May 1982 Could Argentina have won the Falklands War?

What do you all think?

From the looks of things Argentina's military had pretty good equipment and had time to prepare good defenses. However they were no match for the more advanced weapons and abilities of British forces.

So I dont know. Maybe if Argentina had a better air force with more Exocet anti-ship missles?

Anyways here is an article looking back on the war including some pictures of the Falklands today with scattered military equipment and still some minefields: http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2012/03/30-years-since-the-falklands-war/100272/

Of course they could.
If they had more exocets. If they had better trained soldiers. If they had more advanced planes and ships. If they had nukes.

It was pretty much always going to be a British victory... unless Argentina managed to sink a carrier. But I see that as more of a delay, rather than a defeat.

They had just about every tactical advantage you could want but they failed to properly make use of them. The big weakness they had was they assumed that as with the Indian takeover of Goa, international opinion would regard the invasion as a fait accomplait and Britain wouldn't have the stomach for a war.

There were a lot of things they could have done to hurt the British more, the submarine San Luis had chances to sink several British warships but faulty torpedoes intervened. There is the well documented story that torpedo mechanics connected up the torpedoes power supply the wrong way round causing them to fail, so if their Naval Engineering School had spent the previous years doing its job instead of pushing nuns out of helicopters then they may have been better prepared for the war.

Once the British ground troops were ashore and in substantial numbers, and fighting, it was pretty much a foregone conclusion.

In retrospect, 3 Commando Brigade, could probably have finished the job even without 5 Brigade, and possibly with lower total British casualties (Lancelot & Tristan).

The Argentine fleet performed pretty poorly, even with the advantages the British gave them (like not sinking the carrier or the destroyers with Belgrano, when they had the chance). The sub might have got lucky and sank a British frigate or destroyer, but that wouldn't change the outcome.

So it comes down to the Argentine air force and navy air force. They did pretty well in some ways - they could have done better - but there was also lots of ways they could easily have done worse - especially given how poor their technical abilities (as opposed to the bravery of their pilots) were.

Change a few things. More professional defence forces rather than on that was it some ways not far of a death squad. Wait a year until the Torys had sod of more of the RN and if a that stage the RN still have carriers sink then and the big troop ships. Not sure what would have to done to the air base on the Falklands at the time that it could operate jet figters but what ever that was do it quickly and finally get some decent long range radar operational on the islands

Joyeux said:

It was pretty much always going to be a British victory... unless Argentina managed to sink a carrier

Click to expand...

That wouldn't have given them a victory, it *might* have got them a delay until Illustrious and/or Bulwark can sail south with more Sea Harriers plus the additional T42's, Leanders (Sea Wolf) and T22's that OTL commissioned over the remainder of 1982.

Meanwhile you have RN Submarines sinking any Argentine vessel that leaves port and even looks like heading towards the falklands.

And I believe the AEW Sea Kings were available by the time Illustrious went south, which adds another massive force multiplier.

Realistically, the British victory was a low probability event.

Suppose the Argentines had managed to deploy low altitude fuses for the simple iron bombs they were using. That would have resulted in the loss of at least three more RN ships.

Suppose the Argentine airforce had managed to keep slightly more of its fleet available for combat during the conflict.

Suppose they had sorted the submarine's torpedo problems out?

How about if the Argentine airforce had managed to hit one of the carriers?

Any one of the four simple changes above would likely have resulted in an Argentine victory.

Assuming all the other events happened, at the same rate (i.e. neither side trying to kill the other before 30 April, otherwise quite a bit more of the Argentine Navy, such as their Type 42s, might have been sunk before the Task Force arrived):

Had the Argentinians:

- correctly fused their iron bombs to explode at extremely low level (although I believe most were flying so low it was virtually impossible to do this with the ex-UK bombs they'd bought)

- attacked the troop and supply ships instead of the warships (although that was not necessarily due to poor decision making on their part, but the split-second the pilots had find a target in San Carlos while being shot at)

- (with the wisdom of hindsight and logistics), managed at any time to conduct a mass air attack on the Task Force with 50+ aircraft, when one or both of the carriers were in range.

- the submarine's torpedoes were most likely dud and unguided, as they ran but but did not explode. Supposedly, one impacted with a Type 21's towed decoy system.

Basically, once British troops were ashore in sufficient numbers, with sufficient supplies, the land war was already won.

Of course, there are also ways in which the UK could've managed through bad luck or planning to have allowed the Argentinians to win the fight.

IIRC, in 1982 Argentinians had an engineering detachment prepared to move to Falklands and lengthen the Stanley airport runway, thus allowing Mirages to use it. But there were additional infantry transported instead - which helped nothing.

IIRC, the Cabinet was rather divided on if they should even fight the Argentines.

I think the simplest way for the Argentines to win is to wait until 1983. There was a new Nationality bill being worked on that would have removed the right to a British passport from the Falkland Islanders. There were also the extensive defence cuts that would have rendered it highly unlikely that the UK could have put together the forces to retake the islands. And as long as it happened after the 1983 General Election in the UK my guess is there would have been a lot of angry words from the Thatcher government(I simply can't believe they could lose to Labour that year even without the OTL FI War and I'm a Labour supporter) and not much action.

Garrison said:

I think the simplest way for the Argentines to win is to wait until 1983. There was a new Nationality bill being worked on that would have removed the right to a British passport from the Falkland Islanders. There were also the extensive defence cuts that would have rendered it highly unlikely that the UK could have put together the forces to retake the islands. And as long as it happened after the 1983 General Election in the UK my guess is there would have been a lot of angry words from the Thatcher government(I simply can't believe they could lose to Labour that year even without the OTL FI War and I'm a Labour supporter) and not much action.

Click to expand...

Except I don't think the Argentine government could wait, this was to be

A.N. Kuropatkin said:

A short victorious war to stem the tide of revolution

Click to expand...

The Argentine government was not stable in 1982, the launched the war to get popular support, they may not have lasted that long

If you were wondering why I quoted this man, it was from another ill fated attempt at such a war in 1904 that this was said, the same argument holds true in this situation as well, that and I like the quote

RamscoopRaider said:

Except I don't think the Argentine government could wait, this was to be



The Argentine government was not stable in 1982, the launched the war to get popular support, they may not have lasted that long

Click to expand...

Oh I realize that but if they had been able to stagger on their chances of a 'short victorious war' would have been better. And of course if they had won in 82' what would that have meant for Argentina? I suspect nothing good.

Garrison said:

Oh I realize that but if they had been able to stagger on their chances of a 'short victorious war' would have been better. And of course if they had won in 82' what would that have meant for Argentina? I suspect nothing good.

Click to expand...

Probably the Argentine government lasts a bit longer, or does that stupid plan to attack Chile after the war for another war

Given the Argentine government of the time, it lasting longer is not a good thing

One thing I have wondered is if the conflict might have become internationalised. Assuming that some of the measure discussed above allow argentinia to take over the islands and the conflict to fester. I could then imagine Peru, Brazil and maybe Mexico recognising the claim while the UK, France, US and Chile refusing to do so.

Yes Argentina could have won

Even the British 3rd Commando Brigade commander, Brigadier Julian Thompson admits it when he writes, "It was fortunate that I had ignored the views expressed by Northwood that reconnaissance of Mount Kent before insertion of 42 Commando was superfluous. Had D Squadron not been there, the Argentine Special Forces would have caught the Commando before deplaning and, in the darkness and confusion on a strange landing zone, inflicted heavy casualties on men and helicopters." In other words, if Brigadier Thompson had not taken the precaution of inserting SAS troops into the Mount Kent area the 30 or so Blowpipe SAM equipped members of the Argentinian 602nd Commando Company would've largely wiped out the helicopters carrying 42 Commando Company's K Company before they got a chance to unload the Royal Marines. Now had would've Margaret Thatcher explained the loss of 30 or so Royal Marines killed on the night of 30-31 May 1982 with hardly any loss on the part of the Argentinian Special Forces occupying Mount Kent?

samuelemmerson2012 said:

Now had would've Margaret Thatcher explained the loss of 30 or so Royal Marines killed on the night of 30-31 May 1982 with hardly any loss on the part of the Argentinian Special Forces occupying Mount Kent?

Click to expand...

I don't think the loss of a company and their helicopters would have caused the UK to cancel the whole campaign. Probably an investigation into the lack of reconnaissance but that's about it. Or am I misunderstanding what you mean?

samuelemmerson2012 said:

Even the British 3rd Commando Brigade commander, Brigadier Julian Thompson admits it when he writes, "It was fortunate that I had ignored the views expressed by Northwood that reconnaissance of Mount Kent before insertion of 42 Commando was superfluous. Had D Squadron not been there, the Argentine Special Forces would have caught the Commando before deplaning and, in the darkness and confusion on a strange landing zone, inflicted heavy casualties on men and helicopters." In other words, if Brigadier Thompson had not taken the precaution of inserting SAS troops into the Mount Kent area the 30 or so Blowpipe SAM equipped members of the Argentinian 602nd Commando Company would've largely wiped out the helicopters carrying 42 Commando Company's K Company before they got a chance to unload the Royal Marines. Now had would've Margaret Thatcher explained the loss of 30 or so Royal Marines killed on the night of 30-31 May 1982 with hardly any loss on the part of the Argentinian Special Forces occupying Mount Kent?

Click to expand...

In the same way that ll the other major losses were explained. Ian MacDonald (??) would have made the sombre statement to the press.

RamscoopRaider said:

If you were wondering why I quoted this man, it was from another ill fated attempt at such a war in 1904 that this was said, the same argument holds true in this situation as well, that and I like the quote

Click to expand...

Wrong man. It was von Plehve who said it to Kuropatkin - with some prescience, as he was indeed murdered by a revolutionary before the Russo-Japanese War concluded.

But you're right - Galtieri didn't delay for a year because of fear that internal strife would see him up against a wall within that time.

To be honest, I think the RN would have taken another three or four ship losses to get the pongos onshore. The casualties from the warship losses were mercifully light, and conversely the casualty rate inflicted on the Argentine pilots was pretty horrific.

The actual game changer would have been a successful air strike on a carrier. Nonetheless, Thatcher had pretty much nailed her colours to the mast, and I think she would have been willing to continue the conflict until a second task force could head south; and I don't think that there would have been a no confidence motion to stop her. I don't put particular store by the wilder suggestions of borrowing a USN CV, or Foch - but I think that the RN could push sufficient ships and subs south to make a landing stick (with Illustrious's additional air cover).

Argentina was trying to hold an island over which they could not guarantee supply vs subs nor air superiority vs Sea Harriers. If the British didn't blink, they would win eventually.

If the Argentines could have, they should have gone during the Mid 70's, while Britain would have had the military might to retake the Islands, it did not have the political spine to do so.