henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) (04/28/89)
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) >... If that carrier and the Belgrano had sortied in a >do-or-die manner, they might have succeeded. Clearly, if you are >intimidated so that you do not even *try* to use the assets you have, >your assets are going to appear to some observers to be pretty weak. In general Argentina used its forces poorly and unaggressively. They never did mount massed air attacks on specific targets; instead they sent their aircraft in a few at a time, to be chewed up by Harriers and gunfire while achieving little. Their submarines accomplished nothing against the task force, at least partly because of timidity. (In fairness, this is a general problem: a submarine must reveal its presence to attack, so wartime success requires boldness, but peacetime training tends to stress stealth.) After the first Vulcan raid, the air force high command panicked at the thought of bombing raids on their bases, and pulled their air-to-air fighter squadrons back for air defense... thus conceding air superiority over the Falklands to the Harriers. They never tried to mount either a commando raid or an air raid against Ascension, possibilities that seriously worried the British. Their surface navy did nothing after the Belgrano was sunk. In general, they lost because their commanders didn't take the whole thing seriously. Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu