The Falklands War

[McMonkey]

I disagree with the comment that it was pointless. These islands, inhabited only by British subjects, were wrongfully taken. A corrupt government was humbled and forced to give up power. Britain proved again the valor and skill of its royal marines, SAS, and other units mentioned in this article.

Why was it pointless ?

Pointless from the Argentinian point of view!?. As you said, Britain gained military prestige and experience and showed its enemies around the world that it would fight, even for a desolate island full of sheep. Plus there is rumoured to be vast reserves of oil under the south Atlantic that Britain can lay claim to as they are within the territorial waters of the Falklands. Apparently the oil is not ready to pump out just yet but the government has been borrowing against it anyway. I cannot confirm this at all, just something a friend told me, could be another crackpot conspiracy for all I know.

Ultimately all war is pointless. I remember a girl back in my schooldays suggesting that disputes should be settled with a computer game war. We laughed at the time but now I think it makes a lot of sense! Civilization played for real, nerds become warriors Maybe mankind needs to settle its differences by actually killing one another. That's the way it has been for the entire history of Civilization and it does not look like drawing to an end anytime soon.

 

[Flying Pig]

We tried the pacifist approach, but somehow opinion was that negotiations were doomed. There was no other way to end the conflict except how it was done, and it was done beautifully. In fact, it was so good that a pub in Stanley held a party for the soldiers when they came in!

 

[dosed150]

You really think that any country short of the USA could stand a serious invasion by us? By the way; the only people who seriously tried were the Portugese, and they managed it.



They didn't do much; remember that they were operating from Acension and so had no chance to do much more than minor bombing runs on the airfileds. We took out their airpower (for the most part) when the SAS came in, during the landings and when we took the airfeild at Goose Green and then had to use ship-borne weapons to get rid of them.



They said that it would not be convenient; in truth I reckon that they didn't want to drag their allies into it ad wanterd to be seen to be doing it alone



Changed. I didn't know much about what happened before the San Carlos



I changed it; and toned down the description of Ardent a bit.



Can you suggest a better term?



I am almost certain that the offer was made; indeed they gave us their island base on Acension so by then they had almost declared war. They wanted to help out their allies; we refused because it was our fight and we needed to win it alone.

i thought the base on ascension was actually a RAF base that was used by the americans, the us air bases in britain itself are all called RAF wherever

as for the problems with anti-air defences, could this be due to the Royal Navy mostly being concentrated on an ASW role in the event of a NATO-USSR war in which it would be the US navy that would mostly be responsible for anti-air defence

I think britain was fully justified in going to war to retake the islands, self determination is an important ideal, and for Britain to have shown weakness at that time would be perceived as a weakness of NATO overall by the USSR

your piece made no mention of the chilean support for britain, the only state in south america to take the british side, of course this was motivated almost solely by their own unfriendly relations with Argentina

 

[Flying Pig]

i thought the base on ascension was actually a RAF base that was used by the americans, the us air bases in britain itself are all called RAF wherever

No... they're our bases, hence the name Royal Air Force

as for the problems with anti-air defences, could this be due to the Royal Navy mostly being concentrated on an ASW role in the event of a NATO-USSR war in which it would be the US navy that would mostly be responsible for anti-air defence

Not to mention the operational range. I don't like to speculate on that sort of thing.

your piece made no mention of the chilean support for britain, the only state in south america to take the british side, of course this was motivated almost solely by their own unfriendly relations with Argentina

Did they actually do anything? I so, I'd be happy to put it in.

 

[dosed150]

No... they're our bases, hence the name Royal Air Force



Not to mention the operational range. I don't like to speculate on that sort of thing.



Did they actually do anything? I so, I'd be happy to put it in.

barely, but i would imagine the possibility of a two front war may have kept argentina from fully concentrating in its fight with britain

the norwegian intelligence service apparantly gave constant information on argentine naval positions to the British

 

[McMonkey]

We tried the pacifist approach, but somehow opinion was that negotiations were doomed. There was no other way to end the conflict except how it was done, and it was done beautifully. In fact, it was so good that a pub in Stanley held a party for the soldiers when they came in!

The lads certainly did an amazing job. I was only about four at the time so I don't remember the events but I have read all about them since and feel very proud of what our soldiers achieved. I do feel sorry for the young Argentine conscripts and the crew of the Belgrano who were sent to their deaths by their corrupt government for no purpose whatsoever. That's not to say that we shouldn't have fought or shouldn't have sunk the Belgrano though, its just sad that the situation ever got to that point.

The Falklands was certainly one of the last "black and white" wars where there is a clear enemy and a clear set of objectives that would bring total victory if achieved. Quite different from the war we (Britain) is fighting in Afghanistan. But I guess that's going off track a little.

Good article!

 

[dosed150]

The lads certainly did an amazing job. I was only about four at the time so I don't remember the events but I have read all about them since and feel very proud of what our soldiers achieved. I do feel sorry for the young Argentine conscripts and the crew of the Belgrano who were sent to their deaths by their corrupt government for no purpose whatsoever. That's not to say that we shouldn't have fought or shouldn't have sunk the Belgrano though, its just sad that the situation ever got to that point.

The Falklands was certainly one of the last "black and white" wars where there is a clear enemy and a clear set of objectives that would bring total victory if achieved. Quite different from the war we (Britain) is fighting in Afghanistan. But I guess that's going off track a little.

Good article!

was 6 years before i was born, first war i remember seeing on tv and being aware of was kosovo which was greyer than the falklands but more black and white tha the current wars i would think.
It is always tragic when a corrupt government sends young men and these days young women to their deaths in a pointless war of aggression like that

my uncle served in 2 para during the war, most of my life hes lived in australia so never really heard him talk about it, other than that people wouldnt let him pay for drinks for quite a while afterwards

 

[civiijkw]

...

Ultimately all war is pointless. I remember a girl back in my schooldays suggesting that disputes should be settled with a computer game war. We laughed at the time but now I think it makes a lot of sense! Civilization played for real, nerds become warriors Maybe mankind needs to settle its differences by actually killing one another. That's the way it has been for the entire history of Civilization and it does not look like drawing to an end anytime soon.

I'm reminded of the old '60s saying "what if the held a war and nobody showed up?". Of course, attempting that means that one possibility is that the real phrase will end up being "what if they held a war and only one side showed up?".

 

[vogtmurr]

Well, maybe part of the longterm reconciliation is any future resource offshore extraction would be by a joint use consortium with Argentina. Otherwise there was absolutely no reason to try to rally nationalist support with ahostile occupation.

 

[Patroklos]

You really think that any country short of the USA could stand a serious invasion by us? By the way; the only people who seriously tried were the Portugese, and they managed it.

Britain would be entirely incapable of invading any second tier nation then as they are now.

As for the carrier, the idea that we were going to temporarily transfer one to Britain for this role is ridiculous. Assuming that the RN actually had that many officers and rating laying around to man her, it would take years of workups before they would have actually operated her in any manor that would be helpful. More realistically the US was offering the US of non combat assets off of a US manned carrier.

 

[RedRalph]

You really think that any country short of the USA could stand a serious invasion by us? By the way; the only people who seriously tried were the Portugese, and they managed it.

In 1982 or now? either way, yeah, there is quite a list of countries that could, pretty easily.

 

[budweiser]

Because of the economic times, it was becoming a financial strain on Britain to maintain the Faulklands possessions. So, the defenses were stripped to save money. This sent the wrong message to the Argentines and they invaded. Britain, to keep face and status had to retaliate. They just barely retained the means to project enough power to retake them, and they had to have help from the USA. If it had not been for the Harrier, there is no way they would have been able to win. Those are the essential points about the war.

 

[Flying Pig]

was 6 years before i was born, first war i remember seeing on tv and being aware of was kosovo which was greyer than the falklands but more black and white tha the current wars i would think.
It is always tragic when a corrupt government sends young men and these days young women to their deaths in a pointless war of aggression like that

my uncle served in 2 para during the war, most of my life hes lived in australia so never really heard him talk about it, other than that people wouldnt let him pay for drinks for quite a while afterwards

Do you know his name? Kosovo was a just war, but the place was a mess.

 

[dosed150]

Do you know his name? Kosovo was a just war, but the place was a mess.

yeh kosovo seems to have turned out mostly ok, though im sure some would disagree, yeh its David gee

 

[Harvin87]

so... the empire stroke back eh...

 

[Flying Pig]

Pretty much. Two VCs say we did a good job

 

[privatehudson]

I wouldn't say that VCs alone were a good indicator of a "good job" done during the overall war. They gave out 11 in one go for defending a mission station after all.

 

[Flying Pig]

You mean Roarke's Drift (sp)? OK, but at least the objective was done without excessive force or civillian casulties

 

[privatehudson]

I don't doubt that for a moment, I'm just pointing out that the number of VCs awarded often has little to do with how successful/important a campaign or battle was. Rorke's Drift was a minor sideshow. Most people today probably would never have heard of it but for the 1960s film which was quite inaccurate anyway.

 

[Flying Pig]

I understand that; what I said was down to my automatic medals = well done lads [trip to pub] reflex