According to the plan, the first blow was delivered by the strategic aviation of Great Britain - two Vulcan bombers (XM598 and XM607) were to drop 42,454-kg bombs on the Port Stanley airfield and crush its runway. However, there was a slight difficulty - the distance from Ascension Island, where the British planes were based, to Port Stanley reached 5800 kilometers, while the combat radius of the Volcanoes did not exceed 3700 km. It would seem that it's okay - a simple arithmetic calculation suggests that in order to ensure the strike, it was necessary to refuel the planes somewhere halfway from Ascension Island to the Falklands when flying to Port Stanley, and again when returning, but it was smooth on paper … in reality, the bombers took five refueling. For everyone. Accordingly, ten Victor refueling aircraft were required to ensure the departure of only two combat aircraft.
This British operation ("Black Buck-1") provides excellent food for thought for everyone who likes to speculate about how regiments of land-based aircraft fly out to carry out combat missions in the vastness of the World Ocean. For a single aircraft, for a single departure at a distance exceeding its combat radius by no means striking the imagination 1, 6 times, it took FIVE "air tankers". And goodness would have done a useful job as a result … alas, "Black Buck 1" ended in a deafening failure. Both Volcanoes took off from Ascension Island on April 30 at 19.30, but one of them, for technical reasons, was forced to interrupt the flight and return to base. The second one nevertheless reached the target, but none of its bombs hit the runway - the nearest hit was recorded 40 meters from the southern end of the strip. True, one of the bombs accidentally hit the location of the Argentine 601st Air Defense Battalion and killed two sentries, but this can hardly be considered a great victory for British weapons.
The reaction of the Argentines to the British attack is no less amusing - three minutes after the attack (which took place at about five o'clock in the morning), a combat alert was announced, and the Air Force command, fearing repeated raids, decided to cover the Falklands with fighter aircraft. It looked like this - from the Rio Gallegos airbase departed an air group with the beautiful call sign "Predator", which included as many as two Mirages III. The flight took place almost two hours after the attack - at 06.40, and after another 50 minutes, by 07.30, the fighters arrived at the scene. Having circled over the area for several minutes, the planes were forced to go on the opposite course - they simply did not have enough fuel for more, and there were no air refueling mechanisms on them. At 08.38, both Mirages landed at their home airbase, and if we assume that the return journey took them the same 50 minutes, it turns out that, at best, the fighters provided the islands' air defense for 10 minutes. There was no sense in such a "cover", it can only be assumed that the Air Force command preferred to do at least something rather than do nothing at all.
However, for the sake of fairness, we note that the provision of air defense of sea objects by ground aviation forces, forced to operate at the maximum combat radius, by 1982 had greatly improved in comparison with the times of the Second World War. In the war years, the planes could arrive in a day or not at all, but here - after some two and a half hours after the attack of two whole fighters for as much as 10 minutes! Here, however, it must be borne in mind that the islands are not ships, their position in space is known thoroughly and it is quite difficult to "miss" past them, but if the Mirages were ordered to cover the ship group, then, most likely, they either did not find they would have it in those 10 minutes that remained at their disposal, or, by a miracle finding their ships, they would wave their wings in greeting, after which they were forced to return.
But back to the Falklands - at 07.45 the Argentines, trying to somehow provide air defense of the islands, raised a couple of Duggers from the Rio Grande base into the air. The result was the same - arriving at the Falklands, the planes patrolled for several minutes and, finding no one, flew back.
But the time for jokes was coming to an end - the Royal Navy stepped in. The morning of May 1 found British squadrons in combat positions - TF-317 was divided into 2 formations, one aircraft carrier and a small detachment of escort ships in each, in addition, at least one radar patrol group took up a position between the main forces and the islands. At the same time, the group, led by the aircraft carrier "Hermes", maneuvered 95 miles east of Port Stanley, and the group "Invincible" - 100 miles northeast of Port Stanley, the distance between them was not great. According to the operation plan, 12 "Sea Harriers" "Hermes" were to strike at the two main airbases of the Argentines in the Falklands, and eight VTOL "Invincible" provided air defense of the formations. At the same time, a pair of planes from the Invincible moved towards Port Stanley, in case Argentine fighter aircraft appeared over the islands.
The British acted like a textbook - in the best sense of the word. Twelve attack aircraft attacked both airbases almost synchronously - at 08.30 the first four Sea Harriers hit the anti-aircraft gunners' positions, the second hit the runway and the facilities of the Port Stanley airfield (Malvinas Islands base), and a minute later the third group attacked the Condor base … The tactical surprise was absolute - in Port Stanley, the British destroyed a fuel depot, several airfield buildings and 4 civilian aircraft, the Pukara attack aircraft (covered with cluster bombs during takeoff) was killed at the Condor base, and two others were damaged. In response, Argentinean anti-aircraft gunners were able to poke a hole with a fist in the tail of one of the Harriers with a 20-mm projectile - the aircraft carrier was repaired in a couple of hours, and it continued to fight.
Around the same time, the British were landing reconnaissance groups in the Falklands Strait, the vicinity of the villages of Port Darwin, Goose Green and Portgovard, Bluffk Bay, Port Stanley, Cau, Port Salvador, Fox Bay, etc. The British looked around in search of places suitable for landing, checked the land defense of the Argentines … At 08.40, 10 minutes after the start of the attack on the airfields by British planes, two pairs of Daggers took off from the continental bases, which also tried to provide air cover for the islands, and again this ended in nothing - circling a little over the Falklands, "Daggers" left without finding the enemy.
But one should not think that only the pilots of aircrafts acted - the sailors were also having fun with might and main. In the morning north of the islands, the only Argentine submarine "San Luis" heard noises - it was the ships of the British radar patrol: the destroyer "Coventry" and the frigate "Arrow". Argentine submariners fired an SS-T-4 Telefunken torpedo at Coventry from a distance of just over 6 miles. Very little separated Argentina from a major naval triumph - a little bit of luck, and the Conqueror laurels would have gone to San Luis, but the vaunted German quality failed - about 3 minutes after the salvo, the operator reported that torpedo control was lost, and all hope remains only on its homing head. Alas, she turned out to be not very smart and aimed at a torpedo trap, which was towed by a frigate. A direct torpedo hit destroyed the trap. The British were on their guard.
Then two British frigates and three helicopters, hurriedly taking off from the Hermes for 20 hours, drove the San Luis through the local water area, and the frigates maintained hydroacoustic contact, but did not come close, and the helicopters rained torpedoes and depth charges. To no avail - the submariners acted skillfully and courageously. For almost a day, dodging attacks and using hydroacoustic countermeasures, they avoided destruction and eventually managed to escape.
Well, at 13.00, two significant events took place at once - 3 ships separated from the group of the aircraft carrier "Invincible": the destroyer "Glamorgan", the frigates "Arrow" and "Alacrity" and went to the islands, having the task of shelling the positions of the Argentine troops at Port Stanley. At the same time, an air battle was about to start: the Mentor squad tried to attack the British helicopter, but ran into the Sea Harriers on duty and, of course, fled, hiding in the clouds. According to some reports, the British managed to damage one such plane. It is difficult to say why two jet aircraft with a maximum speed of over 1000 km / h could not do more against antediluvian rotorcraft, which barely stretched 400 km / h. Perhaps the British simply did not waste their time on trifles - the short range of the VTOL aircraft required fuel economy, and, chasing the Mentors, the Sea Harriers could miss Argentina's jet fighters.
And then things started … of course, it's easy to talk about the events of the past, sitting in a comfortable armchair with a cup of hot strong coffee. And yet, reading about the events of this day, you constantly return to the idea that the phrase "theater of the absurd" describes the subsequent events as best as possible: but in order to understand what was happening in the air over the Falkland Islands, you need to make a small lyrical digression …
As mentioned above, the task of the Royal Navy was to imitate the start of an amphibious operation in order to lure the Argentine ships over and destroy the main forces of their fleet. The first step in this direction, according to the British, would be the destruction of Argentina's air bases in the Falkland Islands. Argentina had nothing to oppose to the dagger strikes of the KVMF aviation - the detection system on the islands was extremely imperfect, the Falklands air group was uncompetitive, the air defense was frankly weak, and the idea of providing cover from continental air bases turned out to be a utopia due to the excessively long distances. Therefore, the air strikes of the British remained unpunished, and the attempts of the Argentines to somehow react to them do not cause anything but a sad smile. But then the situation changed dramatically.
The fact is that the next item in the plan of the British operation was the landing of sabotage groups and shelling of the coast. And this posed completely different tasks for the British carrier-based aviation: to cover their own ships and helicopters, intercepting enemy fighter and strike aircraft. For this it was required to control the airspace over the Falklands, directing fighters to intercept the enemy invading this space. But the British had neither long-range radar weapons capable of providing reconnaissance and target designation, nor electronic warfare aircraft (which could also carry out electronic reconnaissance), nor even conventional reconnaissance aircraft. All that the KVMF had in the conflict zone was two dozen slow-moving, by the standards of jet aircraft, aircraft with a very limited range and a weak radar (besides, it does not matter which distinguishes targets against the background of the underlying surface). Therefore, the British were left with nothing but air patrols, in which British pilots had to rely on the vigilance of their eyes, as in the Second World War, which, of course, was completely insufficient.
Therefore, the British did not even talk about any control of the airspace, but, being constantly in view of the islands, the British air patrol from a hunter itself became a game. No matter how weak and imperfect the Argentine air control forces were, they WERE, and, periodically spotting the British VTOL aircraft, they could direct their fighters flying up from continental airfields to them. Thus, the Argentines finally had a tactical advantage, which they were quick to take advantage of.
Towards three o'clock in the afternoon, the Argentine leadership began to lean towards the idea that the actions of the British were indeed a prelude to the invasion, so it was decided to conduct reconnaissance in force. The descriptions of what happened next, in various sources, alas, do not coincide. Without pretending to be absolute truth (it would not hurt to work in the Argentine and British archives, which, alas, the author of this article cannot do), I will try to present a relatively consistent version of those events.
At about 15.15 the first group of 8 Argentine aircraft took off, including two pairs of Skyhawks and the same number of Mirages. The Mirages were supposed to carry out air defense of the islands, and the Skyhawks were expected to detect the British surface ships preparing to land - and their attack. Following them, at 15.30, the main group of 7 aircraft took off, including:
1) Striking link of 3 "Daggers" (call sign - "Torno"), equipped with two 227-kg bombs each. "Torno" were to strike at the ships reconnoitered by "Skyhawks".
2) Two pairs of "Daggers" (call signs "Blond" and "Fortun"), armed with air-to-air missiles "Shafrir", which were supposed to cover the strike group.
The first group flew to the Falklands without incident, but then …
Typically, the British air patrol consisted of two aircraft, traveling at an altitude of about 3000 m at a speed of 500 km / h. And therefore it is extremely difficult to understand how the Argentine operators of the radar station located in Port Stanley managed to confuse the pair of Sea Harriers on duty with … a surface ship. Nevertheless, they somehow succeeded, and they sent the Skyhawks that had just left the islands to the "ship of His Majesty". Presumably, the pilots of the British VTOL aircraft were extremely surprised to see who was flying directly at them, but, of course, immediately rushed into battle.
And the Skyhawks would not be happy, but on the ground they still realized that even the most modern warship, even with the best British crew, is still uncharacteristic to fly at a three-kilometer height, and that the radar sees not a surface, but an air target. After that, the Argentines immediately sent both pairs of Mirages to intercept the Sea Harriers.
The first pair tried to attack the British from the rear hemisphere, but they spotted the enemy in time and turned towards them. The Argentines still fired missiles at the Sea Harriers, did not succeed and withdrew from the battle. Not winning, this pair still saved the Skyhawks from inevitable reprisals and gave the latter time to retreat. Then the planes parted, as can be seen, and both of them, after the attack and vigorous maneuvering, ran out of fuel. A little later, at about 16.10-16.15, a second pair of Mirages discovered two more Sea Harriers off Pebble Island. Probably, it was a change of the patrol returning to the aircraft carrier, and the Argentines attacked it, but, again, unsuccessfully. The problem for the Argentines was that in order to confidently defeat the enemy, they had to attack from the rear hemisphere, i.e. go to the tail of the enemy, otherwise their missiles had almost no chance of capturing the target. But the Sea Harriers did not allow them to do this, imposed a battle on a collision course and knocked out both Mirages with their Sidewinder, capable of hitting enemy aircraft not only in the rear, but also in the front hemisphere
One "Mirage" collapsed immediately, its pilot managed to eject, the second, trying to save the wrecked car, still reached the Port Stanley airfield. Where he went for an emergency landing, after dropping outboard fuel tanks and firing off the missiles. Everything could have ended well, but, alas, this time the air defense of the Malvinas Islands airbase turned out to be at its best: having discovered a single aircraft, the crews of 35-mm anti-aircraft guns prepared for battle, and when he dropped something suspiciously similar to bombs, and even and launched rockets, all doubts about its ownership were dispelled. The plane was mercilessly shot at point-blank, its pilot, Garcia-Cuerva, was killed. The death of a man who honestly fought for his Motherland is always a tragedy, but here fate joked especially cruelly: the fallen pilot was the author of illustrations for the Argentine Air Force training manuals, among which was the following: “Your life is in your hands: use the ejection seat in time!"
So the combat mission of the first group of the Argentine Air Force ended, but the second was approaching. True, of the seven planes that took off from the continental airbases, only six remained - one Dagger with air-to-air missiles from the White link interrupted the flight for technical reasons. And it had to happen that it was his partner, who was left alone, who received target designation for two "Sea Harriers" heading to the islands (apparently, to replace the pair that had recently participated in the battle). This allowed the Argentine pilot to take an advantageous position and attack from a gentle dive, but then his composure changed, and he fired a missile, without waiting for a confident capture of the target of the seeker of his "Shafrir". As a result, the "Shafrir" went into milk, the "Dagger", which accelerated at the peak, slipped past the attacked pair, to which one of the British pilots, Lieutenant Hale, reacted with lightning speed and shot down the Argentinean with the "Sidewinder". The Dagger's pilot, Ardiles, was killed.
But the shock troika of "Daggers" followed without hindrance along the route originally laid for it and soon went to a detachment of British ships. The destroyer Glamorgan, the frigates Arrow and Alacrity have already fulfilled their task: having approached Port Stanley, they fired at the positions of the 25th Infantry Regiment, albeit to no avail. The accuracy of the shooting left much to be desired, and the Argentine soldiers who were in shelters did not suffer losses. But the main thing for the British was not to kill some soldiers, but to designate a presence, to convince the Argentines of an early landing, which they achieved, and now three ships were retreating to join the main forces and had already left the islands for several tens of miles.
What happened in the future can greatly upset fans to calculate how many dozen supersonic anti-ship missiles "Basalt" or "Granite" can shoot down a single destroyer of the "Arlie Burke" type. Indeed, in theory, such anti-ship missiles (already at low altitude) can be detected from twenty to twenty-five kilometers, it takes another 40-50 seconds to fly to the ship, and the "Standard" missile can be fired at a speed of 1 missile per second, and even spending 2 missiles for one anti-ship missile, it turns out that one destroyer of the US fleet is able to cope with almost a full salvo of the Soviet "killer of aircraft carriers" … in theory. Well, in practice, this is what happened.
The three British ships had no reason to relax. They had just completed their combat mission - having escaped from their aircraft carrier, they fired at the enemy coast (the British helicopter from which they tried to adjust the fire, even sank an Argentine patrol boat), and now there was every reason to fear retaliation - an air strike by the Argentines. Native aviation did not cover them, so it was categorically not recommended to remove your palms from the weapon control panels. And so, at a high (most likely supersonic) speed, but at a low altitude, a trio of "Daggers" came out to the British.
Three British ships, which had a total of 4 Sea Cat air defense systems and 2 Sea Slug air defense systems, being on alert and having every reason to expect an air raid, managed to use … exactly 1 (in words - ONE) Sea Cat air defense systems - distinguished "Glamorgan". "Arrow" was able to open fire from an artillery mount (they did not have time on the other ships) and "Alakriti" generally "defended itself" only with machine-gun bursts. What is it? The carelessness of the British crews? On all three ships at once? !!
Of course, "Sea Cat" is outdated by the standards of 1982. Of course, its effectiveness was low. Of course, he was not only inferior in all respects, but completely incomparable with the American "Aegis". But nevertheless, this complex was made to replace the famous 40-mm anti-aircraft machine guns "Bofors" and differed in a relatively short reaction time. And nevertheless, out of 4 air defense systems of this type in a combat situation, only one was able to fire at a high-speed air target! The question is not that the missiles of the British ships did not hit the target, oh no! The question is that with the appearance of high-speed targets, the British air defense systems did not even have time to prepare for firing.
The work of the "Daggers" did not shine with efficiency, which is absolutely not surprising - until the very beginning of the conflict, no one was going to use these aircraft as naval strike aircraft. Therefore, the crews received the very minimum of training in a short pre-war time, and this was completely insufficient. All three planes dropped bombs, none of them hit, but still the total score in this collision was in Argentina's favor - the Daggers, firing at British ships during the attack, achieved at least 11 hits on the frigate Alakriti and easily wounded one member of his crew, they themselves left without getting a scratch.
Such a result did not suit the British at all - and they threw a pair of Sea Harriers in pursuit of the departing Torno strike unit. Probably, if the British had full-fledged fighters, the Argentines would have paid for their courage, but the British did not have them. And the slow-moving Sea Harriers, pursuing the retreating Daggers for 130 km, did not manage to close the distance in order to use their weapons. At the same time, the Argentines were not at all going to give the Torno link to be devoured by British pilots - a pair of Fortunes was at the tail of the two Englishmen trying to catch up with the Daggers. The British, assessing the chances, gave up on pursuit and, not wanting to mess with the Argentines who sat down on their tail, withdrew from the battle. This decision looks somewhat strange - for something, but in the absence of healthy aggressiveness the British pilots cannot be blamed. Perhaps after the pursuit, their planes experienced fuel problems? If so, if the Argentine fighters had enough fuel to pursue the British, they would have a good chance of winning.
The Argentines continued to lift their planes - two flights of Canberra VAS, old bombers created at the very beginning of the fifties, went into the sky. Surprisingly, the fact is that the Sea Harriers managed to intercept both links. True, the low speed of British aircraft did not allow achieving impressive combat success - one flight, noticing the British, was able to break away from them and return to the airfield in full force, but the second was less fortunate: British pilots shot down one Canberra and damaged the other. Be that as it may, not a single Argentine bomber of this type reached the British ships, and the Sea Harriers, for the first and last time in the history of the Falklands conflict, demonstrated almost absolute effectiveness as air defense fighters. According to Rear Admiral Woodworth's memoirs, such a high efficiency is due to the power of the Invincible radar, which detected flying Canberras about 110 miles from the aircraft carrier and guided the nearest air patrol to them.
But the Argentines continued to send their aviation into battle, and the most dangerous for the British would be the raid of a pair of Super Etandars with the Exocet anti-ship missile system - they were supposed to attack the retreating group Glamorgan - Alakriti - Arrow. But it did not work out, because the Argentine tanker aircraft involved in the operation went out of order at the most inopportune moment, and the Super Etandara had to be withdrawn half way. In addition, several groups of Skyhawks were launched into the air. The first of them was able to detect the enemy ship and attacked it, achieving a hit with a 227-kg bomb and several shells. But in reality, the British warship turned out to be a defenseless Argentine transport, so one could only be glad that the bomb did not explode. The rest of the Skyhawks might have been able to hit the target, but … they were scared off by the Falkland Islands flight control ground.
If the Argentine pilots went into battle fearlessly (the Canberra pilots, who honestly tried to find and attack the newest ships of the British in their air junk without fighter cover, according to the author, inscribed their names in gold letters in the history of naval aviation), then the operators and dispatchers at Falkland Air Bases seemed to be slightly panicked. One by one, the Skyhawks flew out to the Falkland Islands, listened to the air in anticipation of target designation to British ships and … received the command to immediately take off, because enemy fighter aircraft were in the air! Since no one covered the Skyhawks, and they themselves could not fight the air enemy, the pilots went on the opposite course and returned home. As for the British, another group of their ships at 21.00 for about half an hour - forty minutes fired at the outskirts of Port Stanley and even killed one Argentine soldier.
Let's try to analyze the results of the first day of battles.
Once again it became clear that "if the pistol is a millimeter farther than you can reach, then you do not have a pistol." Eighty relatively modern and quite combat-ready aircraft of Argentina made a total of only 58 sorties (28 or slightly less - Mirages and Daggers, 28 - Skyhawks and 2 - Super Etandars), of which most of them turned out to be completely a waste of jet fuel. Aviation Argentina, being almost 800 kilometers from Port Stanley, could not provide air defense of the Falkland airbases from 21 British aircraft ("Volcano" and 20 "Sea Harriers").
British aircraft were few, and they were not of the best quality, but the ability to "work" from relatively short distances, which was ensured by the mobility of their "floating airfields", allowed them to strike with complete impunity against enemy ground targets. In aerial combat, the Sea Harriers demonstrated their superiority over the Mirages. However, this superiority was based not on the best performance characteristics of British aircraft, but on the best weapons and correctly selected tactics of air combat. The Sidewinders, which the Sea Harriers were equipped with, had a sufficiently sensitive infrared seeker to “capture” an enemy aircraft from the front hemisphere, which was an extremely unpleasant surprise for Argentine pilots. The Argentines had missiles capable of "capturing" the enemy only from the rear hemisphere, so the task of the Argentines was to follow the Sea Harriers, while the British had enough to impose a battle on the enemy on a collision course. It should also be borne in mind that the British pilots had extensive experience in training air battles with the "Mirages" (which were equipped with the French Air Force) and before being sent to the war they had time to practice well. France did not hide the performance characteristics of its aircraft from Britain, so the British perfectly knew both the strengths and weaknesses of the French fighters. At one time, Argentine tacticians had the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the Harriers (this aircraft was demonstrated in Argentina during a promotional tour in the 70s), but they did not use it.
And yet, having a more advantageous position and having an individual superiority over the enemy, the British carrier-based aircraft failed at least two of the three tasks assigned to it.
Yes, the Sea Harriers were able to strike at the Falklands airbases, but their combat potential was not enough to disable them, thus the first point of the British plan was unfulfilled. An attempt to achieve air supremacy over the Falklands also failed - the British could in no way prevent the Argentines from flying over the islands. There were four aerial battles in this area (an unsuccessful interception of the Mentors and three battles between the Mirages and the Sea Harriers), but all three battles between the Mirages and the British were initiated by the Argentines. Thus, it turned out that even an inferior air control service is significantly better than its absence - out of three air battles between fighters, at least two began as a result of target designation from the ground, and in one of these two cases (the Ardiles attack) the British pilots were taken by surprise …
The only task that the British VTOL aircraft seemed to be able to solve was to cover their ships from attacks by Argentine aviation. Of the three groups of enemy aircraft (three Daggers, Torno and two Canberras), only one flight reached the British ships. But it draws attention to the fact that the success of "S Harriers" (interception of prehistoric "Canberras") is associated with external target designation (radar "Invincible"), but the British pilots failed to thwart the attack of modern "Daggers" or at least punish the latter on withdrawal.
Thus, the results of the first day of fighting were disappointing for both sides. The Argentines suffered significant losses in the latest aircraft, without achieving any result, and were convinced of the imperfection of their island air defense. The British could neither destroy Argentina's airbases in the Falklands, nor achieve air supremacy.
But on the other hand, the Argentines, albeit at the cost of blood, were able to identify the weaknesses of the air defense provided by the Sea Harriers, and could now develop tactics for breaking it. The British also succeeded in something - their activity convinced the Argentine military leadership that a large-scale landing operation had begun. And even before the first air battles boiled over the islands, the main forces of the Argentine fleet headed for the Falklands, having received the order to attack enemy forces at the time of landing.
