Late in the evening of May 18, 1982, the ships of the 317th task force greeted the British amphibious group that had arrived in the combat area. Two large amphibious dock ships, six specially built amphibious assault ships and thirteen requisitioned transport ships (including the Atlantic Conveyor) were in the immediate guard of the destroyer Entrim and three frigates. The 44,000th liner "Canberra" with 2,400 servicemen on board made a special impression with its size and snow-white hull.
Despite the losses, the grouping of British naval and air forces in the conflict area increased significantly. By 30 April, the British 317th Task Force had 2 aircraft carriers, on the decks of which there were 20 Sea Harriers FRS 1, 4 destroyers and 5 frigates, and three nuclear submarines formed the 324th task force, which was not subordinate to Rear Admiral Woodworth. and was controlled directly from England.
In the period from 1 to 18 May, the Splendit nuclear submarine left the area of hostilities, the destroyer Sheffield was killed, one Sea Harrier was shot down by anti-aircraft artillery fire, and two more died under unexplained circumstances, most likely, having collided with each other in the air. The destroyer "Glasgow", although it was damaged, was out of action for several days, but was able to fix them on its own and by May 18 was in full combat readiness. At the same time, the nuclear submarine Valiant (of the same type Concaror) and the diesel submarine Onyx arrived in the area of hostilities, however, it is not clear where the last one was on May 21, when the landing took place. A destroyer and three frigates came along with the amphibious forces, and the Atlantic Conveyor delivered 8 Sea Harriers FRS 1 and 6 Harriers GR 3, but a little comment is needed here.
By the time of the Falklands Conflict, the British fleet had 28 combat-ready Sea Harrier FRS 1 fighters, of which 20 immediately went to the combat area, and the remaining 8 were to arrive there later. But the British understood very well that neither 20 nor 28 machines would be enough to establish air supremacy. Then someone came up with a great idea - to throw the GR 3 Harriers into battle. These were the only aircraft, besides the Sea Harrier FRS 1, that could operate from the decks of British aircraft carriers, but there was a "small" problem: the Harriers GR 3 were pure attack aircraft, unable to conduct guided air-to-air missiles and air defense formations. The British tried to adapt the 10 machines of this type prepared for dispatch by the Sidewinder, but nothing came of it. Although the media have repeatedly shown photographs of GR 3 Harriers with air-to-air missiles suspended from pylons, the planes lacked the appropriate electrical wiring, so they could only fight with the air enemy with the help of 30-mm Aden cannons. However, sending even such planes was reasonable. The tasks of carrier-based aviation were not limited to air defense, accordingly, striking coastal targets, the GR 3 Harriers released the FRS 1 Sea Harriers for air patrols. In addition, it should be borne in mind that the sighting systems "Harriers" GR 3 for "work" on the ground were superior to those of the "Sea Harriers" FRS 1.
Thus, by May 21, in the combat zone, the British had 3 nuclear submarines and, probably, one diesel, 2 aircraft carriers with 31 aircraft on board (25 Sea Harrier FRS 1 and 6 Harrier GR 3) 4 destroyers and 8 frigates. And what about the Argentines?
By April 30, they had 80 Mirages, Skyhawks and Daggers, as well as eight old Canberra bombers. One Mirage, one Dagger, two Skyhawks and one Canberra were shot down by the British, another Skyhawk crashed on its own, one Mirage and one Skyhawk were destroyed by overly vigilant Argentine anti-aircraft gunners from the Falkland Islands. Thus, the total losses of Argentina amounted to 8 machines, but it should be borne in mind that during the war they managed to put into operation 9 "Skyhawks", which at the beginning of the conflict were not on the wing. It is not known how many of them were commissioned by May 21, but it can still be assumed that to repel the British landing, Argentina could put up about 84-86 vehicles of which, however, 6-7 were very old Canberras. So the striking power of the Argentines remained at about the same level as at the beginning of the conflict.
As for the aviation of the Falkland Islands, it is very difficult to deal with them. Absolutely destroyed 6 light attack aircraft "Pukara" and all "Mentors" (which is mostly the result of sabotage on Pebble Island), at least three more "Pukars" were damaged on May 1, but perhaps they managed to put them into operation? During the conflict, the Argentines deployed 11 Pukars to the Falklands, although again it is unclear how many of them arrived on the islands before the landing. In general, it can be argued that the air power of the Falklands did not suffer much - however, it initially strove for a near-zero value and could not cause any serious damage to the British ships. On the contrary, one single submarine, personifying the Argentine submarine fleet, attacked the British at least twice (but rather three times) during the period of May 1-10, and only problems with weapons did not allow her to succeed. This proves how dangerous even a small diesel submarine can be if it operates in the area of intensive enemy operations, but after May 10, the San Luis submarine went into repair, and the Argentines lost their only trump card.
The surface fleet, having lost General Belgrano, retained its main forces: an aircraft carrier, 4 destroyers and 3 corvettes, but now the prospects for its use were completely dubious. The death of General Belgrano showed the Argentine command the obvious vulnerability of their surface ships from enemy submarines. Then the fleet retreated to the coastal areas, where it was reliably covered by ASW ground aircraft, but as a result, the ability to quickly attack the amphibious groups of the British disappeared. Nevertheless, Argentine ships could still be thrown into battle, with very unpleasant consequences for the British. In the end, the 780 kilometers separating the Falklands from the mainland could be traversed in less than a day even at 20 knots, and in fact it takes much more time to land a large-scale assault, along with all its reserves. But the British command was well aware of the complexities of Rear Admiral Woodworth, who simply did not have the means of aerial reconnaissance that would allow timely (or even NOT timely) detection of the Argentine fleet approaching the Falklands. The former hopes were also not pinned on the submarines - whatever one may say, but on May 1-2 they did not find the main forces of the Argentines. Therefore, the British decided to use the Nimrod radio reconnaissance aircraft to monitor Argentine ships, the reconnaissance equipment of which was maintained by as many as 23 operators and, according to the British, made it possible to survey a rectangle 1000 miles long and 400 miles wide in one sortie. It looked like this - the plane took off from about. Ascension, approaching the Falkland Islands, not reaching about 150 km before Port Stanley, turned and walked to the coast of Argentina, scanning the ocean between the Falklands and the continent. About 60 miles from the coastline, the Nimrod turned around again and flew along the Argentine coast, after which it returned to about. Ascension. Each such flight was a complex operation - three refueling, 19 hours in the air, so it is not surprising that only 7 such flights were made between May 15 and 21. The Argentines were unable to intercept a single "Nimrod", but they figured out that the location of their ships was becoming known to the British with a certain regularity.
At the same time, the Argentines' Neptunes were completely out of order - the last flight took place on May 15 and none of these specialized reconnaissance aircraft took off. The consequence of this was the involvement of such aircraft as the Boeing 707 and C-130 in aerial reconnaissance. The problem was that no special equipment was installed on the newly-minted "scouts"; the same Boeing was forced to look for the enemy with the help of avionics of an ordinary passenger airliner. Accordingly, the search capabilities of the Argentine command were sharply reduced.
As a result of all this, the Argentines no longer hoped that they would be able to establish and maintain contact with the British aircraft carrier group, as Neptune did on the day of the attack on Sheffield, but believed that their ships moving from the coast of Argentina to the Falklands would be quickly detected … Thus, the command of the ARA could no longer count on surprise, and without it, the weaker Argentine fleet could not count on success. As a result, the final decision was made - not to bring surface ships into battle.
In retrospect, we can conclude that the Argentines were too cautious: the attack by surface forces was not at all as hopeless as they thought. But they made exactly this decision and pushed them to this two factors - the ability of the British to control the movement of their ships and the inability of the Argentines to find the British aircraft carriers.
The British had their own difficulties. Shortly after the meeting, a meeting was held on the upcoming landing between the commanders of the amphibious group Clapp, the commander of the landing force Thompson and the commander of the 317th task force, Woodworth. Nobody objected to the landing site proposed by Rear Admiral Woodworth, but a discussion arose about the timing of the landing. Clapp and Thompson insisted on landing in the early evening, shortly before sunset, in order to have maximum darkness for the beachhead equipment. It was logical - even if the Argentines launched a counterattack, they would not do it before the morning, and having the night to prepare, one could meet them properly. In addition, overnight it was possible to deploy high-quality air defense, capable of covering the location of the landing troops.
But such a decision did not suit the commander of the 317th operational formation at all. Rear Admiral Woodworth was well aware that he would not be able to provide air defense for the amphibious formation either during the transition or at the time of landing, and therefore relied heavily on surprise, bad weather, which would have to limit the ability to detect British ships in the dark. He had, of course, noticed long ago that Argentines never fly at night. Therefore, Woodworth insisted that the landing take place a few hours after sunset: in this case, twilight would reliably cover his ships a few hours before reaching the landing site and would not allow Argentine aircraft to attack in the first hours of the landing. Apparently, Clapp and Thompson were "a little" surprised by this state of affairs. Woodworth himself describes this episode as follows:
“I believe I have made my point clear to Mike Clapp and Julian Thompson. I did it without reminding them of the Sheffield and Glasgow lessons. I didn't have to say, "Gentlemen, can you imagine what happens when a bomb or cruise missile hits a warship?" And they, in turn, did not have to express the thought that was spinning in their heads: “We believed that the strike group had to completely destroy the Argentine Air Force until that time. What have you, … tsy, been doing all these past three weeks? " There are times when I am very grateful for the exquisitely polite rituals of discussion adopted by us in Her Majesty's military to resolve our differences.”
Woodworth's plan was accepted and … fully justified itself. Late in the evening of May 20, the British fleet approached the Falkland Islands unnoticed, and began an amphibious operation, and by 04.30 am Company "B" of the 2nd Battalion under the command of Major D. Crosaland was the first to complete the landing. Of course, it was not done without overlays - at the most "suitable" moment, the pumps of the landing ship-dock "Fairless" failed, so that the landing boats full of soldiers could not leave the ship, then the landing boats in the dark ran aground safely, and then the companies "B "And" C "of the 3rd paratrooper battalion, starting to advance from the bridgehead," did not know their own "and fired at each other for an hour, even with the support of armored vehicles (one of the companies had two infantry fighting vehicles). To the credit of the British, they stoically overcame the obstacles that had arisen - the commander of the Fairless made a risky, but 100% justified decision - he opened the bathoport doors, water poured into the dock and the boats swam out. The paratroopers from the stranded boats, with a 50-kilogram load on their shoulders in icy water (the air temperature was +3 degrees), reached the shore on foot, and the commander of the 3rd paratrooper, after both companies requested artillery support from him, guessed that something was going wrong and, by personal intervention, stopped the firefight. For an hour of war with each other, both companies did not suffer any losses … Of course, one can only rejoice in the absence of senseless deaths. But how can you fight in two companies for an hour without killing or wounding a single enemy?
There were practically no Argentine troops in the landing area. All that the Argentines had at their disposal was an incomplete company "C" of the 12th Infantry Regiment, as many as two platoons (62 people) under the command of Senior Lieutenant K. Esteban, who had at his disposal two 105-mm guns and two 81-mm mortars. Naturally, no one charged this "army" with the duty of repelling the large-scale British landing, their functions were reduced to monitoring the throat of the Falklands Strait. After equipping an observation point at Fanning Head and sending a detachment of 21 fighters there with two guns, the lieutenant himself with the main forces of the company was located in the settlement of Port San Carlos, 8 km from the entrance to the strait.
The Fanning Head fighters held out for about half an hour. Finding the British ships, they opened artillery fire, and their commander tried to notify Lieutenant Esteban about the invasion, but … the radio was broken. Immediately, the British special forces, which were at the time of the opening of fire by the Argentines in some 500 meters from their positions, with the support of 60-mm mortars and the cannon of the destroyer "Entrim" (which in the "best" traditions of 114-mm installations at the beginning of the attack came out out of action, but was promptly introduced into it) fell on the defenders. Their position was hopeless, and, having suffered losses, they broke away from the British with a fight and tried to get out to their own, heading for Port Stanley. But the Argentines did not succeed, and on June 14, the fighters who were on the verge of exhaustion surrendered to the British patrol.
Lieutenant Esteban with four dozen soldiers received the news of the landing only at 08.30 am on May 21 and immediately made the only reasonable decision - to retreat. But this decision was belated - two companies of British paratroopers were already stepping on his heels, entering Port San Carlos some 15 minutes after the Argentines left there. To "resolve the issue" for sure, a helicopter assault was sent to the rear of Lieutenant Esteban and attack helicopters were called … And, nevertheless, forty Argentines demonstrated excellent skills, giving an exemplary battle on the withdrawal. Despite at least a fivefold (!) Superiority of the British in forces and the support of the latter by helicopters and naval artillery, the detachment under the command of Lieutenant Esteban was able not only to break away from the pursuit, but also to destroy three British helicopters from small arms (including two attack helicopters) …
I have to repeat: the Argentines, fearing the invasion of Chile, sent far from the best ground units to the Falkland Islands. And one can only guess what difficulties the British landing would face if the elite of the Argentine army stood up against the British in the Falklands. Fortunately (for the British) this did not happen.
No more hostilities occurred in the area of the landing operation on the night of May 20-21, it is worth noting that the British special forces and ships made a little "noise" in other areas to distract the attention of the Argentines, but all this was nothing more than demonstration actions, the British were not involved in serious battles.
Deck aviation also took part: in total, 4 Harrier GR.3s were brought in for strikes against ground targets. Spetsnaz reported on the transfer of Argentine helicopters to the area of Mount Kent, from where they could be used to transfer troops to San Carlos, to the area of one of the British bridgeheads. A pair of GR.3 Harriers worked perfectly, finding the landing pad and destroying 3 enemy helicopters on it. But the second pair, sent to attack the positions of the Argentine 5th Infantry Regiment in Portgoward, was unlucky: one VTOL aircraft, for technical reasons, could not take off at all, and the second was shot down by a Bloupipe MANPADS missile during the second call.
In general, it can be stated that the British landing began and continued extremely successfully (as far as possible for operations of this scale). However, the dawn on May 21, the British greeted with mixed feelings: it was clear to everyone that now the Argentines would throw everything they had into battle, and the main threat to the British was aviation from continental airfields. And so it happened, but before we move on to describing the battles, let's try to figure out how the British built their air defense.
The amphibious group, having entered the throat of the Falklands Strait and concentrated in the area of the entrance to the Bay of San Carlos Water, turned out, so to speak, in a kind of square box about 10 by 10 miles, and the walls of this box formed the coastal mountains of the islands of West and East Falkland … This put both British sailors and Argentine pilots in very peculiar conditions: on the one hand, the Argentines didn’t have to sneak up on the British ships, taking advantage of the mountainous relief of the coast. On the other hand, jumping out from behind the mountains and dropping the speed even to 750 km / h, the Argentines crossed the location of the British amphibious group in just 90 seconds - with relatively low horizontal visibility (about 3 miles), the Argentine pilot could visually detect the British ship in 27 seconds before his plane, roaring engines, swept over the deck of this ship. In such conditions, it was very difficult to coordinate air attacks, and besides, the presence of many reflective surfaces (all the same mountains) interfered with the work of the Exocet seeker. On the other hand, the British also had very little time to activate their ships' firepower against planes suddenly appearing "out of nowhere".
The British commanders of Task Force 317 had considerable disagreements over how to cover the amphibious force. Captain 1st Rank John Coward suggested that both Project 42 destroyers be deployed west of West Falkland (i.e. between the Falkand Islands and Argentina) in order to detect Argentine aircraft before they even reach the islands. According to his plan, in order to attack these aircraft, an air patrol should be provided directly above the destroyers, which would also strengthen their own air defense. Aircraft carriers Coward proposed keeping the amphibious force 50 miles behind, from where they could provide air patrols over both destroyers and landing forces. The commander of the aircraft carrier "Invincible" went even further - agreeing with the need to intercept enemy aircraft even before they approach the amphibious force, he proposed deploying between the Falklands and the continent not only destroyers, but also both aircraft carriers with their immediate protection. Of course, it would be in the best traditions of the Royal Navy to stand in the way of the enemy, covering the landing transports with your chest, but Rear Admiral Woodworth did not dare to. He was embarrassed not only by the danger of air attacks, but also by the fact that in this case the main forces of his compound would have to maneuver in the area of action of Argentine submarines. Therefore, the British commander divided the fleet into 2 parts - an amphibious group with a sufficiently powerful cover had to go forward and land, while the aircraft carriers with their immediate protection kept at a distance. The amphibious group was covered by 7 British ships, including one destroyer of the County type (Entrim), two old frigates of type 12 (Yarmouth and Plymouth), a frigate of the Linder class (Argonot), the frigate type 21 ("Ardent") and, finally, the frigates of type 22 "Brodsward" and "Diamond" are the only ships of Rear Admiral Woodworth that carried the "Sea Wolf" air defense system and thus were the most dangerous ships for attackers at low altitude Argentines. Due to the qualities of their air defense systems, they were supposed to become a deadly weapon in the “box” of the Falklands Strait. The aircraft carriers were at a great distance from the amphibious forces, and with them remained two Type 42 destroyers (Glasgow and Coventry), a County-class destroyer (Glamorgan) and two Type 21 frigates (Arrow and Alacrity)).
This plan certainly had many flaws. With this order in the most dangerous position were transports and ships covering the amphibious forces, which, in fact, became the main target for the Argentine Air Force. At the same time, the aircraft carriers were far enough away to provide any large air patrol over the amphibious group, but not far enough to go beyond the reach of the Super Etandars with the Exocets. The only ships that had a good chance of intercepting the Exocets, the frigates Type 22 Brodsward and Diamond, left with the amphibious transports, leaving the carriers extremely vulnerable to missile attack. In fact, the only chance for the British to defend their own aircraft carriers was to detect the attacking group in advance and have time to aim their Sea Harriers at it. Only now, until now, VTOL aircraft have not demonstrated anything like this and there was no prerequisite for the fact that they will succeed in the future. The chances could have increased by increasing the number of air patrols - but, again, at the cost of weakening the air protection of the amphibious formation. As a result, both the amphibious and aircraft carrier groups turned out to be very vulnerable to the enemy.
In defense of Rear Admiral Woodworth, I would like to note that even retrospectively, “in hindsight,” it is very difficult to understand whether the British had any reasonable alternative to this plan.
Be that as it may, decisions were made, so that, starting on May 21 and for the next few days, the tasks of the British carrier-based aviation were reduced to providing air defense of the aircraft carrier group and covering the compactly located amphibious group. At the same time, Rear Admiral Woodworth, in order to avoid "friendly fire", introduced the following order of air patrolling of the amphibious formation: a zone of 10 miles wide, 10 miles long and about 3 kilometers in height, where transports and cover ships were located, was declared closed for flights of the Sea Harriers. ". Accordingly, any plane that suddenly appeared in front of an English ship could only be enemy. "Harriers" were supposed to prevent the enemy from flying into this zone or chase him out of it. The plan seemed to be good, but …
