# Did Great Britain and Argentina ever declare war in 1982? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 14, 2006, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-great-britain-and-argentina-ever-declare-war-in-1982/348269 "2006-03-14T03:08:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2006, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-great-britain-and-argentina-ever-declare-war-in-1982/348269/41 "2006-03-20T19:00:12Z")
> [@Gladstone](#): > > It doesn’t help that there are homeless veterans, looking very much like Vietnam vets from the '70s, permanently camped out pretty close to the Pink House (the Argentinian presidential palace in Buenos Aires) underneath a big banner that says “Las Islas Mavlinas son Argentinas!” Nice username, **Gladstone**. After the great Liberal PM of the Victorian era, I presume? I read Roy Jenkins’s massive bio of him and was impressed. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2006, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-great-britain-and-argentina-ever-declare-war-in-1982/348269/42 "2006-03-20T19:11:22Z")
Wasn’t the incident that started the conflict something pretty mundane? I believe thta an Argentine scrap dealer started tearing down the old buildings on South georgia Island. the Britishe asked them to stopm, and they ignored it. Anyway, one of the first casualties was an argentine submarine (“Santa Fe”?)-it was an old WWII US Navy sub-and I think the British nailed it from a SeaKing helicopter. Frankly, given the cost of the war, it would have been better to have negotiated a face-saving settlement for both sides. The place is bleak and not worth the loss of life. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2006, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-great-britain-and-argentina-ever-declare-war-in-1982/348269/43 "2006-03-20T20:20:46Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > . As for the Exocet threat, the missiles needed to be got into firing range of the ships, and the Harriers were quite good at preventing that. Gosh, I imagine that would come as a great surprise to the crew of HMS Sheffield and MV Atlantic Conveyor, both destroyed by Exocet launches, and HMS Glamorgan, which was damaged by an Exocet fired from a ground-based launcher. The British did not shoot down any of the Super Etendard fighters that could carry the Exocets, either. Given the full complement of missiles, the weight of fire simply would have been too much; the British never demonstrated any ability to stop the Argentines from using the Exocets. All six were successfuly launched, and three hit their targets; not one of the launching aircraft was even fired upon. ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2006, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-great-britain-and-argentina-ever-declare-war-in-1982/348269/44 "2006-03-20T21:16:39Z")
The thing that caused us most of the problems were dumb bombs, and those Argentine pilots were too brave and skilled for their own good. They kept releasing their bombs too late, and the arming devices didn’t unscrew, a number of bombs simply went in one side of the ships and out the other. It takes one hell of a lot of guts to close on a target at 400 knots, whilst you are being shot at and release your bombs as close as you can before pulling up into relative safety. The Exocets made for good headlines, but its not those that caused all the problems, and yes, its a good thing they didn’t have more of them early on, before we knew the countermeasures to defeat them. A couple were hit by ordinary shells, a couple more dived into the sea, following false targets, at least one other went for a helicopter that simply pulled up and the missile passed uselessly below, and that last was one of our strategies. The Sheffield should not have been lost, if it had been following the correct procedures in a hot zone it would have survived, though put out of action as an effective fighting unit. There’s lots of mistakes here, if we had built a proper aircraft carrier, instead of those Harrier carriers,(through-deck cruiser as they were officially classified) then those Super Entendard would not have got within 400 miles of the fleet, its possibly one of the reasons that the Argentine thought they had a realistic chance, knowing we didn’t have such a carrier. One of the weapons that tipped the balance was the sidewinder, changed the whole air power situation, and once the Argentine forces were isolated on the Falklands, then it was a matter of time, such a large force needs a large amount of supplies, it would have taken longer to starve them out, but it would have defeated them in the end. Yes it started over a mundane event, the so-called ‘scrap merchants’ was an obvious military action to test out our will, and given that we had reacted to previous build ups, once that situation had arisen, I still question why we did nothing but talk, we knew what was going to happen, we had the intelligence and we had past experience, there is no excuse for Thatcher doing nothing until it was way too late, it was done too late for a reason, a war was needed as a last gamble for the Conservatives to remain in power. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2006, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-great-britain-and-argentina-ever-declare-war-in-1982/348269/45 "2006-03-24T19:47:09Z")
> [@casdave](#): > > TheThe Exocets made for good headlines, but its not those that caused all the problems, and yes, its a good thing they didn’t have more of them early on, before we knew the countermeasures to defeat them. > A couple were hit by ordinary shells, a couple more dived into the sea, following false targets, at least one other went for a helicopter that simply pulled up and the missile passed uselessly below, and that last was one of our strategies. casdave, that’s just pure fiction. You’ve counted five there. They only had six, and three hit. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2006, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-great-britain-and-argentina-ever-declare-war-in-1982/348269/46 "2006-03-24T20:39:40Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Gosh, I imagine that would come as a great surprise to the crew of HMS Sheffield and MV Atlantic Conveyor, both destroyed by Exocet launches, and HMS Glamorgan, which was damaged by an Exocet fired from a ground-based launcher. Umm… so what? In war you’re going to take casualties. You’ll note that we didn’t lose Hermes, Invincible, or Canberra. Compared with those, the Sheffield and Glamorgan were expendable. Glamorgan, of course, was put in a very risky situation anyway, providing close-in gunfire support for the troops. Commander Sharkey Ward has these to say about Sheffield: > [@Cdr Ward](#): > > The Staff’s poor understanding and tasking of the Sea Harrier, and unwillingness to trust in its capabilities and those of its pilots, almost certainly let the Argentine Super Etendards within Exocet range > [@Cdr Ward](#): > > This removal of CAP left a large hole in the ouyter ring of the defence of the Group. And behind the ‘hole’ lay the destroyer Sheffield… It was not long before the hole was penetrated by the enemy. The Etendards came straight through the gap and prosecuted their Exocet attack on Sheffield from short range. There was little time for the destroyer to react and by the time the missile was detected it was too late. … but in my mind there was no question about the end result of removing E-J’s CAP pair from their station. This had left the garden gate wide open and the boys in Sheffield paid for the mistake. > [@Rickjay](#): > > The British did not shoot down any of the Super Etendard fighters that could carry the Exocets, either. They turned them, preventing launches, a good few times. They only needed to get into launching range once. It is foolish to expect perfection: as the saying goes, ‘No plan survives contact with the enemy’. The best you can do is to keep losses of men and materiel to acceptable levels. Sometimes you lose a man; sometimes you lose a ship. Deal with it. ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2006, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-great-britain-and-argentina-ever-declare-war-in-1982/348269/47 "2006-03-24T20:55:55Z")
…except for the very slight detail that in fact only six were launched from aircraft, however the one that hit HMS Glamorgan was shore launched, so that makes seven, and you’ll find its more than that… read on. Now depending upon who you believe, others will quote that Argentina had five Exocets, but yet there are definately six air launched ones accounted for. It’s true that they only had five when the war started, however they obtained at least one other, they certainly attempted to obtain more during the course of the war. Next, here’s your quote about the misdirection of other Exocets. [http://www.harpoonhq.com/waypoint/articles/Article\_008.pdf](http://www.harpoonhq.com/waypoint/articles/Article_008.pdf) since its a .pdf I can’t quote the relevant text, but its easy enough to find, note the specific bit that says " It is thought that several Argentine Exocets fell short of their targets or were decoyed by chaff …" I wonder how many 'several would be ? at least three wouldn’t you think. Given that one missed Sheffield, that one missed Atlantic Conveyor others fell short, some were diverted, along with those three that hit, that makes something more than 6. They actually had three based on shore, one that hit Glamorgan, two were recalibrated for shore launching but never fired. > [@](#): > > 3 April 1981 > French engineers and technicians calibrating Exocet missiles leave Buenos Aires. With little technical expertise in such matters, the Argentine military manages to calibrate three Exocets and to launch one of those from Puerto Argentino. [Note: The difficulty in obtaining additional Exocets motivates acceleration of the Cóndor missile project. [http://www.nti.org/e\_research/profiles/Argentina/Missile/1734\_1797.html](http://www.nti.org/e_research/profiles/Argentina/Missile/1734_1797.html) > [@](#): > > On the 25th of May, Argentina’s Independence Day and its greatest national holiday, the FAS mounted a major air effort. Although it lost three aircraft in the morning while trying unsuccessfully to get at the British fleet, in the afternoon, FAS Skyhawks succeeded in hitting the destroyer HMS Coventry with three bombs, causing it to sink in half an hour. At about 1630, Super Etendards of the 2d Escuadrilla launched two Exocet missiles at the HMS Invincible, stationed north of the landing site. As before, one Exocet went astray after possibly being hit by British antiaircraft fire… > > …On 30 May 1982, the 2d Escuadrilla made its last Exocet attack on the carrier HMS Invincible, following up with a n attack by a flight of Skyhawks. Argentine forces, to this day, claim that they hit and crippled the Invincible with both the Exocet and the Skyhawks’ bombs. Apparently, the Exocet was shot down by Royal Navy antiaircraft fire and the hulk of the Atlantic Conveyor was mistaken for the HMS Invincible and attacked by the Skyhawks. Despite Argentinian claims, no British damage resulted from their last Exocet attack. [http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi\_m0NXL/is\_3\_16/ai\_94269861/pg\_5](http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0NXL/is_3_16/ai_94269861/pg_5) This is the missile that was shot down by a 4.5" gun, as I stated earlier. So what we now have, is two fired at Sheffied, one hits one misses, two fired at Atlantic conveyor, one hit, one miss, two at HMS Invincible - two misses, one shot down the other decoyed - into the sea. Three on shoreside, one fired one hit two not used. That makes a total of at least nine, my guess is that you were not aware that there was more than one version of the Exocet, and you have only taken into account the air launched weapons and not the shore based variants. [http://www.vectorsite.net/twbomb9.html](http://www.vectorsite.net/twbomb9.html) Now ok, I’ll hold my hands up to being out by perhaps two, many UK poster will remember Prince Andrews account of one of his duties when piloting Sea Kings from HMS Invincible where he mentions the helicopter role of decoying Exocets. However, you claim that what I’ve posted in this matter is ‘pure fiction’ is also far off the mark, I reckon I have demonstrated that your numbers were also out and my accounts of what happenend to most of them are reasonably well backed up. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-great-britain-and-argentina-ever-declare-war-in-1982/348269.md?page=2)