WI: Argentine bombs during the Falklands War not defective.

[usertron2020]

Wasn't the problem for the Argentines linked to the inability of the Argentine Air Force and Navy to make nice? If I understand correctly, the A-4Q Skyhawks used by the AN were more successful because of the tactic of "bomb lobbing", allowing the bomb to spend more time in the air while the aircraft was still at minimum altitude. Problem was, the AN wasn't telling the AAF about this. So the AAF was dropping their bombs directly on target, and the fuses couldn't activate in time before the bomb was smashed on impact. These were WWII bombs designed to be dropped by aircraft some 200-300 mph slower than what a Skyhawk or Mirage could perform.

On the subject of afterburners? The overwhelming number of strike aircraft owned by Argentina were the subsonic (no afterburners) A-4Q's.

Gunnarnz

You make an excellent point. The Argentine pilots had to approach at no more than ten feet off the water's surface to avoid British naval radar. That eats fuel like nobody's business. Add on no traffic control for the Argentinians, no way to vector aircraft to their targets (except a civilian Learjet impressed into national service), and there really was no way to engage successfully in air-to-air engagements with the British. Throw in the AIM-9 Sidewinder, which the Argies didn't know Britain was using*, and it meant the AAF and AN were reduced to hit and run tactics.

Although technically the AAF and AN had some 200+ A-4Q Skyhawks alone, due to age even the Argentinians could not know whether each individual aircraft could perform to its maximum RATED range capability in that kind of weather conditions. One reason why they didn't go for the "alpha-strike" everyone was expecting. Too many planes were being forced to turn back. The mirages could make it, but Argentina had a lot fewer of them, and so they tended to come to grief earlier.

Does an 11 year old car still have the mpg it did coming off the showroom floor?

Technically, Britain's advanced Sidewinders couldn't be used, as they were in the untouchable NATO war stocks. But Uncle Sam made up the difference.

 

[Shooter]

Not WW-II vintage bombs!

They were all reasonably new manufacture Mk-80 serries bombs. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the bombs, or their fuzes. The fault was with the Argi Pilots who screwed the pooch as they say.

 

[Flayer]

Argentine missiles were a whole generation behind. They were only able to obtain a lock within visual range and from behind an enemy aircraft. Air-to-air fighting would have been hopeless. Also, they were limited to sending four Skyhawks per strike because they only had two refueling aircraft.

Some of the bombs were screwy. Even some of the Exocets failed to detonate on impact.

What impresses me almost more than the successful airstrikes was how they managed to keep their airlift to the troops on the islands going right up through the final days of the campaign. How did they manage that?

 

[Shooter]

???

I was in the business back then and was not aware that the UK had bought any of the newest 'winders and the All Aspect versions used with such deadly efficiency were units that England promised to pay for later. There are several versions and the lack of cooling gas in the Harrier made the slightly older ones that were bought for the Tornado, incompatible.

 

[Riain]

The bomb thing was insoluble more or less, drop them from high enough and get shot down but there wasn`t nearly enough retarding machanisms available for retarded bombs. Even then there is a lot of coordination needed to aviod bomb blast for retarded and delay fused bombs, which is difficult when Sea Harriers are around to break up attacks. If 5 inch rockets had been used as well the Argies should have had more success.

There was a single Argie air to air victory in the Falklands, a Pucara shot down a Britsh helicopter. No Harrier was sucessfully engaged in air to air combat although several were shot down by ground fire including one by a Roland SAM.

 

[Armored Diplomacy]

There was a single Argie air to air victory in the Falklands, a Pucara shot down a Britsh helicopter.

That was a medevac helicopter called in to evacuate the dying Lt. Col. H. Jones.

 

[StevoJH]

If Hermes or Invincible had been damaged, the British would have come back with Illustrious (OTL, it arrived in the Falklands soon after the war finished to relieve Hermes + Invincible).

Don't forget Bulwark and the possibility of the Tigers if there is more Lead Time.

Plus any delay brings forward the possibility of additional Sea Wolf Leanders, T22's and T42's being in service.

 

[The Oncoming Storm]

There's no question of all about the skill and bravery of Argentine pilots, all the accounts from British personnel attestify to that. The other area where they fell down was in tactics, I read an account of one of the first air battles in which a flight of Harriers engaged Argentine fighters, the flight leader noted how the Argentines were flying very close together in what the Americans call "welded wing" flying, something which they always taught not to do. Not surprisingly the Harriers won the engagement.

 

[Guilherme Loureiro]

Although technically the AAF and AN had some 200+ A-4Q Skyhawks alone,

Actually, about 80 A-4P and -Q, of which some 50-55 were available, IIRC.

 

[elkarlo]

If you get the chance read the link I posted. Written by a US air force officer and it talks about the losses the Argentinians suffered on the first day which conviced them to give up trying to compete with the Brits in the air.

Reading it now. I believe I was misinformed. I think the source was an officers opinion, and the article was based on that alone.

 

[hairysamarian]

What impresses me almost more than the successful airstrikes was how they managed to keep their airlift to the troops on the islands going right up through the final days of the campaign. How did they manage that?

They certainly had the capacity to get the supplies out to the islands, but apparently lacked either the will or the capacity to distribute them in the field. Hasting and Jenkins record this detail in The Battle for the Falklands: "As they straggled back through Port Stanley, [Private] Santiago described how young conscripts broke down and cried when they saw 'depots stashed with food and clothes which had never got to us.' "

 

[67th Tigers]

I was in the business back then and was not aware that the UK had bought any of the newest 'winders and the All Aspect versions used with such deadly efficiency were units that England promised to pay for later. There are several versions and the lack of cooling gas in the Harrier made the slightly older ones that were bought for the Tornado, incompatible.

The FAA had stocks of both AIM-9G and AIM-9L. The 9L were all in NATO warstocks rather than sovereign warstocks. This meant that using them would be a technical breach of the NATO treaty. The UK sent them anyway and arranged for a purchase to replace those taken out of the NATO stocks from US sovereign stocks.

 

[Riain]

I read that the US sent 9Ls to Asenscion where they were picked up by the fleet on the way past.

 

[The Oncoming Storm]

The U.S. also supplied Shrike ARM's that were used by Vulcans for SEAD missions against Stanley Airfield. There's a story in Rowland White's book Vulcan 607 about how they were fitted at Ascension by "men with American accents who claimed to be South African..."

 

[SunilTanna]

They certainly had the capacity to get the supplies out to the islands, but apparently lacked either the will or the capacity to distribute them in the field. Hasting and Jenkins record this detail in The Battle for the Falklands: "As they straggled back through Port Stanley, [Private] Santiago described how young conscripts broke down and cried when they saw 'depots stashed with food and clothes which had never got to us.' "

Lack of distribution, might have something to do, that wheeled vehicles couldn't make it into the hills.

Argentine field discipline/organisation was notoriously poor, e.g. officers treating men badly, field punishments, and shit everywhere (literally) around the fortifications.

 

[juanml82]

Lack of distribution, might have something to do, that wheeled vehicles couldn't make it into the hills.

Indeed. However, that didn't stop the NVA from supplying their troops in far harsher terrain than the Falklands 10 years before.

Back on topic, as some bombs did explode and this is an alternate history site, the pod is reasonable.
Effects? More escorts sunk means more chances for transport ships to be hit, which would have disastrous results for the British Task Force. As such, it might have ended in an Argentinean victory in the air-naval battle, at a high cost. That doesn't necessarily means the end of the war, as the British could:
a) Retort to nuclear or chemical weapons
b) Blockade the islands
c) Ask the USA and France to join and send their more capable carriers
d) Use a), b) and c) as negotiating tools to agree in some kind of peace treaty that doesn't end with neither Thatcher nor Galtieri's political career.

Those options are open to speculation, as Thatcher never publicly claimed she considered anything in such a case and, even if she had, she could have been lying. In other words, claiming "I know this would have happened" it's foolish.