The Falklands War

McArmalite

Fratton Fred wrote: »

2003 comes to mind as well, and almost 2007

More than happy to discuss the conflict and I am very keen to avoid the pro and anti British rants. The tabloids are an embarrassment for the English and if you recall, the Sun was forced to remove the "Gotcha" headline from later editions of the days papers following public reaction.

The taskforce left Portsmouth the Monday after the invasion (Which was a Friday IIRC) and that weekend was pretty amazing. HMS Hermes and Invincible were both in harbour and were being readied to leave, it was obvious they were going even before the announcement, because helicoptors were constantly flying overhead. The crews of pretty much every ship in harbour at the time were put on first seven, then four hour notice and there was a lot of hastily arranged leaving parties, although most seemed to just go without saying much.

I had two relatives go, one uncle and a cousin, although the cousin's ship was pulled out at the last minute because of Engine problems, he would have departed from Plymouth anyway. I was off school sick on the Monday and I ended up going to Sallyport to watch the ships leave, along with my godmother, who was seeing her son off and her daughter who was waving off her fiance. It was a very sombre occasion but deep down, no one thought it would happen, everyone thought it would be sorted out by the time they got to ascension, but of course it wasn't.

When the ships started getting sunk, the local paper listed the casulaites and their adresses, fortunately everyone I knew returned safely, but it was sobering to read of guys being killed that lived up the road, or in the next street.

Like I say, more than happy to discuss it, but I lived in a town that went through the Falklands conflict pretty closely, so forgive me if I am biased.

Ahhhhh, so touching, so humane from our lovely English unionist. It's hard to beleive this is the same fella who several months was hijacking any thread critical of britain in the mildest way, making derogatory remarks and trivialising any injustice perpetrated by possibly the worst terrorist state in history - britian. And now he's such a lovely fellla, ahhhhhh.

And the lovely brit's reply to " the british army were regularly shooting unarmed catholics a hundred miles or so up the road " - " bit of an exageration ". No exageration, but still I'm only sorry more of the brits didn't end up as fish food in the south Atlantic . Anyway, the IRA were regularly shooting armed brits a hundred miles or so up the road, no exageration either

Manic Moran

Their insistance of sending only bombers, keeping the fighters at home 'just in case' the Vulcans showed up over Buenos Aires didn't do them any favours either. However, overall, the FAA and a lot of the Navy pulled their weight, and it's only the ground forces that can take, hold and defend ground.

NTM

Fratton Fred

McArmalite wrote: »

Ahhhhh, so touching, so humane from our lovely English unionist. It's hard to beleive this is the same fella who several months was hijacking any thread critical of britain in the mildest way, making derogatory remarks and trivialising any injustice perpetrated by possibly the worst terrorist state in history - britian. And now he's such a lovely fellla, ahhhhhh.

And the lovely brit's reply to " the british army were regularly shooting unarmed catholics a hundred miles or so up the road " - " bit of an exageration ". No exageration, but still I'm only sorry more of the brits didn't end up as fish food in the south Atlantic . Anyway, the IRA were regularly shooting armed brits a hundred miles or so up the road, no exageration either

sorry, did you have a point to make?

PHB

Lads this is getting to be an utter joke.

Let's lay down some new ground rules, which I'll add into the charter at some point.

People who consistantly go off-topic and pursue what appear to personal agendas between people will be banned permanently, either in this thread or any other threads.

Any other posts in this thread that don't relate to the Falklands war will be deleted and the people who post them will be banned.
Furthermore, any more semi-racist (race in this sense being nationality) will result in a permanent ban.

Just cop on lads.

AngryHippie

Pathfinder wrote: »

Thatcher had been told Britain was the underdog going into the war

Somebody was telling pork pies. Thatcher was told she had a chance to improve her spiralling approval rating after her spree of Chicago school economics, She Jumped on it with both hands, and all the power of the British armed services.

Pathfinder wrote: »

Marching 70 miles with 110lbs backpacks in 3 days, sleeping rough in freezing conditions, fighting with bayonets in hand to hand combat, on route was an incredible achievement, name the other armies with troops fit enough to carry out such activities ?
Futher Argentinian troops held the high ground, professionl marines and special forces were also deployed, not just conscripts.

Any army with full time well trained professional soldiers should be able to muster at least a thousand soldiers in shape for that.
I'd look to the Kepi Blanc, They'd be well up for it. I've no doubt if the Irish Army Rangers had no choice they'd be able for it, but they'd probably nick some transport instead, They are also trained to improvise and utilise resources.
Definitely a few companies from the US, China and Russia able for it. You underestimate how many units of proper hard b*stards there are scattered in countries round the world. As for making slightly smug remarks about the British Army's history, Don't forget that there is a .ie at the end of boards and you ain't no chara of mine.;)

AngryHippie

Fratton Fred wrote: »

The Falklands brought the navy back into people's focus and the government scrapped plans to reduce the size the size of the fleet, which saved a lot of jobs in my home city, which by the way, has the best football supporters in the world, yes McArmalite, we love ourselves:D

Convenintly taking Thatcher and her policies out of focus, wow, look over there, theres some "strategic" islands we were cutting out of our budget, ooh look, some argentinian ships, whatever could they be here for ????
Patriotic Nonsense. Only achievement was spin mastery and electorate manipulation. The rest was death, destruction and misery. But if that gives ya your jollies then Go Army, Go Navy.:rolleyes:

Football supporters ?
They are so good they'll make sure that their team doesn't lose away games by trashing the stadium ??? get real. You're football fans are no "great achievement" either buddy.:D

AngryHippie

Pathfinder wrote: »

The bottom line is they had the advantage and blew it.

Ouch, Friendly fire, to the foot,
So they blew, it, That demeans the fantastic British achievement then, the Argies threw it away.

Sorry bout the three posts in a rows, I missed a whole page of back biting there and wasn't bothered editing the second post to include it all. I hope its okay.

Fratton Fred

AngryHippie wrote: »

Convenintly taking Thatcher and her policies out of focus, wow, look over there, theres some "strategic" islands we were cutting out of our budget, ooh look, some argentinian ships, whatever could they be here for ????
Patriotic Nonsense. Only achievement was spin mastery and electorate manipulation. The rest was death, destruction and misery. But if that gives ya your jollies then Go Army, Go Navy.:rolleyes:

Football supporters ?
They are so good they'll make sure that their team doesn't lose away games by trashing the stadium ??? get real. You're football fans are no "great achievement" either buddy.:D

Yes, there was a lot of convenient public support for Thatcher and as I said, the war was a kind of blessing in disguise for the RN and Portsmouth because it reminded people how important the navy is to an island nation.

Remember one thing, despite what you think about Thatcher, she did not start the war. The war could have easily been avoided by the Argentinians not invading the Falklands in the first place.

And I was referring to Pompey fans, not England fans, we haven't smashed up a football stadium for 30 years (Apart from our own:o)

twinytwo

to pathfinder.. u yap on and on about haow great the english army is...Remember Bloody Sunday.. How great ur beloved paras were that day.. Or how after getting ur ass kicked by a bunch of farmers with pitch forks ye senyt the Black and tans into ireland.. a country that was never yers .... so i think its kinda pathetic the way u yap on about how wrong argentina was

My own personal memories of the conflict. (from the English Midlands)

First of all it was started when some Argentine fishermen "claimed" South Georgia in February 1982, this invasion wasn't taken seriously by the British Government.

I think that the Argentine government saw this as a cue to the fact that the British Government didn't care about their possessions in the South Atlantic and tried their luck with the Falklands.

I dont believe that the Argentinians thought that the British would try to reclaim the Islands.


I remember several ferries being requisitioned and spending a couple of weeks in dock being modified (extra bulkheads being fitted to reduce their chances of sinking if hit).
The merchant navy played a major part in the conflict, without them it wouldn't have happened.

The MOD were very anti press/news reporters and were very heavy handed on restricting and controlling what was reported back, a famous phrase at the time after one RAF raiding party had returned was " I counted them all out, and counted them all back", all reporting was several hours behind events as reports were vetted first. Video reports were a several days behind as the tapes were sent back on the next available supply ship to ascension then by plane to the UK.

The MOD also picked one of the shyest civil servants they had to give the press conferences, he always looked terrified while reading out the reports.

We used to watch the news in the pub, there were more than enough "bar stool generals" saying we should do this do that etc with an extremly anti argentinian & jingoistic attitude (a bit like some posters attitude to Britain here).

The BBC were always trying to second guess what the MOD tactics in the conflict were and had several retired senior officers from the Army, Navy & RAF to speculate on how events were unfolding. On one occasion after an Argentine bombing raid on one of the convoys, it was noted that a large number of shells failled to explode, one of the "experts" speculated that the "arming mechanism( can't remember what it was called)" were incorrectly set. Subsequent raids has a much higher success rate!

During the occupation many of the Argentine soldiers were very unprepaired for the cold camp conditions, this was particually noticible when Local Islanders "Kelpers or Bennies as called by the British troops" walked past dressed in just a thick jumper, whereas the Argentine soldiers were dress in thick quilted coats, hoods gloves etc and still looking cold.

While the Islands were being recaptured, several Islanders were unfortunately killed or wounded during the bombardment of Port Stanley, The Argentine defenders had placed some of their artilliary between the houses in the middle of the town, thus making it very difficult to hit without risking civillian casualties.

One of the ironies of the conflict was that there are now several Argentine families and Argentinian spouses living on the Islands.

Shutuplaura

Pathfinder wrote: »

Being a citizen of a country which has invented nothing, nor built one building of note since 1921, this thread must break your heart.

Charles Martel?

McArmalite

AngryHippie wrote: »

Convenintly taking Thatcher and her policies out of focus, wow, look over there, theres some "strategic" islands we were cutting out of our budget, ooh look, some argentinian ships, whatever could they be here for ????
Patriotic Nonsense. Only achievement was spin mastery and electorate manipulation. The rest was death, destruction and misery. But if that gives ya your jollies then Go Army, Go Navy.:rolleyes:

And also " As for making slightly smug remarks about the British Army's history, Don't forget that there is a .ie at the end of boards and you ain't no chara of mine."

Totally agree, the great Malvinas/Falklands conflict :rolleyes:. Arguably one of the most stupid, wasteful, insignificant conflicts ever fought. The british were secretly discussing about getting rid of them, the junta in Argentina seen a chance to divert the public's attention from the economic problems ( a general strike in Argentina seemed to be on the horizon ) and then went and sent their mainly conscrpit army to stick the Argentine flag on them. Thatcher had been destroying the NHS with the excuse that "there wasn't enough money" to shut down the hospital services, the Argentinians stick a flag on islands 1,000's of miles away and all of a sudden, money is no problem, every bath tube and sink in England is been turned into a feckin' battleship !!!!!
As for silly tabloid jingoistic comments like " It was a tremendous achievement.....The reality is it was a tremedous military achievement, the British army was possibly the only army on Earth whos troops could have achieved such a feat on foot.", well, hopefully we'll never see such a wasteful, stupid conflict like it again.

Fratton Fred

McArmalite wrote: »

well, hopefully we'll never see such a wasteful, stupid conflict like it again.

Agreed, the downfall of the Military Junta in Argentina has hopefully meant the future of the Falklands will only ever be debated by peaceful means.

McArmalite

AngryHippie wrote: »

Any army with full time well trained professional soldiers should be able to muster at least a thousand soldiers in shape for that.
I'd look to the Kepi Blanc, They'd be well up for it.

Kepi Blanc would go through the british army and their mighty South Atlantic task force,, including their self declared "best regiments in the world " sh!te, SAS, Royal Marines, Paras etc like a knife thru butter, no probs.

Shutuplaura

I remember watching a docu about the falklands and a member of the Regan admionistration taked was talking about their surprise at the British reaction to the invasion. He mentioned that it was the typical (over) reaction of an Empire in its death throes. His quote was that there was nothing more dangerous to world peace than an Empire in decline. An interesting idea and applicable to the US's current foreign policies I believe.

Shutuplaura

Shutuplaura wrote: »

I remember watching a docu about the falklands and a member of the Regan admionistration taked was talking about their surprise at the British reaction to the invasion. He mentioned that it was the typical (over) reaction of an Empire in its death throes. His quote was that there was nothing more dangerous to world peace than an Empire in decline. An interesting idea and applicable to the US's current foreign policies I believe.

Yes, I wonder how Regan would have reacted if the US Virgin Islands had beeen invaded by one of its neighbours?

At that time there was a lot of anti-british feeling in the US, anyone who has any Irish ancestory was critical of anything British and anything that Britain did.
The Irish-American vote was very important, large enouth to decide the next president!

Fratton Fred

Shutuplaura wrote: »

I remember watching a docu about the falklands and a member of the Regan admionistration taked was talking about their surprise at the British reaction to the invasion. He mentioned that it was the typical (over) reaction of an Empire in its death throes. His quote was that there was nothing more dangerous to world peace than an Empire in decline. An interesting idea and applicable to the US's current foreign policies I believe.

how was it an over reaction? the Argentine's invaded, Britain went and claimed it back. The Empire was gone in 1982, not in decline.

ejmaztec

Fratton Fred wrote: »

how was it an over reaction? the Argentine's invaded, Britain went and claimed it back. The Empire was gone in 1982, not in decline.

Reagan was scared of Maggie and wouldn't have said those things close up, for fear of getting a good hand-bagging.

Pathfinder

AngryHippie wrote: »

Somebody was telling pork pies. Thatcher was told she had a chance to improve her spiralling approval rating after her spree of Chicago school economics, She Jumped on it with both hands, and all the power of the British armed services.




Any army with full time well trained professional soldiers should be able to muster at least a thousand soldiers in shape for that.
I'd look to the Kepi Blanc, They'd be well up for it. I've no doubt if the Irish Army Rangers had no choice they'd be able for it, but they'd probably nick some transport instead, They are also trained to improvise and utilise resources.
Definitely a few companies from the US, China and Russia able for it. You underestimate how many units of proper hard b*stards there are scattered in countries round the world. As for making slightly smug remarks about the British Army's history, Don't forget that there is a .ie at the end of boards and you ain't no chara of mine.;)

Thatchers military advisors did indeed tell her going into the war Britain was the underdog, why is that a lie ?

The task force was thousands of miles from home, its whole campaign rested on getting equipment on shore while under attack from fighter-bombers.

As for the Foreign legion, being able to perform the same task as British infantry did, thats highly debatable, the nature of British colonial conquest means its army is historically geared to carrying kit and marching on foot, its an ethos which still prevails.

The fact is none of the above forces have performed such a task, if the Americans or Russisians had been involved they would simply have carpet bombed enemy forces in Port Stanley and landed troops by sea and air in the capital.

Pathfinder

McArmalite wrote: »

Kepi Blanc would go through the british army and their mighty South Atlantic task force,, including their self declared "best regiments in the world " sh!te, SAS, Royal Marines, Paras etc like a knife thru butter, no probs.

Lets stick to the thread rather then emotional outburts.

Many of 2 REP French foreign legion paras(the elite of the legion) are ex-Parachute regiment.

McArmalite

Pathfinder wrote: »

Lets stick to the thread rather then emotional outburts.

Many of 2 REP French foreign legion paras(the elite of the legion) are ex-Parachute regiment.

Some of them are ex brit paras, I suppose they join the Legion to get proper training


" As for the Foreign legion, being able to perform the same task as British infantry did, thats highly debatable," :D:D

Both of you need to start a new thread on which regiment is "best" as this has nothing to do with tha Falklands.

Could the FFL have retaken the Falklands, that's debatable.

Shutuplaura

Fratton Fred wrote: »

how was it an over reaction? the Argentine's invaded, Britain went and claimed it back. The Empire was gone in 1982, not in decline.

Going/gone, whatever. It was a complete overaction though. What value did the islands have? How many people lived on the islands? What would have been lost by not taking it back? I'm guessing the answer is very little. The Junta were running the Argentine economy into the ground and were fairly unpopular. Economic santions perhaps would have been effective. Of course economic sanctions wouldn't have made Thatcher sexy enough for the voters, a short victorious war was required.

Charles/Pathfinder, you were in the Army weren't you? Did you serve there? - I'm not taking the piss asking, just curious.

The south Atlantic surrounding the islands have potentially large deposite of oil and other resources.

As far as I know, nothing has been discovered yet, but that (I believe*) was the principle reason for repelling the invaders.

*Disclaimer

twinytwo

Pathfinder wrote: »

Lets stick to the thread rather then emotional outburts.

Many of 2 REP French foreign legion paras(the elite of the legion) are ex-Parachute regiment.

pathfinder ur ... god there isnt a word to describe how far up ur ass ur head is

PHB

twinytwo banned

Fratton Fred

Shutuplaura wrote: »

Going/gone, whatever. It was a complete overaction though. What value did the islands have? How many people lived on the islands? What would have been lost by not taking it back? I'm guessing the answer is very little. The Junta were running the Argentine economy into the ground and were fairly unpopular. Economic santions perhaps would have been effective. Of course economic sanctions wouldn't have made Thatcher sexy enough for the voters, a short victorious war was required.

Charles/Pathfinder, you were in the Army weren't you? Did you serve there? - I'm not taking the piss asking, just curious.

What value does Northern Ireland have? what value did Kuwait have?

Argentina took the Falklanda by force, diplomacy didn't work and UN resolutions didn't work. Britain took it back by force, I fail to see the problem.

Capt'n Midnight

Deleted User wrote: »

The south Atlantic surrounding the islands have potentially large deposite of oil and other resources.

As far as I know, nothing has been discovered yet, but that (I believe*) was the principle reason for repelling the invaders.

*Disclaimer

Not to mention the election was coming up soon.

Falklands war was very touch and go
Had a carrier or liner been sunk the invasion would have been cancelled
Had the US not provided the advanced missiles, and other logistical help ( basically anything in their inventory would be on ascension island in 36 hours )
Had the US not provided intelligence, and let's remember they did training exercises with the Argintenians and handed over the manuals
Had the vulcans' had a few 100 more hours on the air frames there would have been no threat to the mainland
Had the invasion happened after the carrier was transfered to Oz
Had the argentinians managed to purchase more exocets
Had they launched an all out saturation attack with every aricraft
Had maggie not escalated it a war with trying mediation for longer

Can't remember the exact figures, but if you take into accout the numbers of veterns who commited suicide then the overall death toll was close to the population of the islands

Shutuplaura

Fratton Fred wrote: »

What value does Northern Ireland have? what value did Kuwait have?

Argentina took the Falklanda by force, diplomacy didn't work and UN resolutions didn't work. Britain took it back by force, I fail to see the problem.

Diplomancy was hardly given a chance. The timespan from invasion by the Argies to final surrender was what - three months? So how can you say it failed? A few days less than even that I believe. The conflict cost, as someone pointed out, almost as many lives as the population of the islands, between injured and the bereved, probably more.

As for Northern Ireland & Kuiwait, I'm not sure I get where your coming from. Kuiwait has value as its extremely oil rich is suppose - Northern Ireland, I dunno, its speculation for me to say why. If it answers your question I don't think the UK should have been involved in both of these places either.

Don't get me wrong by the way Fred, i think the Argies were very naughty boys indeed to voilate British soverngty in the south atlantic but two wrongs don't make a right and all those people, British and Argentine died for SFA, unfortunately.

Fratton Fred

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Not to mention the election was coming up soon.

Falklands war was very touch and go
Had a carrier or liner been sunk the invasion would have been cancelled
Had the US not provided the advanced missiles, and other logistical help ( basically anything in their inventory would be on ascension island in 36 hours )
Had the US not provided intelligence, and let's remember they did training exercises with the Argintenians and handed over the manuals
Had the vulcans' had a few 100 more hours on the air frames there would have been no threat to the mainland
Had the invasion happened after the carrier was transfered to Oz
Had the argentinians managed to purchase more exocets
Had they launched an all out saturation attack with every aricraft
Had maggie not escalated it a war with trying mediation for longer

Can't remember the exact figures, but if you take into accout the numbers of veterns who commited suicide then the overall death toll was close to the population of the islands

All of which backs up what I said about the war being a blessing in disguise for the Royal Navy. Britains role in NATO was defending the Greenland-Iceland-UK gap, basically to prevent the soviets from getting into the Atlantic. Money was being poured into submarines and the surface fleet was designed to hunt down soviet subs, the Falklands showed that whilst Britain may have played it's role in WWIII effectively, it had little capability to defend it's overseas territory.

Basically what NATO had created was a european contingent capable of little more than defending the US, great if you are American, as the European NATO contingent would have slowed the Russians down, but not so good for us on the southern end of the UKIG gap because it would have meant we were front line.