Falklands War Documentaries, History & Debate

[Rhino]

Hey guys!

This topic is for anyone who doesn't know much about this little war (since it was before most of our time and only affected Britain and Argentina) and/or are interested in it, with a bunch of complied Documentaries and information for anyone wanting to find out more.

Please feel free to comment and submit new ones by posting in the topic and they will be added to the original post



20th Century Battlefields - Falklands War: Probably the best overview of the Falklands War for anyone who doesn't know anything or much about it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPab6Hhk9Rw

Early BBC Documentary Series with live reporting from the front. A bit old fashioned but has a lot of good content cut out of most of the modern documentaries:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XsI8CkwU64

Spoiler for More Parts:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFWR1LCp6AU


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILgaurLeepE


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvdGLVjzJcQ


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHYUgdlK-Bg


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUd3sDVOfsg


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XAGzjAMAZ8


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XheTc0fNVT0

Sea Of Fire - The Story Of HMS Coventry (a Type 42 Destroyer) In The Falklands War:
Amazon: Sea Of Fire - The Story Of HMS Coventy In The Falklands War DVD: Amazon.co.uk: Ian Duncan: DVD & Blu-ray

LiveLeak.com - Sea Of Fire HMS Coventry At War.Falklands 1982 Part 1 of 4

Spoiler for More Parts:

Part 2: LiveLeak.com - Sea Of Fire HMS Coventry at War Falklands 1982 Part 2 of 4
Part 3 LiveLeak.com - Sea Of Fire HMS Coventry At War Falklands 1982 Part 3 of 4
Part 4 LiveLeak.com - Sea Of Fire HMS Coventry At War Falklands Part 4 of 4

Operation Black Buck Documentary on the extremely long range bombing raid of a Vulcan Bomber in an attempt to neutralise the Port Stanley Runway:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2Yl8ntVS-4

Documentary on British Special Forces during the Falklands War:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfnZjyNIyho

[Kaombo]

Thanks for this I love to watch war documentaries, and Falklands is one of those wars that isn't excactly interesting for non British or Argentinians so it's hard to find good documentaries for me Will keep a close look on this thread for updates

[solidfire93]

20th century BF's
love that show

[PLODDITHANLEY]

I get tired about what I think are the enduring inaccuracies about the long range Vulcan bombing mission Black Buck, every report I have read or watched describes it as a failure as only one bomb hit the runway.

Of course the RAF planned a 45 degree attack to have maximum chance of one bomb hitting the runway, the objective has to deny Port Stanley as a base of operation for Argentinian fast jets as they need a very very smooth surface. If the Argentine Air Force could have stationed bombers and fighters in the Islands with their high quality aircraft and pilots that could have been a game changer - Thorough site here


His conclusion:

Conclusions

To start the conclusion this is a good quote from Islander Tony Chater about the first nigh time Vulcan raid, Black Buck 1


“The whole house shook, as though there had been an earthquake. There was terrific jubilation. From then on, we felt confident the British forces would come to our rescue”

Putting the superb airmanship and engineering ingenuity to one side (they are a given) the controversy surrounding the Black Buck runway denial raids have obscured a couple of important factors.

First, the runway really was of massive strategic importance. It was a blunder on a grand scale by the Argentine forces to fail to plan properly for its exploitation and implement in a meaningful manner. They had the time, they had the materials and they certainly had enough intelligence. Some put this failure down to only involving the FAA at the last minute, perhaps this is true, I don’t know. Maybe it just wasn’t feasible or too marginal to do but in failing to use the location for both defensive and offensive combat aircraft the Argentine forces suffered the tyranny of distance that is familiar to all that operate combat aircraft. Their loss was our gain and we knew full well that the campaign would be very different if we did not put even the smallest of a possibility that they might, completely beyond doubt, this is what drove the opening attacks on the airport, risk reduction.

Second, efforts to deny the runway to Argentine fast jets were a JOINT effort. Naval gunfire, Sea Harriers and the Vulcans all combined to produce something that was greater than the sum of its parts. It was a grand opening display by the old empire, had an air of panache, displayed deadly intent and showed just who the big dog on the park was. It was a bravura feat of arms that was designed not only to have the practical effect of denying the runway at Port Stanley to Argentine fast jets but also to send a message to the Junta that the time for negotiation had passed and Great Britain was about to smash its back doors in (to coin a phrase!)

Subsequent attacks by Harriers (both flavours), Vulcan’s and naval gunfire failed to completely close the airport but although those that made the supply flights were extremely brave and skilful they had no chance of altering the final outcome, the ongoing attacks ensured that any lingering hopes of operating an effective combat aircraft presence from the airport were snuffed out.

It is also clear that very little is clear.

Some of those nagging questions about Argentine forces intent to operate fast jets from Port Stanley and whether they and it had the capacity to do so remain tantalisingly ambiguous.

Confusing and contradictory testimony and documented evidence creates a vacuum into which opinions are drawn into.

This post is no different in that regards.

What is a shame though is that acrimony, principally between some parts of the RN/FAA and RAF, has been allowed to grow. So much so now that opinions seem to have entrenched and it is self evident that this has forced each side to distort, embellish or downplay the reality.

The Black Buck raids were neither hero or villain, there were positive outcomes but there were equally failures.

I see them as part of a larger jigsaw and I hope this is how they are judged.

In this the first mission was a success (the others not so sure) they could never stop a Hercules landing as they could use a grass strip or just push stuff out of the back on a low slow pass.

Sorry but that always bugs me.

[[R-DEV]​camo]

What bothers you? The criticism of some of the most incredibly wasteful missions ever undertaken by the RAF? I think it's justified criticism. 42 1000 pound bombs were dropped, 21 weren't even armed (someone forgot to flick the switch), another 20 missed and a grand total of 1 landed on the runway which was easily repaired within 24 hours.

The shrike anti radar missions were as equally wasteful, as all the Argentinians had to do was turn their radar off and wait for the vulcans fuel to run low. Granted they did manage to destroy one anti air radar, but that's still a pretty crap result from 4 flights.

The bombing may well have dissuaded the Argentinians from operating fast jets from Port Stanley (if they could), that's not what many people have issue with, the issue is how it was achieved. I read somewhere that the carrier group (with the same amount of fuel used by the vulcan bombings) could have bombed the same targets hundreds of times with thousands more bombs with probably better accuracy.

[PLODDITHANLEY]

What bothers me is the common heard misconception that in the first raid only one bomb impacted the runway because of the 35degree bomb run - which was of course intentional. They were bloody lucky as the first bomb hit the runway where it should have been the tenth, but in the second raid they sorted that but had other problems....

In terms of value for money not good, but the possible life saving of no AAF fast air at Stanley is worth how much? Compared to the scale of effectiveness of the 1000 bomber raids of WW2 it's hard to see a value for money theme in warfare.

I've never heard about some of the bombs being unfused but being as my source was RAF and down there I probably wouldn't....
In theses pics it seems around 21 hit? Although the BB2 (lower photo) on the right were in soft ground so aren't very visible?





Why didn't they just use more Naval bombardment to deny fast jets the runway - accuracy? too small shells? IDK.

They didn't want to risk the Harriers as they were a finite and dwindling resource, Stanley had a lot of air defence.

The first mission was a success to deny the possibility of fast air for the AAF, the others maybe not - RAF say they wanted to make sure they runway couldn't be lengthened others say they missed. Admittedly it is still unclear if the AAF wanted or were really able to deploy fast air at Stanley because of fuel and repair issues, but the Task force really didn't want to entertain the possibility.

I believe while the Shrike Vulcans were around and the radars were switched off the idea was the harriers used the lack of radar guided AAA and rolands to attack at low level I think that was the main objective. Remember this was the first time the RAF had ever had a Shrike missile the US just lent them some and it was a real rush job with very little training.

Some say that the Junta was shocked by the possibility that Argentina could be bombed that they moved the air wing attacking the Isles to defend Argentina till the Brits said they wouldn't bomb Argentina (perhaps like Mr Putin and Ukraine?)

[[R-DEV]​camo]

Originally Posted by PLODDITHANLEY

In terms of value for money not good, but the possible life saving of no AAF fast air at Stanley is worth how much?

The runway was too small for mirages certainly, as for the a4's and etendards i'm not sure. It was also not in fantastic condition apparently so that probably lowered the chances of fast jets operating on it as well.

Why didn't they just use more Naval bombardment to deny fast jets the runway - accuracy? too small shells? IDK.

They did. On the night of the first vulcan bombing before they had even arrived navy frigates bombarded targets at the airfield while at dawn 8 harriers from hermes bombed it as well.

They didn't want to risk the Harriers as they were a finite and dwindling resource, Stanley had a lot of air defence.

As i said above they did actually use harriers to bomb it.

The first mission was a success to deny the possibility of fast air for the AAF, the others maybe not - RAF say they wanted to make sure they runway couldn't be lengthened others say they missed. Admittedly it is still unclear if the AAF wanted or were really able to deploy fast air at Stanley because of fuel and repair issues, but the Task force really didn't want to entertain the possibility.

A great way to interpret a miss In all honesty i think the RAF just wanted a slice of the glory cake, just wanted some action.

I believe while the Shrike Vulcans were around and the radars were switched off the idea was the harriers used the lack of radar guided AAA and rolands to attack at low level I think that was the main objective.

Actually the opposite happened. Harriers from 801 squadron were tasked with flying around the target area to attract the attention of the ground radar. The Vulcan arrived, fired its missile and the Argentinians promptly switched their radar off. Missile lost track and hit nothing.

Some say that the Junta was shocked by the possibility that Argentina could be bombed that they moved the air wing attacking the Isles to defend Argentina till the Brits said they wouldn't bomb Argentina (perhaps like Mr Putin and Ukraine?)

This last point is pure propaganda, absolute crap. You don't keep dozens of aircraft back simply to defend from a single bomber flying at high altitude that is easy to detect. It doesn't take multiple squadrons of mirages to defend against a single (out of date at this stage) bomber.

[PLODDITHANLEY]

Secret intel briefing 7/4/82

Argentine Offensive/Defensive Air Operations. The Argentine Mirage III, Mirage V and their A4 Skyhawks could operate from Stanley Airport with almost full payloads to defend the Island. The limited parking area would again be a problem. If the Argentine Air Force Engineers chose to improve this, however, there is no reason why, say, 4 of these fighter aircraft could not operate from Stanley. The factor most likely to limit the sortie rate is that of fuel supply. With forward planning and the engineer work described above it must therefore be assumed that the Argentine Air Force could give themselves at least some air cover

This photo shows unidentified possible arrestor kit



Without the benefit of hindsight I can understand how the planners may have been concerned.
The runway was 4100 ft which was enough for the A4's and limit for the Mirages the problem is more the supported weight and as I said before support and fuel.

For me to round up I can certainly understand the worries that commanders would have had at that time about the risk.

[Rhino]

From a strictly militarily point of view, Operation Black Buck really didn't have much impact at all and was pretty much a failure to achieving its main goal, which was to permanently disabling the runway for the remainder of the conflict, and the Harrier Bombings and Naval Bombardments had a far greater tactical affect on the enemy.

However from a psychological and political point of view, it can be argued that the Black Buck raids did help affect the morale of the soldiers of both sides and the people back home, as well as arguably did also make the Argentinians think twice about how it could be used against them since even thou a massive obsolete cold war bomber was pretty ineffective, its sheer size and potential power is far more threatening psychologically than a tiny harrier with a couple of bombs on it

But the main purpose of Operation Black Buck was to try and get the Argentinians to back down and negotiate before the Brits arrived, which was also the initial main purposes of the entire Naval Task Force sailing to be frank since Britain really didn't want to fight unless it had to, and was also the reason why it was televised over international news that the Vulcans where getting ready to bomb the islands, which from a tactical POV is surprising that the Argentines where not better preprepared for their attacks and didn't manage to shoot them down, since even the seriously obsolete Tigercat SAM could have easily destroyed the massive, subsonic, Vulcan bomber, as it came in for attack, although it being night as it attack would have complicated things but still, could have been done if the Argentines preprepared for it


So ye, Black Buck was mainly Political than Tactical, in both planning and outcome but if it was truly worth it with all the information given in hindsight, hard to say but since there was no British loss of life from it (which there could have well been), I would have said it was overall worth it, just, but only for the psychological and political affects it had, and could have potentially had as well, but that would have totally back fired if the Argentinians did manage to shoot down a single Vulcan.

[[R-DEV]​camo]

I don't have the exact numbers at hand but with the fuel used (i think 14 million lbs) by all the tankers and bombers to achieve the 7 bombing missions harriers could have done bombing runs numbering in the thousands, with a few thousand bombs dropped.

I don't think the psychological effect was worth it. Imagine if a Vulcan had been shot down? The negative affects of that would have been far greater than the positive affects it did have. So yeah as rhino said it could have backfired big time. Not a risk worth taking.