HI ALL
Do you think the British Goverment allowed the invasion of the Falklands,? and tell lies? and of course Maggie then won the next election your thoughts
Tango 20

no i dont think they allowed it at all,

the small royal marines garrison on the islands put up quite a fight, shooting down a helicopter with small arms, and blowing a hole in the side of a battleship with a carl gustav!

the politics came into play with the re-invasion of the falklands, not allowing the invasion in the first place

regards

joe

Hi Joe
I feel that the Goverment did alow the invasion,we are supposed to have an intel service,and i feel that if they could not detect the massing of Argentinian Invasion Forces in different areas and what for !,then i think there was something awfully wrong with our intel service,The Junta was going through a bad time the country was in ----t order / inflation etc and they needed to bring the people together in a comman cause"Liberate the Malvinas" i mean god the Captain of the Endurance saw things that concerned him indicated this to Whitehall and it was ignored and i do belive he was later taken from his prestigious position as a sort of floating ambasidor to fishery protection in the north sea not exactly a career move.
I feel the attitude was lets let them invade make thier stand regard the Falkland and we will go there take it back untill we decided what we would do.
I agree that the Marines did an out standing job at Stonybrook and the later by our forces was a sucsess,in the sense militarly we should not have won..
Strange the sales of the jump jet went up as did the rapier system sales both of which i do belive had not been tested in Combat,and of course Maggie won the next election,its just a thought.
Tango 20 chris

hi chris,

i understand your points, however the information to support the arguament is circumstancial at best.

prior to the invasion the falklands were of no real concern to the government, and where largely unheard of by the majority of the public. the juntas actions could not have been forseen any great length of time before the invasion.

with no real Royal Navy or RAF presence around the islands, the invasion came as pretty a surprise.

in any case the occupation would not have lasted, if the first task force failed, a second larger one would have been sent, and with HMS conqueror prowling the south atlantic, the argentine navy was too scared to send ships to re-supply the troops.

and if another invasion was ever launched(incredibly unlikely) the fleet would be one the bottom of the ocean before they reached the exclusion zone

regards

joe

I dont think the Falklands was a vote winner,when the belgrano was sunk and reports of surrendering argies being shot the rabid liberals in this country had a field day they considered the sinking as a criminal act and tried to get our soldiers prosecuted for murder and this with a lot of support from the establishment. Since that day I have no faith in any British polotician regardless of whatever party he stands on his hind legs for end of rant over and out.

I agree it was perhaps not a vote winner but i think we were crazy to have an exclusion zone in the first place,if the Belgrano had managed to get in with the Task force during the bad weather which is what she had been tasked to do then the out come might well have been a lot different,was she armed with Exorct misiles if she was i dont think you have to be facing the target to let them go our just sit outside the exclusion zone,any war fought with exclusion zones D.M.Zs are i feel are a rescipe for disaster good job we didnt have them during the 2nd ww correction Rome i think both sides agreed not to fight big time in the papel city.
With regard the shooting of Argentinian troops surrendering was that ever substanciated? and was anyone ever convicted.
My father recalls that prior to landing on D-day they were told there will be no taking of prisnors during the intial days.
Tango 20 chris cheers

Do you have any more details on this? I tried to find something online and the only thing that came close was an encyclopedia article that mentioned how some marines in a zodiac, with a Carl Gustav, were chased by an Argentine destroyer.

I'm sure you, or the Royal Marines, are using typical land lubber lack of knowledge calling it a "battleship" since I don't think Argentina had any battleships in commission, if they ever did have. Unless of course you're like the media and consider any ship that is fit for battle a "battleship." Just like any fighting vehicle is automatically a "tank."

Yea there as some good sites if you type in and search falklands war there are some very informative sites
Tango 20 chris how are you half yank

Hi Halfyank

The Belgrano was a cruiser started out as theUSS Phoenix she survived Pearl Harbour sold to Argentina 1951,she was the only cruiser to be sunk in action since 1945 and first ship to be sunk by Nuclear sub.
try this site www.nationmaster.com.
TANGO 20

Yes Tango 20, I knew about the Belgrano/Phoenix. In fact while attending a ROTC reunion I met a few US guys who served on the Phoenix, they were pretty ticked about the Argentine Navy getting their old ship sunk. IIRCC the Phoenix not only was at Pearl, she was the largest warship to make it out of the harbor that morning.

I was interested in Joe's remark about blowing a hole in a "battleship" with a Carl Gustav, I couldn't find anything about that.

I would also like to point out something about the Falklands war. At the time there was a lot of criticism of the RN having had several destroyers sunk of damaged by a smaller, weaker navy. Destroyers are by their nature meant to go in harms way. With modern weapons an escort ship might well be sunk, but that was really their job, as long as the ship they were escorting survived.

Hi mate
Yea the incident with the Carl/Gust involved the Marines who were on shore they had moved out of Stonny Brook Barracks and had taken up defensive positions an Argentiian Ship came too close and got slotted.
The Argi S/F attacked Stonny and made a bit of a mess of it,but no one was home another section took out an LVT as it came towards Stanley.
The type 42 destryers were not designed for fighting in the south atlantic i remember when a mate returned from action on hms Broad sword some of the Argi bombs had gone right through some of the super structure with out going off it would appear that the Argi pilots droped them two low not giving the propellor primer enough time to engage.
Tango 20 chris

i think the location was on South Georgia and the marines had come from h.m.s.Endurance. the ship was a frigate the Grenville and the gustav round holed the ship just below exocet launcher.makes you proud to be British does'nt .

Hi all
I am sure it was the Marines who were stationd at Moody Brook Barracks that did the Aggi navel ship,the endurance had brought some marines to the falkland,and took some off prior to the invasion,on south Georgia the navey crippled the Sub Santa FE as it tried to leave the harbour using a lynx helo
Tango 20

Yes you are right, cheers tango

I did hear one story that may well be true or not...

Who was the CEO of the company that held 80% of the grazing rights on the Falklands?

None other than Mr Dennis Thatcher.
So maybe ...just maybe...Maggie was so keen to get down there....and win an election.

Cheers
Peter
:-)

Your getting as bad as me lol lol

rodger,

there is information on this site about it,

http://www.naval-history.net/F14sgeorgia.htm

the ship, the "Guerrico" was infact a frigate, and you are correct, in my terms a ship that fights is a battleship/warship, i dont know much about them other than that!

as MLB63 says the ships hull was holed with a carl gustav, and suffered further damage from 66mm laws and small arms, and withdrew out of range of the infantry weapons.

not bad to say 22 royal marines fought off a frigate!

regards

joe

Found this report from The Times on encarta:
A 220,000-ton Liberian supertanker was said to be listing six degrees in the South Atlantic last night, after being bombed by an unidentified four-engined, propeller-driven aircraft.

The incident happened 480 miles north-east of the Falklands, as the tanker, the Hercules, was heading for Alaska, around Cape Horn from the Virgin Islands, to load up with crude oil. No details of damage or casualties are known, the vessel did not report being in a dangerous condition, and was said to be making for a Brazilian port.

The description of the aircraft suggests a Hercules C130 transport—possibly an Argentine machine searching for British task force ships on their way to and from Ascension Island. There have been previous stories of the Argentines using C130s to drop bombs at a range beyond that of other Argentine aircraft.

Interesting anyone know more about this?

More in line with the topic, after some reading up on it, Britain was determined to try solve the problem with out military use before the invasion.

They did not want to seem like they initiated the war, and rather used the UN and the Reagan to try stop it before it happened.

Hi

During the time prior to the Falklands war the British forces we were in review and NOT prepared. Northern Ireland was a taking a lot troops at this time.
Example I finally got a pay rise which meant that I did not have to have help from DHSS to feed my family. Units were being cut back or amalgamated.

Ok you can now guess I was around at the time and involved in it in a small way and I lost some of my best mates there. To see the thanks from the people of the islands made it worth while for all of us who were involved whether in a big way or small way. My role was very small to some mainly on the build up to it and after wards.

When the initial landings happened we were all waiting and expected that it would end peaceful.
What surprise us was in how fast notice to go and implementation of that command happened we are talking days?
Ships that were about to Scrapped were converted or rebuilt, vehicles were made ready. In some cases work carried on aboard ship until Ascension Islands this was when the fleet organised it self in to the order of which it would land.
Also some of the equipment that they wanted for the invasion was not available or the quantise that was required but only a portion.

What surprised everybody was that once Sheffield was hit (lost two school mates there, they were brothers) how the Argentine Navy kept away at that point.

My best mate was there during the fighting and is very highly decorated and more over was a low tech operation in that due to the conditions and country side it is not fun. He always says that the fighting was not what we see now but hand to hand, infantry attacking with minimally support due to the conditions.
It is like walking along a peat bog most of the time or mountains there are some good parts.

Did you also know that there was a shortage of AMMO in that if it was to go on more than three days they have ran out. USA role was far greater than is actually published.

It actually changed the way the British army acted and trained from that point onwards. It became more intensive on combat readiness, fitness, training etc. all the points that are now seen today’s British army which is why it is looked on so highly. They learnt from it and acted accordingly just in case it was to happen again.

Having read the website book I can tell you that the decorations have changed in that some people are still receiving medals for actions in the Falklands and some because of the delay are having awards that at the time would have been a lot higher then what they are receiving.

One of my best mates Mike Milner RE who was killed. To me makes it all worth while and he did what was expected of him.

Reference some fire when White flags were raised. I think you are relating to an incident when a trench section raised the white flag when approached by troops they were then fired on by soldiers in that trench and another trench system nearby.


ossie

Hi Ossie
Very interesting sorry that you lost some mates ,same here on the Sir Galahad, i agree that under the circunstances we did an outstanding job,and in some areas ie the issue of ammo luck was on our side.
What came through was the determination and trainnig of the british troops.
I feel the the Argentinians just did not think we would get it all together and go down there,i just tend to feel that the intel services/secret service in any conflict/war that we have just seem to screw up,bit like in the first Gulf War SF being given useless intel,i agree that diplomatic avenues were gone down but i feel there was an attitude of let it happen and we will sort it out once and for all and wont have the Junta dictate to us about the sovernty of the Falklands,suppose we will never know.
Cheers Tango 20 chris