WI Britain used the bomb?

Although SAS did land covertly on the mainland as noted, in general Argentine territory including territorial waters was regarded as inviolable, with a view to keeping on the right side of world opinion and not escalating the conflict. British subs spent days shadowing Argentine warships praying that they would just slip up, but they stayed coast-hugging even when extremely inconvenient to do so. They were right of course that not doing it would turn out to be rather more than inconvenient for them.

As for attacking the mainland itself, that would have been very difficult. The carriers were busy providing air cover over the islands, and also did not wish to get in range of Argentine attack themselves, as they would have had to. A Black Buck mission could have been mounted, but they were logistical marvels and feats of courage and endurance as it was, without adding an extra few hundred miles each way and Argentine fighters and air defences to face. Cruise missiles as noted we did not have. So an SSBN would really have been the only option, and that being a terrible idea for any number of reasons we basically had to allow the Argentines to operate from safe havens.
 

Hkelukka

Banned
The ability to launch a nuclear device is not the same as the intention to use it in the present conflict. Russia moved 2 SSBM's to south-osseatia in the Georgian war recently, but did anyone really think they would use those to nuke Georgia? Nuclear weapons are political weapons, not military weapons, especially if we talk about city-buster size weapons.

First things first, if we want a seriously escalated falklands war we need to establish a POD that for one, makes the UK take the situation seriously and for argentina to actually be a serious military power, something akin to a strong military buildup by Argentina during the 70's plus a very strong support for the president instead of the way it went historically. Combined with a resurgence of nationalist "Europeans/Yanks out of S-America". Then a strong show of support for argentina by its neigbours. But that would require an almost entirely different global situation and a POD at least 10-15 years before. Then possibly with considerably larger naval engagements that go very badly for the UK, then bringing in Nato and such then yeah, we might see UK using the bomb during the Falklands war. But as it was in historic, the probability of UK using the bomb during Falklands war is about the same as UK using the bomb against quebec, so far up the realm of ASB that it might actually make an interesting storyline.

If UK actually asked all its historic allies for committment + did a real heavy duty diplomatic offensive + all things needed and prepared to level the military junta ala Bush and Iraq they could. Anyway, UK using nukes needs something about 10 times more dangerous to UK than the falklands war, only realistic situation i could even remotely think of for that post cold war that cant be solved with conventional weapons, diplomacy or allies would be something like i described earlier.
 

Devvy

Donor
The Falklands are no where near valuable enough to use a nuclear missile over though; if conventional warfare had failed, then Britain would of just shrugged it's shoulders, lodged all the diplomatic protests in the world and then continued as normal. Although there are some clues to potential oil round there now, I can't see any reason for Britain to be that miffed over losing the Falklands.

Plus although Falklands are British, they are not in the UK - would Britain be able to invoke the NATO pact?
 

Cook

Banned
This is for a novel I'm planning on writing, I'd like to see the most plausible reason Britain would have for using a nuclear weapon against another nation, be it over border disputes, terrorism by another government or invasion seeing as I feel that many nuclear thrillers normally revolve around the US/Russia

During Confrontation the RAF stationed V bombers with 50kt gravity bomb payloads in Malaysia to deter Indonesia. Seems like a hell of a lot of overkill considering Indonesia’s very limited capabilities but there you go.
 
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The Falklands are no where near valuable enough to use a nuclear missile over though; if conventional warfare had failed, then Britain would of just shrugged it's shoulders, lodged all the diplomatic protests in the world and then continued as normal. Although there are some clues to potential oil round there now, I can't see any reason for Britain to be that miffed over losing the Falklands.

Plus although Falklands are British, they are not in the UK - would Britain be able to invoke the NATO pact?

No. NATO does not apply outside Europe, North America or the North Atlantic. (Tropic of Capricorn if I remember rightly)
 
The only way I think the UK would use nuclear weapons would be if for some reason the Argentinian navy had sorties en masse so that their cruiser, aircraft carrier and associated ships posed a serious threat to the British task forces. Maybe the British submarines were in the wrong position, they didn't find them, one of them has to return because of a mechanical failure etc. but whatever. Not wanting to take the risk the British decide to drop a nuclear bomb and take them all out at the same time.

I honestly can't see them ever targeting an Argentinian city and even military bases could still cause civilian casualties from the surrounding population centres. They're not about to nuke their own territory so hitting a naval target at sea seems to be the only acceptable target in my opinion.
 
Another possible scenario could have been Hong Kong, I'm sure I read that during the Cold War Britain tried to get America to promise that if China invaded Hong Kong it would use nuclear weapons in a British version of Operation Vulture that the French wanted at Dien Bien Phu.

So here's the scenario, in the early 60's China starts becoming increasingly belligerent over Hong Kong, in response V-Bombers with Blue Steel missiles are despatched to Singapore. Urged on by nationalistic elements Mao orders the PLA across the border, Britain immediately issues an ultimatum "withdraw or else," the garrison is driven back into the city and clearly it's only a matter of time. Therefore Macmillan makes the call to Singapore and a few hours later, Guangzhou and other cities in South China are vaporised.

How likely is this and what would have been the ramifications?
 
To be honest, the most likely use of nuclear weapons by Britain I see would be in a no World War I TL were the Leftist elements of Nationalist Chinese took over and went the Communist. Chinse intervention in Burma or northern India escalating to an attack on Hong Kong could just about see British nuclear weapons being used in a tactical role, as just another bomb, without a prior use on civilians to establish their taboo status.
 
I believe there was some mention (to the Iraqi leader, Qasim) of the fact that RN Scimitars were capable of carrying atomic weapons during the 1961 Kuwait Crisis (Operation Vantage)
 
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