The Sea War in the Falklands
The Royal Navy and Argentine Armada Fought for Control of the South Atlantic
In 1982 the world saw the only major naval conflcit of the latter half of the 20th Century. This was a war of the antiship cruise missle, submarines and aircraft carriers
The naval war in the Falklands was characterized by a David and goliath struggle between what was one of the most modern fleets in the world versus what was seen as a backward third world fleet. The Argentine navy's main asset was that it had local superiority in the waters of the combat area. The Royal Navy had only one lightly armed guard ship in the South Atlantic and had to assemble a 45-ship task force and to sail vertically the distance of halfway around the world. If it wasn't for a series of lucky breaks, the British fleet may very well have been beaten.
In the tense period before the April 2 invasion the Royal Navy dispatched the submarine HMS Spartan to the Falklands but the huge transit of some 8000 miles from UK home waters meant that it did not arrive on station until April 12th, more than a week after the islands had been taken. The Spartan established on that day a 200 mile wide Maritime Exclusion Zone around the islands in which any Argentine vessel was liable to be attacked. The Argentine fleet including the aircraft carrier Vincentia De Mayo and the cruiser General Belgrano put to sea on April 14th to interdict the British Naval task force en route to the islands. This plan failed largely because of the carrier being forced to retire to port four days later with critical engine failures. It is been a great debate over the winner in a clash between the British and argentine battle fleets had the Latin American carrier been able to keep station. The fact that the British had three carriers (only two the Invincible and the Hermes were deployable) to the single argentine one was offset due to the nature of their air wings. Armed with a squadron of A4 Skyhawks and one of Super Étendard strike craft it is thought that an Argentine surprise attack from over the horizon may have inflicted enough damage to the task force for it to turn back.
Lacking its aircraft carrier, the argentine navy remained a threat to the British force until the submarine HMS Conqueror torpedoed the remaining Argentine capital ship, General Belgrano. A former US Naval light cruiser (USS Phoenix (CL-46)) that had seen combat at Pearl Harbor, the 13,645 ton Belgrano was sent to the bottom appropriately by a pair of 1940's era Mk8 torpedoes on May 2nd with 368 Argentine sailors perishing. The next day Sea Lynx helicopters from the British task force sank two patrol boats near the islands. Shocked by these attacks the argentine fleet retired back to its home ports for the remainder of the war."
This allowed the British task force to sail into San Carlos harbor and land troops unopposed by naval forces. The only activity carried out by the Argentine fleet at sea for the remainder of the conflict was by its submarine arm. The Salta, a forty year old sub caught on the surface near South Georgia Island was attacked by British helicopters and captured on April 28th. The modern German built submarine San Luis remained at sea and carried on a one-ship war on the British task force. Being very difficult to detect, the jumpy royal navy logged more than fifty attacks on targets they took for the San Luis with out success. The San Luis itself attacked the fleet on May 1st and again on May 10th, each time firing torpedoes that missed.
The honor of the argentine navy, lost by its fleet was recovered by its air wing. Argentine Super Étendard and Skyhawks flying from land bases inflicted huge, nearly crippling losses on the British Task force. This is covered more in the section in the Air War in the Falklands
The Argentine navy dispatched a team of four divers to sink Royal Navy ships in Gibraltar. The team arrived in Spain where it spent almost a month eyeing possible targets and awaiting permission to attack a British ship with Italian-made mines that had been brought to Spain in a diplomatic bag. They were arrested by Spanish Police before they were able to complete their mission
In 2004 it was disclosed by the MoD that some British naval vessels were sent to fight the Falklands War carrying nuclear weapons although their use was not considered. And it was claimed that they were not carried into the actual combat zone around the islands.
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