on
East Falkland (2013). Militarily, the Falklands conflict remains one of the largest major conflicts since the end of the Second World War. It was the first major naval campaign of the 'missile age' and is considered the largest amphibious operation since the
Korean War. As such, it has been the subject of intense study by military analysts and historians. Significant "lessons learned" include the vulnerability of surface ships to anti-ship missiles and submarines, the challenges of coordinating logistical support for a long-distance projection of power, and reconfirmation of the role of tactical air power, including the use of helicopters. Additionally, it offers lessons in the areas of "force projection", "forcible entry" and "expeditionary warfare". However, many prominent naval tacticians have recently argued this point; the sinking of the
ARA General Belgrano was the result of a modern nuclear-powered submarine hunting a pre-World War II ship with no anti-submarine capabilities, and the British ships sunk by the
Argentine Air Force were acceptable casualties since they were screening forces, either for the British aircraft carriers in the cases of HMS
Sheffield and even
Atlantic Conveyor, or for the amphibious landing forces as with HMS
Coventry, HMS
Ardent and HMS
Antelope.
Role of air power Neither side achieved total air supremacy; nonetheless, air power proved to be of critical importance during the conflict, due to the isolated, rough landscape of the Falklands in which the mobility of land forces was restricted. Air strikes were staged against ground, sea and air targets on both sides, and often with clear results. All of the UK losses at sea were caused by aircraft or missile strikes (by both the Argentine Air Force and Naval Aviation). The French
Exocet missile proved its lethality in
air-to-surface operations, leading to retrofitting of most major ships with
Close-in weapon systems (CIWS). The
air war in the Falklands vindicated the UK decision to maintain at least the
STOVL aircraft carriers after the retirement of . The domination of air power in major naval engagements was demonstrated, along with the usefulness of carriers and it proved the small but manoeuvrable Sea Harrier as a true fighter. Sea Harriers shot down
21 aircraft with no air-to-air losses themselves, although six were lost to ground fire and accidents. The disparity in figures, with the Argentine fighters failing to shoot down a single Sea Harrier, can be explained by several factors, including limited fighter control that was provided by British warships in
San Carlos Water, the then almost unparalleled Blue Fox radar, and the extreme manoeuvrability of the Sea Harrier. Additionally the British had the latest
AIM-9L Sidewinder missiles (a gift from USA), while the only Argentine planes with air-to-air missiles for self-defence were the Mirages. The AIM-9Ls had a much wider angle of engagement than the earlier versions employed by the Argentines, which could only effectively engage the rear quarter of an enemy aircraft. The fact that heat seeking Sidewinders were targeting hot
jet exhausts against a cold background of the
South Atlantic in winter resulted in a lethality rate of over 80 percent. The only advantage of the Argentine jets was their higher maximum speed, but Argentine pilots could not benefit from this unless they risked running out of fuel, as was seen in the first air combat of the war when a Mirage IIIEA was forced to attempt a landing at
Stanley. The importance of
Airborne Early Warning (AEW) was shown. The Royal Navy had effectively no over-the-horizon radar capability. This was hastily rectified after the war, with Sea King helicopters fitted with radomes containing a variant of the
Nimrod ASW aircraft's
Searchwater radar. These first travelled south after the war on the brand new , sister ship to . The usefulness of helicopters in combat, logistic, and
casevac operations was confirmed.
Logistics The logistical capability of the UK armed forces was stretched to the limit in order to mount an amphibious operation so far from a land base, in mountainous islands with few roads. After the war much work was done to improve both the logistical and amphibious capability of the Royal Navy. Task force commander Rear Admiral Sir Sandy Woodward referred to the conflict as "a lot closer run than many would care to believe", reflecting the naval and military belief that few people understood—or understand—the extent to which the logistical dimension made the war a difficult operation for the UK. Royal Navy communication was hindered during the conflict due to misinterpretation and lack of clear
Rules of Engagement(ROE) which had to be forwarded from the
Ministry of Defense to the Prime Minister in order to establish clear orders. When the British Navy was engaged with two Argentine Navy forces using a pincer tactic,
Admiral Woodward who was in charge of the Royal Navy during the conflict, bypassed the delays in getting the ROE changed by ordering the British nuclear submarine,
Conqueror, to fire on the oncoming Argentine naval vessels with his permission. The admiral's judgement call highlighted the flaws in the ROE approval process and would improve British communications. The ships of the task force could only remain on station for a limited time in the worsening southern hemisphere winter. With such a high proportion of the Royal Navy's surface fleet engaged, or lost in combat, there were few units available for northbound traffic. At the core of the fleet,
Invincible could possibly have been replaced by the hastily prepared
Illustrious or the loaned , but there was no replacement available for
Hermes, the larger of the two British carriers. Woodward's strategy, therefore, required the land war to be won before
Hermes, in particular, succumbed to the harsh environment. Woodward called the operation "a damned close-run thing", quoting the
Duke of Wellington after the
Battle of Waterloo.
Special forces The usefulness of
special forces units was reaffirmed. British special forces destroyed many Argentine aircraft (notably in the
SAS raid on Pebble Island) and carried out highly informative intelligence-gathering operations. Contrary to popular understanding, the Argentine special forces also patrolled hard, in appalling climatic conditions, against a professional enemy and showed that they could sometimes get the upper hand.
Uniforms The
Nylon working dress worn by Royal Navy personnel was shown to be hazardous during shipboard fires, in the case of the
Exocet attack on , a Naval Board of Inquiry reported: '''' Survivors and medical staff also noted that burning nylon worsened casualties, complicated treatment, and introduced contaminants into wounds. As a result, the Royal Navy progressively replaced synthetic uniforms with cotton-based, flame-retardant clothing in the aftermath of the conflict.
Captured Argentine equipment Eight Argentine
Bell UH-1H Iroquois helicopters were captured intact after the Argentine surrender. Of these, three (AE-409, AE-413 and AE-422) were pressed into service by the British Army in the Falklands for mail and freight transport. AE-413 was later restored to operational standard and subsequently sold on the civilian market. It has appeared in several films, including the James Bond production
The Living Daylights. AE-422 was restored to a non-flyable condition and is now on display at the
Fleet Air Arm Museum, Yeovilton. Two Argentine Army
Agusta A 109 helicopters were captured intact and shipped to Great Britain, where they were serviced, repainted, and registered. Based at
Hereford, they were used to support special forces operations until 2009. One, preserved in its Argentine Army colours, is now on display at the Fleet Air Arm Museum. A damaged
SA 330 Puma (Z449) belonging to the
Argentine Coast Guard was initially used as an instructional airframe in the United Kingdom. It was upgraded to HC1 standard in 2001 and certified for flight. The aircraft saw limited service in Iraq during
Operation Telic. In 2012, it was deemed no longer "Airworthy Repairable" and returned to instructional use at
Whittington Barracks, near
Lichfield. The Argentine
Boeing CH-47 Chinook AE-520 (c/n B-797) was captured intact and subsequently used as a ground instructional airframe in the United Kingdom. Its rear section was later removed and fitted to RAF Chinook HC2 ZA704, which had been damaged in a flying accident in Oman. In RAF service, the hybrid aircraft has been informally referred to as "
Frankenhook", although unconfirmed in any authoritative source. Fifteen
Oerlikon GDF-002 35 mm twin anti-aircraft guns and six Skyguard radar units were captured in working order. These were refurbished under Operation Skyguard and brought into service with the
Royal Auxiliary Air Force in 1985, deployed for airfield defence at
RAF Waddington. They remained in service until the early 1990s. A complete AN/TPS-43 3D air-search radar was captured intact near Stanley. It was refurbished and entered RAF service for UK airspace monitoring. The patrol boat
Islas Malvinas was captured intact at Port Stanley and commissioned into Royal Navy service as
HMS Tiger Bay. She served locally until being decommissioned and sold in 1986.
Impact on the Royal Navy Strained by two oil crises (
1973 and
1979), the United Kingdom's government desired to cut defence spending in line with the rest of Europe. Many former
British possessions in Africa and Asia had gained independence from the UK by the 1980s. Due to this
decolonisation, successive British governments investigated closing British overseas bases and reducing the UK's armed forces in the belief that capabilities such as a
blue-water navy were no longer required. The Conservative government's Defence Secretary
John Nott produced a
white paper in 1981 proposing major cuts for the navy in the next ten years (the army and the RAF had already been tailored for NATO.)
Denis Healey, the Defence Secretary in 1966, once said that aircraft carriers were required only for operations involving 'landing or withdrawal of troops against sophisticated opposition outside range of land-based air cover'. When the last conventional carrier in the Royal Navy, , was decommissioned in 1978, the pro-carrier lobby succeeded in acquiring light carriers (euphemistically christened 'through deck cruisers') equipped with
VTOL Sea Harriers as well as helicopters, justified by the fact that one of their primary roles was anti-submarine warfare. John Nott's defence review concluded that anti-submarine defence would be performed more cheaply by a smaller number of destroyers and frigates. The carrier was therefore to be scrapped and sold to Australia. Under the review, the Royal Navy was focused primarily on anti-submarine warfare under the auspices of NATO. Any out-of-area amphibious operations were considered unlikely. The entire Royal Marines was in jeopardy of being disbanded and the sale of and was mooted. In 1980, low funding caused many ships to be in harbour for months due to lack of spare parts and fuel. The largest cut in the Royal Navy's conventional forces led to the resignation of the Navy Minister
Keith Speed in 1981. Sea battles, mass convoys, amphibious landings, and coastal bombardments were considered obsolete in the second half of the 20th century. Aware of the necessity for speed, Leach had already given orders for the ships of a potential task force to be prepared for deployment. On 2 April, at a briefing at the
House of Commons, Leach advised the Prime Minister that a task force was necessary and could sail within 48 hours. Lewin, who was forced to return from a scheduled visit to New Zealand, also impressed on the War Cabinet that the primary objective for the United Kingdom should be: "to bring about the withdrawal of Argentine forces from the Falkland Islands, and the re-establishment of British administration there, as quickly as possible". Inspired, Thatcher ordered the despatch of the Task Force for the South Atlantic. The principal adjustments to British defence policy as a result of the war were announced in the
December 1982 Defence White Paper. After the war, the sale of HMS
Invincible to Australia was cancelled, with
Hermes offered instead (eventually being sold to India as
INS Viraat in 1986), and the operational status of all three support carriers was maintained. The proposed cutback in the surface fleet was abandoned and replacements for many of the lost ships and helicopters plus more Sea Harriers were ordered. The amphibious assault ships and were not decommissioned until 1999 and 2002, respectively, being replaced by and . A RN ship is always present in the South Atlantic. In 2007, the Royal Navy confirmed its commitment to a carrier force with the order of two carriers. In 2012 on the thirtieth anniversary of the war, the air-defence destroyer visited the Falkland Islands. Since 2015, the Royal Navy has limited its surface presence in the South Atlantic to an Offshore Patrol Vessel on station around the islands and to an ice patrol ship deployed during the South Atlantic summer season. However, both army and RAF units remain deployed at
RAF Mount Pleasant in the islands.
Impact on the Argentine Armed Forces The war's outcome had an indelible impact on the Argentine Armed Forces. The war destroyed the military's image as the "moral reserve of the nation" that they had maintained through most of the 20th century. After 1984, democratic governments in Argentina did not generally approve major military equipment purchases. Argentina's military spending has also been steadily reduced and as of 2010, its devotion of 0.9% of
GDP to defence only exceeded
Suriname within South America. Within the defence budget itself funding for training and even basic maintenance was significantly cut, a factor contributing to the
accidental loss of the Argentine submarine San Juan in 2017. With the United Kingdom also taking active diplomatic measures to restrict even modest Argentine military modernization efforts, the result has been a steady erosion of Argentine military capabilities, with some arguing that Argentina had, by the end of the 2010s, ceased to be a capable military power.
Soviet Union For the
Soviet Union and
Warsaw Pact militaries, the Falklands War forced a re-examination of their estimates in the quality of Western troops and in particularly, how well an all-volunteer force would compare against conscripted forces. The Soviets became aware that the British relied heavily on the quality and training of their personnel to compensate for the extreme logistical difficulties the campaign presented. It was also noted that both sides were using many of the same western made weapon systems, their combat performance and effectiveness information collected during and after the war was analyzed by the Soviets, to be used to create counter-combat strategies to be adopted by their forces in an event of a then-possible war against
NATO.
Weapon export controls The
Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (CoCom) approved numerous weapon export exceptions during the 1970s and early 1980s, permitting Western-origin military hardware to reach Argentina prior to the 1982 invasion. Economic measures were wound down within weeks of Argentina’s surrender, with controls relaxed piecemeal by individual suppliers. • The United States terminated the economic sanctions it had imposed in April 1982 on 12 July 1982 • France lifted a temporary restriction on certain arms deliveries on 10 August 1982, allowing the completion of pre-existing orders • The Federal Republic of Germany maintained an embargo until 22 September 1982, after which deliveries under contract resumed or were completed Developments were uneven, subject to differing national definitions of embargoes, outstanding contracts, and political pressure; consequently, restrictions on military exports were removed or modified at different times by different states rather than by any single, cohesive decision.
Allegations of nuclear deployment In 1982, British warships were routinely armed with the
WE.177, a
tactical nuclear weapon with a
variable yield of either 10
kilotons or 0.5 kiloton, which was used as a
Nuclear Depth Bomb in an
antisubmarine role. The Official History describes the contorted logistical arrangements that led to the removal of the nuclear depth bombs from the frigates, following political alarm in Whitehall. Eventually at least some of the depth bombs were brought back to the UK by an RFA vessel. In December 2003, Argentine President
Néstor Kirchner demanded an apology from the British government for the "regrettable and monstrous" act of arming warships engaged in the conflict with nuclear depth charges. ==Intelligence analysis==