“Stick it up your Junta”, The Sun, 20 April 1982
The Falklands War, fought between United Kingdom (UK) and Argentina over the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands, offers contemporary examples of multi-domain operations and Anti-Access/Area-Denial (A2/AD) warfare. Despite being fought 40 years ago, the lessons learned are applicable to the Australian Defence Force, specifically Army’s air defence specialists as they prepare to operate in a contested, multi-domain environment.
This paper is a two-part series that will explore the Falklands War from an air defence perspective, drawing on official after-action reviews and personal accounts. The first paper will discuss multi-domain operations exploring force preparation, force projection, and combat operations. The second paper will analyse the lessons learned from the campaign as told by the Ground Based Air Defence (GBAD) commanders, extending those lessons through to the modern Australian Army with the intent to promote discussion on the complexity of conducting A2/AD[1] tasks as part of a multi-domain operation.
Prelude to Operations
The Falkland Islands archipelago is located in the South Atlantic Ocean, approximately 500km off the coast of Argentina and 12,000km from England. Due to windswept Antarctic conditions, the archipelago consists of rugged mountain ranges, peat covered valleys, relatively sheltered harbours, and little to no vegetation. On 2nd April 1982, Argentine forces led by Lieutenant General Leopoldo Galtieri, launched the invasion of the Falklands with the purpose of reclaiming sovereignty in a hope to reunite the Argentinian population behind the government in patriotic fervour.
In response to Argentine aggression, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher declared a war zone of 200 miles around the Falklands. The British Government quickly assembled a Task Force built around two aircraft carriers, HMS Hermes and Invincible, an air component consisting of carrier-based BAE Sea Harrier aircraft, and a reinforced 3rd Commando Brigade, supported by very short range air defence systems (VSHORAD) from the Royal Artillery.[2] The British operation was given the code-name Operation Corporate.
The British intent was to commit the Task Force as soon as possible as the transit time was approximately 30 days. Naval ships were re-purposed and civilian ships were requisitioned to support operations. Ships were loaded with supplies so fast that in some cases no inventories were taken, and the tactical loading sequence was not followed in order to prevent delays. This decision was made with the intent to cross-load into combat load configuration en-route at Ascension Island; however, it was later discovered that there were no deepwater docks at Ascension Islands to facilitate this occurring. The first elements of the Task Force sailed for the Falklands on 5 April 1982, three days after the Argentine invasion.
The Argentine invasion quickly occupied the townships of Stanley and Goose Green, giving them harbours and airfields critical to the defence of the Falklands. In response, the British launched extremely long-range strikes conducted by the Royal Air Force[3], surprising the Argentinians and demonstrating British resolve and capability while also rendering the Falkland Islands airfields unusable and pushing the majority of Argentine Air Force (FAA) back to mainland Argentina. The distance of force projection shaped operations – logistics critical for British land operations would have to stay afloat until an amphibious lodgement had occurred. In the prelude to the amphibious landings, the Royal Navy fleet was concerned about the significant air and missile threat posed from the FAA and their Exocet missile capability.[4] As a result, Port San Carlos was chosen as the beachhead for amphibious operations and the initial lodgement of ground forces due to the protection it afforded the Royal Navy.
Air Defence Design
The Exocet missile threat forced the Royal Navy aircraft carriers to remain further from the Falklands coast, with the Harriers providing defensive counter air (DCA) operations through combat air patrols (CAP). Initially, the air component did not have a clear mission statement, and the unspecified and unclear mission made it difficult to measure success. With the lack of a clear mission and limited time on station of the Harrier, their employment was centred on detecting, intercepting, and destroying aircraft prior to commencing their attack missions.
The FAA, as a result of operating from Argentina had a drastically reduced time on station, and therefore rather than challenging for air superiority, focussed on countering amphibious landings. The FAA had developed tactics to counter the Task Force. FAA pilots had been practising air strikes against their own ships, which included destroyers of the same class as the Royal Navy.
This meant that FAA pilots knew the radar horizon, detection distances, and reaction times of the ships’ radar. FAA pilots also employed a technique known as ‘pecking the lobes’, where FAA pilots would use the aircraft radar warning receiver to probe the side lobes of the ships radar, meaning aircraft could avoid detection for longer by avoiding the main lobe of the emitting radar. This posed significant challenges to Task Force, where the air defence design in support of the amphibious landings had to be robust enough to counter the FAA threat.
The air defence design for the amphibious lodgement consisted of a joint force organised into three tiers; outer, middle, and inner tier – each designed to support each other through cueing. The outer tier consisted of Harrier CAP, cued by naval horizon radar and supplemented by observation posts near the coast of Argentina. The middle tier was a layered naval surface-based defence consisting medium and short-range missiles and naval anti-aircraft guns supplemented by ship-borne Blowpipe systems.
The inner tier consisted of GBAD provided by Rapier and Blowpipe surface to air missile systems, supplemented by All Arms Air Defence (AAAD) in the form of general-purpose machine guns and tracer rounds. The air defence design relied on organic radar and passage of information via voice, as there were no airborne early warning systems in theatre.
Lodgement
The amphibious lodgement at San Carlos occurred from 21 to 25 May. The intent was to establish a secure beachhead through firstly deploying ground manoeuvre forces to secure the area, followed by deploying ground-based air defences ashore. The restrictive nature of the San Carlos harbour forced the amphibious force to remain relatively fixed in place during the landing.
The FAA had early success through conducting A2/AD operations, seizing the initiative to utilise the surrounding terrain as cover to conduct fast speed, low altitude strike packages. The FAA concentrated their attack on naval forces supporting the amphibious landing. Conversely, the Task Force air defence design was not working effectively against the FAA sorties. The outer defensive belt faced serious problems in locating aircraft with sufficient speed in order to disseminate warning information to firing units.
As a result, the Harriers often engaged enemy aircraft after they had released their munitions, and the middle and inner tiers had reduced warning of incoming attacks. The middle tiers’ high altitude naval missiles were not effective against the FAA low level, low altitude attack profiles (Tocchet 1988). This placed greater reliance on the inner tier of defence to support air, sea, and land operations. However, the inner tier had issues in getting their equipment ashore[5], establishing defensive positions, and the serviceability of the Rapier equipment.
The VSHORAD capability and AAAD achieved limited success; however, it alone was not a large enough to cover the entire landing force. Establishing the beachhead took much longer than expected, with Royal Navy vessels being withdrawn with only those unloading allowed in the area. This meant that the Royal Navy was going to be increasingly exposed in San Carlos harbour and for longer duration in order to conduct the lodgement. Following the difficulties of the first day, the air defence design started to improve, with all tiers working effectively to counter the continued FAA attacks, albeit at significant cost to both British and Argentine forces.
Once the beachhead was secure, the land forces moved quickly to secure the major objectives – namely the townships of Stanley and Goose Green. GBAD VSHORAD systems were deployed to support critical assets and ground manoeuvre clearance operations; however, employment was hampered due to extremely limited lift capability[6]. The GBAD units were largely responsible for keeping the FAA away from direct engagement with ground forces.
The FAA reported that as soon as the Rapier and Blowpipe units were fully deployed it became too dangerous to attack the ground manoeuvre force (Royal Artillery 1983). On 14 June 1982, after intense fighting and numerous encounter battles, the Argentine forces surrendered. Operation Corporate lasted for approximately 10 weeks and restored sovereignty of the Falklands back to the UK; however, it came at considerable cost to lives and capability. The operation highlighted the complexities of conducting A2/AD tasks, as well as the importance of redundancy in the air defence design, employment, and logistic support during all phases of a multi-domain operation.
Part two in this series will explore air defence design and its employment during the Falklands War to identify lessons applicable to the Australian Army.
Of course, in 1982, AD weapons were in a state of change just as we are now ( Kamikaze UAV, small drones, and Hypersonic missiles have surprised those armies asleep at the wheel - is that us?), and the UK was thought to be relatively well equipped except for the fact they did not have light 20mm guns like most NATO and indeed the Argentinians. The RA had Rapier, and Blowpipe. Both require skilled operators and good early warning to be effective. Blowpipe in particular required a gunner who had the spatial awareness and hand and eye coordination of a cartoon action hero. The lack of LAA guns was probably the difference between effective GBAD and the poor performance of the missile gunners - successful claims for RA missiles are as low as two confirmed shoot downs. LAA guns would have been more rugged and reactive, and may have forced the aircraft into flight profiles more conducive to successful missile engagement. I am not sure that is true about guns today, but we cannot afford to use NASAMS/AIM9/AMRAAM against light attack UAV so we need to come up with other methods. Maybe combo MHTK missile and EW?
Either way, I look forward to part 2.