The Falklands And The Task Force

[Overkiller]

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[Mossie]

Interesting one!  It depends exactly how it happened, was the Carrier sunk with a large loss of hands & equipment, or did the majority of crew & machinery survive.

Scenario 1.  Invincible is hit by an exocet that did not explode but damaged enough to leave exclusion zone.  Harriers, helicopters, support equipment & personnel are immediately evacuated wherever possible, Hermes or possibly some of the many small islands around the main islands.  Operations are hampered, but not prevented & carry on largely as planned.

Sceanrio 2.  Hemes in the same scenario as above.  Hermes is a larger carrier & Invincible would not be able to take sufficient extra equipment.  Greater difficulties finding bases of operations, may well be enough to lengthen the war, Argentine forces may not surrender before the Battle of Stanley.

Scenario 3.  Either Carrier is seriously damaged & lists badly.  There is only time to evacuate a small amount of equipment, most of the effort is taken up getting crew off the ship.  The remaining carrier can accomodate this equipment & aircraft, in some ways it may be easier to co-ordinate this.  Continued harassment of Argentine Forces is continued, but ends in a similar result to 2.

Scenario 4.  Hermes is sunk with loss of all equipment & many hands.  This loss may put the outcome of the war in doubt, but it is not a forgone conclusion.

Scenario 5.  Invincible is sunk with the loss of most crew as well as HRH Prince Andrew (he served as a helicopter pilot).  The loss of the second in line to the throne causes shock & dismay at home in Britain at a time when the the poularity of The Monarchy is high.  This could go two ways.  The public reaction could be one of anger & bitterness, which could strengthen support & make the government more keen to to take the islands.  Or it could happen the opposite way, the loss of a major figure head as well as a capital ship could weaken support & the British may have pulled out.

Illustrious had been finished ahead of time & was steaming to the islands at the time of the Argentine surrender.  It may have been able to fill the gap of the lost carrier.  Had there been a change to the war it may have gone on to affect Britain as a world power in a major way.  Success strengthend the position of the Margeret Thatcher & the Conservative Government, a long drawn out war or failure might have had the opposite effect.  Britains position on the world stage may have been weakened if it was not seen as able to defend it's own territories.  Britain may have withdrawn from major world politics, although if Maggie remained in power, you can almost certainly have concluded that she would have fought to stay there & the military would have been strengthened.  Maybe a second invasion would have been on the cards?

[Archibald]

Overkiller, that's a fabulous idea! And not too far from my own idea    

For info, many Mirage IV squadrons had been disbanded right from 1970 (when land based ICBMs and nuclear submarines took over the nuclear role).

Mirage IV force was reduced in 1970 then again in 1976.

This mean that many Mirage IVA were available in 1982 (the Mirage IVP was coming at the time, but only 19 machines over 62 were upgraded. This let roughly 50 planes in Chateaudun, the french boneyard... losses of Mirage IVs were quite heavy)

so, a batch of 25 second hand Mirage IVA found its way to argentina ?    

   :cheers

And there's a legend saying that Armada Skyhawks and Super Etendards damaged the Invincible on May 30th 1982. An Exocet, then bombs and gun fire from Skyhawks (pilots were Castillo and Ureta) damaged the ship. This was never confirmed to the day...

[Mossie]

The increased range of the Mirage IV would give it some loiter time over the islands, which might keep the heads down of British forces or tie up resources keeping track of them.  They would also be able to attack any shipping approaching the exclusion zone.

One other capability is that they might just about be in range of South Georgia with drop tanks.  This probably wouldn't have made much impact on the war as fought, except for maybe a boost to Argentinan morale.  However, as part of my GB I'm planning on basing a small force of TSR2's on the island & your Mirage IV's would threaten them!  I was thinking about it anyway, but I guess I'll defiantely have to pop some Sidewinders on!

[Maverick]

with the Mirage IVs loitering, wouldn't they be fair game for the Shars if not Seacats & Rapiers?

A thought.

In addition, I always thought a Pebble Island raid on their mainland bases might have been interesting.  We all know about the Sea King that crashed over there.

Mav

[Martin H]

its also likly that the M4 home base would have recived the attention of a package of instant sunshine.....instant cure to the problem. (from the Britsh point of view), mega loss of life, but on the other hand a mushroom cloud over a mainland airbase might just induce a surrender of the island garrison with out a shot being fired by ground troops......even more so if the Uk implies that more nuke attacks will follow untill the troops in stanley surrender...............  why bother fighting for a few windswept chunks of rock when home could be turned into a sheet of glass if you do.

Maggi had no intention of losing the fight at any cost, I belive it wouldnt have taken much to push her towards letting fly with our nukes to get the job done.

the end result would almost certainlry be the UK becomeing a kind of world pirah but on the other hand the message would be loud and clear...Dont mess with brittannia!.

[Mossie]

Weren't there some rumours that a raid on Tierra del Fuego actually happened?

[elmayerle]

Hmm, supplement the M4 raid with my Matador's operating out of the Malvinas and carrying two Martin Pescadors each?  By themselves they likely couldn't sink a carrier, but they most certainly could exacerbate the damage on one that's already taken a hard hit or two.

[XV107]

That's an interesting one.

Britain issued a Negative Security Assurance in 1978. In effect, this meant that non-nuclear weapons states would not be subjected to a British nuclear strike unless such a non-nuclear state attacked the UK, its dependent territories, its armed forces or its allies in alliance with a nuclear-armed nation.

However, the Argentines hadn't signed the Non Proliferation Treaty or the Treaty of Tlateloclo (the latter making Latin America a nuclear-free zone), so the use of a Polaris against an Argentine air base wouldn't - oddly enough - have been illegal....

However, since there is no evidence that use of nuclear weapons ever entered the planning assumptions...

If a carrier had been lost, thus escalating the war, I daresay that an airbase would have recieved a visit from a Vulcan.

While the RN awaited the arrival of Illustrious or the USN fleet carrier that was offered by Cap Weinberger in the event of Hermes or Invincible being sunk, I suspect that the RN's SSN fleet would have set about shipping off the Argentine coast.

Also, for whif purposes... bringing Chile into the war would have been an interesting development - I suspect that there may have been buttons that could have been pressed to get the Chilean high command so excited at the thought of rolling into Southern Argentina they couldn't resist the temptation - at which point, whole new ball game...


Assuming that the US didn't do an about turn (and I suspect it wouldn't have done at this point, given that Britain's credibility  - and thus some of NATO's credibility too - would have been at stake) permission for Vulcans, Phantoms and Buccaneers to stage to Chile via US airspace would have made for a complete alteration of the situation.  In that scenario, the war would have been a total and utter disaster for the Argentines.

[Mossie]

Missed your post Martin!  Bloody Hell, extreme to say the least!  I doubt it. remember neither side had officially declared war.  Most of the world was with Britian, we had the moral high ground.  Drop a nuke, even if it was on a small stretch of largely unhabited land & you lose that immediately.  Maggie was a tenacious old cow but megalomaniac, I don't think so.  I doubt she would have many freinds within government to back her up either. It was also pretty deep in the Cold War, can you imagine Moscows reaction???

[Martin H]

now that would realy warm things up a notch or two Evan,  with the amount of SAS squads roaming around ashore, i doubt the Matadors would remain intact for long once they were  noticed in theater. Peeble island would be a warm up act to what those airframes could look forward to.

[Martin H]

Missed your post Martin!  Bloody Hell, extreme to say the least!  I doubt it. remember neither side had officially declared war.  Most of the world was with Britian, we had the moral high ground.  Drop a nuke, even if it was on a small stretch of largely unhabited land & you lose that immediately.  Maggie was a tenacious old cow but megalomaniac, I don't think so.  I doubt she would have many freinds within government to back her up either. It was also pretty deep in the Cold War, can you imagine Moscows reaction???

Moscows reaction? to be honeest i doubt they would say much, its more in their interests to sit back and watch the fun from afar.

Plus its known that we177's were forward deployed to wideawake just in case and the polaris force was retasked as a final back up if things realy turned nasty down south.

[Martin H]

Also, for whif purposes... bringing Chile into the war would have been an interesting development - I suspect that there may have been buttons that could have been pressed to get the Chilean high command so excited at the thought of rolling into Southern Argentina they couldn't resist the temptation - at which point, whole new ball game...

Hmm Chile getting more involved than they did IRL.

Ive heard that the Junta viewed the falklands as a test of world reaction to the use of force, as the real target was going to be Chile, hence why they were so willing to be helpfull to us. If the Uk just rolled over with out a fight, it was seen as the next move would be westwards. The ultimate way to divert the populations attentions what was going on at home.

[Archangel]

I would more likely think the US would send a carrier task force or two before the British would turn the keys on the Polaris missiles on the subs. That way the Chileans would probably either rethink their position or get a bloody nose.

[Archibald]

Martin, this scenario is terrifying!!!

Whatif an Argie Mirage IV dropped an AN-52 on the British fleet ?