Falklands

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And yet the Soviets "lost".

 

Yeah, some of us don't have millions to throw around like Big Brother. We're the south and a bit west, in case you're wondering - smallish place, near the Black Sea, looks a bit like a kitten on the map if you squint .

Just saying, talking about who scored how many points (deaths in that case) is ok if you are discussing a football game or a Modern Warfare internet match, but I'm not sure it's such a great descriptor for a war.

 

I know dude, I was only pulling your leg .

 

I know, I thought that you wouldn't take it too seriously either, but decided to add the smiley after just so it's clear. Mot all Slavic countries wrote off millions of soldiers with a light hand during the wars though - no more than France, Germany or Britain did. It's liveRs, not lives, that all Slavs tend to disregard the safety of .

 

It wasn't just the radar. They did not detect the Exocet missiles, which were radar guided (i.e. emitting), with their ESM because they were considered a 'friendly' weapon system. The RN had them on their own Leander class frigates as well. That was bad luck.

The Argentinian submarine San Luis fired a couple torpedoes at British ships, and they would have probably hit them, crippling or sinking one or two more frigates, had the Argentinians properly maintained the torpedoes (they worked satisfactorily on German and Dutch subs). A heavyweight torpedo hitting a frigate sized vessel usually breaks her in two. That was good luck.

More luck.

Thirteen bombs hit British ships without detonating. According to Wikipedia, Lord Craig, the retired Marshal of the Royal Air Force, is said to have remarked: "Six better fuses and we would have lost". Now that's an extraordinary amount of good luck and something worth pondering over.

T2 is quite right about that the British didn't give the "Argies" a tonking.

 

I don't think you can call failing to properly maintain your weapon systems, and failing badly with intelligence 'bad luck'. Luck is something that is out of your control.

 

In a sense, that's precisely it. These Argentinian mistakes were purely out of British control. To not lose ships that were hit only because the enemy made mistakes that unexpectedly caused the weapons to fail - just that's luck.

When you step on a landmine, and it fails to blow you up, that's not exactly a feat of arms on your part. It's luck.

From an ordnance delivery aspect, the "Argies" did everything needed to sink or damage these British vessels. The British failed to defeat these attacks. That the ordnance didn't work due to errors made in maintenance, that's luck for the British. Good for them. That the errors on the Argentinian side qualified their maintenance officers for demotion or court martial is a different matter entirely. It is nothing the British can take credit for.

The Falklands war was a close shave. It was hardly a tonking.

Jingoistic wanking on Shosh's part over how awesome the Royal Navy is, and how cool a ship the Dauntless is (IMO the Dutch, Danish and German frigates probably have a better radar than SAMPSON in APAR), or how hapless the Argentinians presumably are is not going to change that.

 

I think you missed the point I was trying to make.

 

Then elaborate.

 

You make your own luck. If you failed to maintain your weaponry properly, you weren't unlucky. You were rubbish. If you can't even get the basics of war right, then you can't count yourself unlucky. At the end of the day, the Argentina caught us completely off guard, and had time to prepare and deploy before we reacted, and yet we still fed them their own arsehole. They should have inflicted grievous losses on us, but they didn't. They didn't because they failed to get their **** in order. In fact lost a lot more than us. That's not unlucky. It would have been unlucky on their part of they lost due to circumstances outside of their control. That wasn't the case.

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The point was not that the Argies were unlucky but that the British were lucky. What is hard to understand about that?

 

The two things aren't separate though, are they. What's hard to understand about that?


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They are separate to the extent and need to be examined separately. One who draws lessons from a conflict ignoring that, looking at the result only, will get an inflated sense of his country's military capacity.

 

I can't figure out what everyone is arguing about. The UK clearly won. End of story.

If there is a round two I don't see how the UK still doesn't win. From what I have read/heard the UK is far better prepared this time with troops and has some RAF Typhoons on the ground which should give them air superiority. The UK navy clearly has the edge in this conflict also. The only major advantage that Argentina could have is more troops locally and that is assuming that somehow they can land an invasion force (of course that would probably violate some sort of "international law" so they wouldn't do that).

I would be very curious to see who Obama would support if this became a shooting war.

 

It won't become a war. The Argentines can't stand up to us at all this time around. We have 2000 foot there, plus air and the Dauntless. That would at least hold them whole we get the rest in place. They wouldn't stand a chance, and they know it. Hence all this diplomatic UN posturing. But that won't work either, and they must know that too. This is all just an exercise in generating votes and national fervour on their part.

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Most certainly much unlike in Britain.

 

Our gov't is quiet on this as it happens. Only responding with like, 1 sentence replies when absolutely pushed for a reply. If Cameron wanted he could be on TV shows every day giving 'freeeedoooom' speeches. His lack of a **** about this seems palpable. He's got bigger problems closer to home I think.

 

Well looks like even some of the Argentinans recognise the stupidity and hypocrisy of Argentina's actions.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-17148157