(1) https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/huge-drop-in-militarily-useful-british-vessels/#:~:text=2021%3A%20The%20number%20of%20'militarily,chemical%20tankers%20and%20container%20ships.
Hi Blair,
Thank you once again for even more valuable insights.
I have actually ordered Woodward’s book (and hope to receive it today). It will be fascinating to compare his recollections with those of Cdre Clapp and BGen Thompson. I’m just reading Gov Rex Hunt’s book. It is a very interesting look into the non-military side of the war.
Ubique,
Les