Ark Royal in the Falklands

Having recently seen footage of RN Phantoms and Buccaneers flying off the HMS Ark Royal, it occurred to me to wonder what could have kept her in service long enough to go south for Operation Corporate. Looking at some of the previous threads on the board that have dealt with similar subjects, it seems plain that her air group would have been a significant advantage in the operation. However it would also have been an expensive business to refit her yet again in the late 70's.

So there are two main questions:
1) What sacrifices would the RN have to make in order to keep Ark Royal in service long enough to see action in the Falklands War?
2) Given the sacrifices in 1), what effect would the presence of the carrier and her air group have on the conduct of the war?

I think Eagle would be a better bet. People thought it was a mistake to decomission her first as she was in a much better condition than the Ark. A refit would probably have been cheaper too.

The problem was Ark Royal was in a very poor condition near the end of her life. As the RN's only carrier she had been worked hard and it was a tribute to her crew that she lasted so long. Under the original plan for CVA-01, Ark was scheduled to be retired in 1979-80 and replaced by CVA-02 (HMS Duke of Edinburgh?) while her sister Eagle would have served into the 1980's. Eagle was the more reliable ship (Ark had such a poor reliability record earlier in her life that she was dubbed "Park Royal") the fact that it was Ark that got the full Phantom capability probably tells you about how quickly Denis Healey wanted to get the RN out of the carrier game.

So it would be Eagle that would have the best chance of being around for Corporate, it would have given the RN a huge boost in capability, the Phantoms could have used their Sparrows to take out Argentinean fighters at distance while the Buccaneers would have provided a much more capable attack force and crucially the Gannets would have closed the RN's vulnerability to Exocets.

Eagle sounds like a better bet for the role, given a hasty googling. So what would have been needed to keep her around and refitted instead of Ark Royal? Does it really all boil down to Denis Healey?

1964 Eagle comes out of 4 year rebuild.
1966 CVA01 cancelled, Centaur sold to RAN, proceeds go toward Ark rebuild.
1967 Ark goes in for 4 year rebuild.
1972 Hermes is sold to Australia as strike carrier, proceeds go toward Ark rebuild and major refit on Eagle.
1982 Agentina invades Falklands on 25 May, weather too rough to operated Eagle and Ark`s aircraft. Over winter months invasion is accepted as fiat accompli, no task force is sent south in spring.
1983 useless Ark and Eagle scrapped without replacement.

No sorry.
1982 Ark CBG detaches from Exercise Springtrain 82 and steams south. More aircraft join Ark off Ascension Island, now 16 Phantom, 18 Buccaneer, 5 Gannet AEW.
Arks CAG kicks the shit out of everything until the rest of the task force catches up.

With the Ark Royal or the Eagle in service never mind both the Argentinians would not have invaded the Falklands. They only did it because John Notts hatchet job on the Fleet made them think Britain couldn't do anything but protest, and didn't really care.

Actually I think they still would have if the RN had half a dozen US style CVNs. It was a case that they believed that the UK lacked the will to fight for the islands, something that sucessive governments had given the impression of.

Now while it is fashionable to castigate Nott for the review (and I'm not defending him here) he was acting on advice given to him and the review was approved by Thatcher. What is interesting is that post-review the RN and RM persuaded Nott to reprieve the LPDs after giving him a demonstration onboard HMS Fearless.

It would be interesting to study on how many days the Ark, or Eagle would not have been able to operate aircraft in April and May '82. Not long before the war HMS Invincible had demonstrated off the coast of Norway that she could continue to operate Sea Harriers in weather that kept USN aircraft grounded.

The Argies were nuts and invaded because they thought Britain couldn't intervene but I think you've got the train of thought wrong.

Britain doesn't have proper carriers>Britain is withdrawing from the South Atlantic>Britain doesn't care about the Falklands>We can invade because Britain doesn't care and if they did they couldn't do anything.

If the RN still had a fleet carrier the whole train of thought would have been stopped at the first stage.

Arachnid said:

The Argies were nuts and invaded because they thought Britain couldn't intervene but I think you've got the train of thought wrong.

Britain doesn't have proper carriers>Britain is withdrawing from the South Atlantic>Britain doesn't care about the Falklands>We can invade because Britain doesn't care and if they did they couldn't do anything.

If the RN still had a fleet carrier the whole train of thought would have been stopped at the first stage.

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What forces the UK has available doesnt matter if the Argentines don't think they will try retake the island.

Given an identical political situation, i'd still give better then 50% odds that they would invade.

They didn't in 1978 when Callahan let them know we had SSNs in the south Atlantic. Everything in 1982 suggested Britain not only couldn't fight for the islands but wouldn't even if we could. In fact there were so many indications given to that effect that it was suggested that the whole thing was a deliberate ploy to bolster the Tories flagging support in time for the next election. It's almost certainly not true but thats what some suggested.

That fits with what's been said in previous threads on the subject here - the Argentinians didn't think the British would fight for the islands, so the British inventory is irrelevant. After all the Brits were a nuclear power back then as well, and that didn't deter the invasion.
I've also seen speculation that the whole "the British can't/won't do anything about it" may have been something of an ex post facto justification by the Galtieri government. The idea is that they needed some kind of stunt to distract people from other concerns and fixed on the idea of taking the Falklands, justifying it after the decision by saying "the British won't fight for the islands and they couldn't do anything anyway".

Under these circumstances I can't see that the presence of Eagle in the RN would stop the invasion, if the will to send her south is presumed to be absent. However, the expense of keeping her in service might force cuts elsewhere. Is it possible one - or more - of the Invincible-class carriers might not have been built?

Gunnarnz said:

That fits with what's been said in previous threads on the subject here - the Argentinians didn't think the British would fight for the islands, so the British inventory is irrelevant. After all the Brits were a nuclear power back then as well, and that didn't deter the invasion.
I've also seen speculation that the whole "the British can't/won't do anything about it" may have been something of an ex post facto justification by the Galtieri government. The idea is that they needed some kind of stunt to distract people from other concerns and fixed on the idea of taking the Falklands, justifying it after the decision by saying "the British won't fight for the islands and they couldn't do anything anyway".

Under these circumstances I can't see that the presence of Eagle in the RN would stop the invasion, if the will to send her south is presumed to be absent. However, the expense of keeping her in service might force cuts elsewhere. Is it possible one - or more - of the Invincible-class carriers might not have been built?

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As mentioned earlier, when the Argies thought the British would fight in the 1970s, they backed down, and at the time the Royal Navy wasn't as gutted.

Had Ark and Eagle one or both still been in operational service at the time, I strongly doubt the Argies would have gone in.

With long range stroke aircraft like the F-4, it goes way beyond being able to bomb the tar out of the Argentine Air Force. F-4 aircraft, given their range and the amount of ordnance they can carry, could have conducted strikes on the Argentine mainland, even if restricted to purely military targets.

Though that would likely at some point have moved to somewhat mixed targets, ie oil storage, possibly taking out some road or rail bridges near or around Argentine military bases.

Arachnid said:

The Argies were nuts and invaded because they thought Britain couldn't intervene but I think you've got the train of thought wrong.

Britain doesn't have proper carriers>Britain is withdrawing from the South Atlantic>Britain doesn't care about the Falklands>We can invade because Britain doesn't care and if they did they couldn't do anything.

If the RN still had a fleet carrier the whole train of thought would have been stopped at the first stage.

Click to expand...

I`d change the order if not the points; Britain is withdrawing from the South Atlantic>Britain doesn't care about the Falklands>Britain doesn't have proper carriers>We can invade because Britain doesn't care and if they did they couldn't do anything.

But with the Ark and Eagle in service the first two points could still well be true, the third point could be `British carriers won`t work in the southern winter` and therefore the fourth point remains.

One of the reasons why Galtieri and Anaya thought that Britain wouldn't fight, besides both of them being complete idiots, was because they thought Britain couldn't fight. Change the "couldn't" for a "certainly can" and the "wouldn't" goes away.
Now, Anaya might choose to team up with a more assertive general to coup Viola and retake the islands anyway. However, IITL that would have to be a far more prepared operation, with better equipped and trained armed forces. The HMS Eagle air group would still have too much of an edge on the Argentine Air Force - the USA was not going to sell Sparrow missiles to a Latin American country and there was no way to get comparable Soviet equipment.

Hyperion said:

As mentioned earlier, when the Argies thought the British would fight in the 1970s, they backed down, and at the time the Royal Navy wasn't as gutted.

Had Ark and Eagle one or both still been in operational service at the time, I strongly doubt the Argies would have gone in.

With long range stroke aircraft like the F-4, it goes way beyond being able to bomb the tar out of the Argentine Air Force. F-4 aircraft, given their range and the amount of ordnance they can carry, could have conducted strikes on the Argentine mainland, even if restricted to purely military targets.

Though that would likely at some point have moved to somewhat mixed targets, ie oil storage, possibly taking out some road or rail bridges near or around Argentine military bases.

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I think that with Ark or Eagle around the British could/would keep the war both more limited and fight it more completely. The RN could station a T64 combo/Gannet AEW/Phantom CAP (buddy refuelled by Buccaneers) to the west of the islands and shoot down large numbers of Arg aircraft over the sea and make others turn back. Behind this defensive cordon the Buccaneers could conduct a thorough bombing campaign at leisure to write down Arg assets on the islands, nothing would be out of reach of the Buccs.

If Britain went after the mainland they`d look like a bullyboy arsehole. It`s the reason they didn`t do it IOTL.

Riain said:

I`d change the order if not the points; Britain is withdrawing from the South Atlantic>Britain doesn't care about the Falklands>Britain doesn't have proper carriers>We can invade because Britain doesn't care and if they did they couldn't do anything.

But with the Ark and Eagle in service the first two points could still well be true, the third point could be `British carriers won`t work in the southern winter` and therefore the fourth point remains.

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You do of course have evidence that a carrier can not operate in the South Atlantic.

Or are you trolling?

Hyperion said:

You do of course have evidence that a carrier can not operate in the South Atlantic.

Or are you trolling?

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Yes I`m trolling. Or perhaps I thought it was common knowledge that conventional carriers cannot operate their aircraft when the ship is pitching beyond certain limits. JMN1 bought this up in post #8, and I`d read it a lot of times. Harriers get around this limitation by hovering over the middle of the ship where the pitching moment is least and then drop vertically onto the deck.

British planning for OTL Op Corporate was based on the assumption that the war would have to be well and truly won by the end of June, preferably weeks before then, otherwise the southern winter would make operations too difficult. As it was in late May early June the weather was terrible and caused a considerable limitation of the Argies flying in particular.

The seas were rough yes but not so bad as to hugely effect sea launches, the Eagle and Ark are both considerably bigger than the Hermes and Invincible and that extra size helps them deal with rough weather. Hell when the Argie carrier tried to lauch there was so little wind and the sea was so smooth she could not get up enough speed + windspeed to safely launch her aircraft and gave up.

You are assuming that Ark Royal or Eagle would be the only carrier in the British Fleet. Even if the Invincible class are delayed there's still Hermes and potentially Bulwark. I think that given the age of the conventional carrier it is likely that if the Invincible was delayed Bulwark would have been repaired after the boiler room fire to be sure of having an anti submarine platform until the Invincible and Illustrious are ready. Even if not fitted with a ski ramp Bulwark could operate Harriers just as well as Hermes. The fleet heading south would consist of one aged conventional carrier and two slightly less aged Harrier Carriers.

A seperate but related point is if the Audacious class was still in service in 1982 it would be because the decission to cease conventional carrier ops had been reversed. If both were still in service it means the decision was made at least 10 years earlier so what is the planned replacement.

The quick fix is to to a complete refit of two of the US mothballed Essex class carriers, or one Essex and the Franklin Roosevelt. This would buy time for a replacement class to be designed and built probably due for service some time after 1986.