Argentine Victory in the Falklands

Mike Collins

Banned
I think once the British military is on the Falklands in force, thats the end. The Argentine Army was just not capable of taking on such an outfit. That said, the Argentine Airforce was quite capable and the Argentine Navy never really entered the fray. What if the Navy and Airforce went after the British fleet before the landings and managed to knock out troopships (causing lots of casualties) and aircraft carrier(s)? What would the impact be on the British and Argentina?
 

Matthew Craw

I'm not sure about Argentina but it seems likely that Thatcher would have lost power, perhaps to Labour but more likely to a "palace coup" by the saner elements of teh Conservative Party. The great dark age of British politics could thus have been cut short or at least rendered somewhat less disastrous.
 

Nonny

Banned
If the two Quuen's had been lost, with 10,000 Redcoats on each, Maggie was quite up to fulfilling her oath of launching conventional explosive-tipped Polaris & Tridents missiles from her subs plumetting down to waste the main Argie-Bargy navy base of Commodoro Rivadavio.
 

Matthew Craw

Nonny said:
If the two Quuen's had been lost, with 10,000 Redcoats on each, Maggie was quite up to fulfilling her oath of launching conventional explosive-tipped Polaris & Tridents missiles from her subs plumetting down to waste the main Argie-Bargy navy base of Commodoro Rivadavio.
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redcoats?, I think the modern slang is "Tommy"

MOre to the point, what would that matter? if teh invasion force had already been destroyed then hiting Argentina won't shake their hold on the Falkland Islands, and might provoke a diplomatic backlash against Britain in SOuth America and from her American "Allies"
 

Nonny

Banned
Brazil and Chile both hated the Argentinian gauchos massively, to the point of even aiding the only slightly less hated Anglo-gringos. There'd've been no S.American backlash, only mirth in the cantina.
 

Grimm Reaper

Argentine victory was not plausible.

The US would have given Thatcher whatever was needed.

The Argentines only valid ship, the carrier, would have been smoked by the RN subs.

More interesting might be this:

What if RN subs were close enough to intercept the original invasion and Thatcher never had the war to bolster her image?
 
NHBL

NHBL

Let's make the naval war more interesting

Suppose that Argentina had decided to keep Moreno and Rivadavia--a pair of American built dreadnoughts--instead of scrapping them in the 1950's. In addition, Britain retained HMS Vanguard. Both fleets have upgraded their battleships with modern missiles to augment their big guns.
The Argentine carrier, augemnted by land based aircraft, manage to sink or cripple Hermes and Invincible, at the cost of severe losses themselves. For the moment, there is no air cover for either side--at least none that can't be dealt with by SAMs from the ships.
The Argintine battlefleet steams for the transports, and the Royal Navy intercepts.
The Argentines get lucky, and only General Belgrano is torpedoed before the British subs are sunk and driven off.
After an exchange of missile fire, most of the escorts are damaged, sunk, or just out of missiles. The battleships on both sides still have their big guns, and minimal damage from missile fire. (An Exocet strike on a battleship's belt would scratch the paint, but not much more)
Now, decades after the second world war, the last battleship gunnery encounter starts. The Royal Navy has to win, or the troops in the liners are toast.
 

Gedca

What if Britain just let Argentia take over the Fakland Islands, it's no like their all that important (I think). I believe this is what the Agentine government sincerly thought would happen.
 

David Howery

Ged> the only problem with that is that the islanders were British through and through... they absolutely positively did NOT want to become part of Argentina. How is Britain going to hold onto N. Ireland or any other remnant of their empire if they are cowed out of the Falklands so easily?
 

Gedca

David Howery said:
Ged> the only problem with that is that the islanders were British through and through... they absolutely positively did NOT want to become part of Argentina. How is Britain going to hold onto N. Ireland or any other remnant of their empire if they are cowed out of the Falklands so easily?
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Geogrphy: the Faklnad Islands is an obscure group of Islands in the Sourh Atlantic, N. Ireland is just a little bit away from London itself.

Although I guess it's not very likely. Although if the Islanders weren't British...
 

Melvin Loh

HMS HERMES and INVINCIBLE

Another RN-related Falklands WI: OTL the British were in 1983 about to divest themselves of their last remaining light carriers- HERMES and INVINCIBLE, IIRC scrapping the former and selling the latter to Aust. WI that decision had ATL been brought forward ? Would the RN have totally lost the capability to project an amphibious assault capability to the other side of the Atlantic without these carriers ? Of course, OTL the absolute indispensability of their carriers made the Brits think otherwise.
 

Fiji

Melvin Loh said:
Another RN-related Falklands WI: OTL the British were in 1983 about to divest themselves of their last remaining light carriers- HERMES and INVINCIBLE, IIRC scrapping the former and selling the latter to Aust. WI that decision had ATL been brought forward ?
now, this IS an interresting one.
Brittain has use of the US tankers but this is barely enough to get 1 or 2 missions a day all the way to the Falklands.
True air defence destroyers were pretty new at this point and thus didn't perform that well. The Argentinian airforce can do quite a bit of damage.
Brittain will be forced to launch conventional attacks on the airbases via sub-fired missles.
The landings will take quite a bit longer to materialise.

In the end the Brittish subs will start sinking enough of the Argentinian navy to allow the landings (mostly thanks to the US spy satelites), but as I said, it'll be a while.
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Grimm Reaper

Alas, this all boils down into a single thread.

Within a year, the RN would have had no more carriers and no landing ships that were so vital to the troops(only two remained as it was).

The RAF would have scrapped the last bombers capable of arriving even WITH tanker support.

And Argentina would have had a much stronger anti-ship capacity in their air force.

England would certainly have lost.

Too bad this would have been about eight months after the junta was destroyed and the new Argentine government needed no invasions to boost their popularity in time of trial by jury.
 

Scott Rosenthal

Grimm: The fall of the junta in Argentina was largely due to the debacle in the Falklands (Malvinas to our Argie readers...), so if the war had taken place a year later, the junta would have likely been around to enjoy the spoils of war, since the Brits certainly would have been badly beaten...

Now there is a fascinating POD...simply postpone the war for a year...
 

Dunash

Banned
When they were down to their last pair of exocets, the Argentinians put out a plea to the Israelis for $3 million for each Gabriel they'd sell. Israeli arms dealers were more than willing, but Maggie gave a House of Commons speech saying that any country who helped get the argies back in the ring "would not be forgotten or forgiven". The Israeli arms dealers, who for the right price would have sold to arafat or even Hitler, backed off under orders from Begin. Such is the effectiveness & simplicity of the Gabriel, that with 10 of them the war would've gone the other way
http://www.israeli-weapons.com/weapons/missile_systems/sea_missiles/gabriel/Gabriel.html
 

Chris

Banned
I can't really see an Argie victory without many modifications, but a stalemate is possible. Let's say that the argies knock out one of the aircraft carriers, making air support impossible and rendering the british incapable of landing an invasion. Then the UK uses subs to close the islands off from the mainland and the argies have to resort to air transport, which cannot fill all their requirements. Stalemate.

If you want a victory, the Argies would need to take Ancession Island in the first attack. That deprives britain of the forward base needed.

Chris
 

Brilliantlight

Banned
It would have been VERY hard for the Argentines to win. They used real time intelligence from American satalites and their carriers were better then Argentina's. Worst comes to worst the Brits could "borrow" a baby flattop or two from the US.
 

Grimm Reaper

The Gabriel III entered service in 1982, none sold overseas til Israel has enough. The Gabriel II had a range of roughly 22 miles. Might not be enough to turn the tide.

Chris, the Argentines deployed less than 200 men to South Georgia and that included the crew of a sub driven aground by the British. Even Ascension Island's small existing garrison could likely handle whatever the Argentines could scrape up.

Scott, actually you have it backwards. It was the impending demise of the junta that drove the war forward, despite the sound reasons for delay. Angry mobs were shouting in the square before the presidential palace and President Galtieri only days prior to the commencement of the war. By a successful invasion the generals hoped to retain some power or at least be spared trial. This was the reason so many questionable officers appeared on Argentina's side, including one Lt. Commander Astiz in command on South Georgia and wanted for questioning by Sweden and France for certain citizens last sighted in his custody.
 

NapoleonXIV

Banned
Is it possible that the Argentines could simply buy the Falklands? I'm talking not a buy from the British but from the occupants.

If Argentina was to make a legitimate historical claim to the islands in the UN then I believe a plebiscite might be called for. What if this happened and the Argentines offered each resident say 100000 US Dollars for their vote. Given a population of 5000 (which I believe is a good deal greater) this costs 500 million. Not cheap but probably less than the war. The Argentines could offer the population an autonomy deal.

Though why they wanted them at the time at all is beyond me.
 
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