Falklands War 40 years ago

[nuuumannn]

As above, on 2 April 1982, Argentine forces invaded the Falklands. General information here:

1982 invasion of the Falkland Islands - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Mirage

Looks like there is a series of events to mark the occasion.

About

Falklands War - 40th Anniversary

falklands.gov.fk

Memorial events to mark Falklands 40th anniversary take shape

Veterans of the Falklands campaign have until the end of April to register their interest in one of this year’s key 40th anniversary events.

www.royalnavy.mod.uk

Events planned to mark 40th anniversary of Falklands conflict

One ceremony in the UK will see veterans formally presented with the Freedom of the Falkland Islands by a link to the capital Stanley.

www.forces.net

 

[wlewisiii]

In the end, really, the only ones who would prosper from this conflict would be the penguins.

The ones that nested in the Falklands were too light to detonate the mines and the old minefields that were too difficult to clear became de facto nature preserves. Go Go Penguin!

 

[FLYBOYJ]

 

[nuuumannn]

Another musical interlude. This is "Six months in a leaky boat" by New Zealand band Split Enz, which was released in May 1982 and became a hit in the UK. It didn't reach so high in the charts though, as it was interpreted by some (the gu'mmint) in the UK as being criticism of the Falklands War, but it was really about lead singer Tim Finn's struggles with depression. Nevertheless, I heard once apon a time that the song got extensive airplay among the British task force ships down in the South Atlantic...

 

[Gnomey]

Nice shots guys!

 

[Admiral Beez]

As above, on 2 April 1982, Argentine forces invaded the Falklands. General information here:

1982 invasion of the Falkland Islands - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

View attachment 663260Mirage

Looks like there is a series of events to mark the occasion.

About

Falklands War - 40th Anniversary

falklands.gov.fk

Memorial events to mark Falklands 40th anniversary take shape

Veterans of the Falklands campaign have until the end of April to register their interest in one of this year’s key 40th anniversary events.

www.royalnavy.mod.uk

Events planned to mark 40th anniversary of Falklands conflict

One ceremony in the UK will see veterans formally presented with the Freedom of the Falkland Islands by a link to the capital Stanley.

www.forces.net

40 years ago today. Casualties aside, the RN and much of the British military should be grateful for Argentina justifying their expansion (edit, I should have written "their current capabilities", rather than expansion, of which there's been little). Would the RN have the Queen Elizabeth class carriers had the Falklands not occurred? iDK.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

40 years ago today. Casualties aside, the RN and much of the British military should be grateful for Argentina justifying their expansion. Would the RN have the Queen Elizabeth class carriers had the Falklands not occurred? iDK.

Food for thought.

 

[cvairwerks]

Always get a cold feeling in the back when the Falklands comes up. Was working for ABC News at the time and was supposed to get embedded with the British Fleet. Due to various timing problems, ended up in London for the duration of the war. ....Our ride down south was supposed to be the HMS Sheffield....

 

[SaparotRob]

And I do mean "winner".

 

[swampyankee]

As above, on 2 April 1982, Argentine forces invaded the Falklands. General information here:

1982 invasion of the Falkland Islands - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

View attachment 663260Mirage

Looks like there is a series of events to mark the occasion.

About

Falklands War - 40th Anniversary

falklands.gov.fk

Memorial events to mark Falklands 40th anniversary take shape

Veterans of the Falklands campaign have until the end of April to register their interest in one of this year’s key 40th anniversary events.

www.royalnavy.mod.uk

Events planned to mark 40th anniversary of Falklands conflict

One ceremony in the UK will see veterans formally presented with the Freedom of the Falkland Islands by a link to the capital Stanley.

www.forces.net

One wonders what would have had happened were Galtieri and his regime waited until Thatcher's (Nott's) taken effect.

 

[Admiral Beez]

One wonders what would have had happened were Galtieri and his regime waited until Thatcher's (Nott's) taken effect.

It is ironic that for her reputation as an iron lady Thatcher intended on ripping HM's armed forces to shreds. And she still did, reducing frigates from 45 to 33 by the time she exited as PM in 1990, beginning an avalanche of naval cuts by her successors.

 

[EwenS]

It is ironic that for her reputation as an iron lady Thatcher intended on ripping HM's armed forces to shreds. And she still did, reducing frigates from 45 to 33 by the time she exited as PM in 1990, beginning an avalanche of naval cuts by her successors.

View attachment 663490

I'm really not convinced that your accusation that Thatcher "intended on ripping HM's armed forces to shreds" is accurate. The planned pain in the Nott 1981 Defence Review would have hit the RN hard but the rest of the services would have escaped lightly. Without trying to defend the 1981 Nott review it is worthwhile remembering the financial state of the UK in 1979 and then looking behind the ship numbers and looking at what ships were actually in the fleet in 1980.

1981 Defence White Paper - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

For the RN the 1980s was a period of transition from old legacy warships of the 1950s and 1960s to more modern equipment. Ark Royal IV only went to the breakers yard in 1980 and Bulwark, Tiger & Blake were still languishing in reserve and were very briefly looked at when the Falklands War blew up. And also remember that virtually no navy, not even the USN, was replacing ships on a one for one basis because no one could afford it with technological inflation far outstripping even the high consumer inflation rates.

Submarines
60% of the sub fleet (16 boats) were diesel-electric Porpoise & Oberon classes completed between 1958 and 1967. There were plans for a new class of 12 diesel electric subs of the unsuccessful Upholder class, the design of which began after the 1979 General Election and began building from 1983. Ultimately the class was capped at 4 when a Peace Dividend Defence Review in 1992 decided to concentrate on nuclear boats resulting in their sale to Canada. Given the problems with those subs we were well shot of them.

There were only 10 nuclear boats in the fleet. 1980 saw the retirement of Britains first nuclear sub, Dreadnought. The last of the Swiftsure and first of the Trafalgar class were building, with more following as the 1980s went on.

Frigates
I'm not clear about exactly how that figure of 45 is made up but I assume it is ships in the active fleet. The core were the Leander class, whose original build programme had gone on far too long as part of a job creation exercise for the British shipyards in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The last gun Leander completed in Feb 1973 and the first Ikara conversion had completed the month before. 1980 saw 8 Ikara conversions in the fleet plus the first five Exocet / Seacat conversions and work underway on another 2. There were also 5 Exocet / Seawolf conversions underway. Ultimately the last programme, for another 5 ships, had to be cancelled due to escalating costs. The last gun Leander, Ariadne, cost £6.6m. The Seawolf conversions cost £60-80m each! That at a time when the new and much more capable Type 22 Batch 1 were costing £68-112m.

The other new elements in 1980 were the 8 Type 21 and the first Type 22.

During the 1980s the 9 Rothesay class were removed from the fleet. They had completed in 1960/61 and had been modernised once already. Some of the old Type 81 Tribal class were still in service in the early 1980s, complete with their open backed WW2 vintage 4.5" guns. Designed for a policing role in the Middle East that the RN was no longer concerned with.

On the other side of the equation the 1980s saw 12 new Type 22 frigates join the fleet plus one in build and the first 3 of an eventual 16 Type 23 in build.

With the events of the last 30 years the burden of the Defence cuts seems to have fallen on the RN and especially the escort numbers which is regretable. But with the end of the Cold War and the need in this century to fight land campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq it was probably inevitable that the RN would suffer most.

Other services
In Jan 1982 there were still 6 squadrons of Vulcans in service all well past their sell by date. By the end of the year that had reduced to just one flying a handful of tanker versions produced to boost the RAF Victor tanker fleet as a result of the Falklands. The Black Buck sorties to the Falklands really were their swan song.

Tornado GR1only reached its first operational squadron in June 1982, with two more following in 1983 and it didn't begin to replace Jaguars in RAF Germany until 1984. Ultimately by the end of the decade 10 (edit - 11) squadrons were equipped with them.

The Army got its new Challenger I tanks from 1983.


Canadian Navy
It is worth looking at your own navy for a moment. In 1980 it had 16 DE dating from the 1950s and 1960s which it gave a second (DELEX) modernisation to in the early 1980s plus 4 Iroquois class destroyers from the 1970s which were given a TRUMP refit in the late 1980s. Their replacements were the 12 Halifax class frigates building from 1987 that began to enter service in the early 1990s. By 2012 your total escort fleet numbered 15 ships.

Dutch Navy
In 1980 the Dutch had 7 Friesland class gun destroyers (one had been scrapped in 1979 and the others sold to Peru between 1980 & 1982), 6 Van Speijk (Leander) class (which they sold to Indonesia in the 1980s), 2 Tromp class and 2 Kortenaer class frigates. They added 8 more Kortenaer class between 1980 and 1983, plus 2 Jacob van Heemskerk AA versions in 1986. By 2012 it was reduced to 6 frigates and 1 patrol vessel and had another 3 patrol vessels building for service entry the next year.

 

[nuuumannn]

Would the RN have the Queen Elizabeth class carriers had the Falklands not occurred? iDK.

Of greater pertinence, had Argentina not launched the invasion when it did, the RN might have been without HMS Invincible, which was at the time earmarked for sale to Australia.

One wonders what would have had happened were Galtieri and his regime waited until Thatcher's (Nott's) taken effect.

While I was in Argentina a number of years ago, I met with some Ejercito (Army) personnel and spoke openly with them about the war, The chap I was talking to was too young to have fought in the war, but he said his commanding officer had. He said to me that he had no animosity toward the British for what they did, but that Argentinians hated Thatcher, when I explained that the feeling was mutual among a lot of Brits, he was surprised. I explained how unpopular Thatcher was and stated that had Argentina not attempted to retake the Malvinas, being careful to name the islands by their Argentine name, Thatcher would most likely have lost the elections later that year. The Argentines were surprised by that. they had no idea she was unpopular in Britain.

 

[nuuumannn]

In Jan 1982 there were still 6 squadrons of Vulcans in service all well past their sell by date. By the end of the year that had reduced to just one flying a handful of tanker versions produced to boost the RAF Victor tanker fleet as a result of the Falklands. The Black Buck sorties to the Falklands really were their swan song.

Very much so. The aircraft selected for the Black Buck raids were among the last operating handful and none of the crews were current on in-flight refuelling (IFR) at the time. During the Black Buck raids they had to carry a sixth crewmember to visually aid in IFR.

This is a formation flight of Vulcans taken in 1984 shortly before their final retirement that took them around their former bases in the UK. In the foreground is XM597, which was the Vulcan that broke its refuelling probe on its Black Buck raid against BAM Malvinas (Stanley Airport) air defence radars and landed at Rio de Janeiro.

Vulcans

 

[Alex Smart]

What amazes me was the realisation that it was 40 years ago, doesn't seem that long ago.
Whatever the prose and cons of the war or the politics of the time, we must always remember those who never came home to their families and friends, from both nations.🕯🕯🕯

 

[Admiral Beez]

I'm really not convinced that your accusation that Thatcher "intended on ripping HM's armed forces to shreds" is accurate. The planned pain in the Nott 1981 Defence Review would have hit the RN hard but the rest of the services would have escaped lightly. Without trying to defend the 1981 Nott review it is worthwhile remembering the financial state of the UK in 1979 and then looking behind the ship numbers and looking at what ships were actually in the fleet in 1980.

A fair point. The UK's financial shape in 2022 is vastly better than 1979, but the fleet, especially the surface force has never been smaller. What's their excuse now?

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

Very much so. The aircraft selected for the Black Buck raids were among the last operating handful and none of the crews were current on in-flight refuelling (IFR) at the time. During the Black Buck raids they had to carry a sixth crewmember to visually aid in IFR.

This is a formation flight of Vulcans taken in 1984 shortly before their final retirement that took them around their former bases in the UK. In the foreground is XM597, which was the Vulcan that broke its refuelling probe on its Black Buck raid against BAM Malvinas (Stanley Airport) air defence radars and landed at Rio de Janeiro.

View attachment 663604Vulcans

Man, those things look spooooooky.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

A fair point. The UK's financial shape in 2022 is vastly better than 1979, but the fleet, especially the surface force has never been smaller. What's their excuse now?

Larger population requiring more draw upon available funds for promised services like NIH etc?

Of course, they did manage to build the two carriers, which should remain handy for the next four decades or so.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

A fair point. The UK's financial shape in 2022 is vastly better than 1979, but the fleet, especially the surface force has never been smaller. What's their excuse now?

Technology?

 

[Admiral Beez]

Technology?

IDK, the focus seems to be on the Type 32 frigates, intentionally designed to be low cost and low capability, akin to modern day Type 21s.