Mikey wrote:The runway was only partially put out of commission, by your own explanation.
The runway was completely out of action - there was a damn great hole smack in the middle of it. The Argentines were able to fill the hole in and get it back in service for Hercs, but they never operated fast jets out of Stanley for the duration of the war.
Mikey wrote:Pity that any of our victory celebrations in war generally have to revolve around a large-scale loss of life.
Who's celebrating? More Argentine sailors dying in a few seconds than the British armed forces lost in the entire war isn't something to celebrate, but there was an objective to be achieved, and it was achieved. Satisfaction at that fact isn't synonymous with celebration.
Only two things are infinite - the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the universe: Albert Einstein.
Captain Seafort wrote:The runway was completely out of action - there was a damn great hole smack in the middle of it. The Argentines were able to fill the hole in and get it back in service for Hercs, but they never operated fast jets out of Stanley for the duration of the war.
Ah, I thought you said that C-130's were still able to operate from the airfield after the run, which would imply "continuously able to operate from the airfield."
Captain Seafort wrote:Who's celebrating? More Argentine sailors dying in a few seconds than the British armed forces lost in the entire war isn't something to celebrate, but there was an objective to be achieved, and it was achieved. Satisfaction at that fact isn't synonymous with celebration.
Don't get defensive, I said "any of our," not "your." Leading with something akin to "We have another anniversary of an unqualified success" sounds a lot more like celebration than "Unfortunately 320 men were lost during..." Just a misinterpretation of your tone, is all - I wasn't trying to attack you, you can lay your quills down.
I can't stand nothing dull
I got the high gloss luster
I'll massacre your ass as fast
as Bull offed Custer
Mikey wrote:I obviously don't have the sort of first-person viewpoint as you do; I can only imagine that if it were the U.S. involved and we said that "we're going to show them that we can - and will - take out an airbase near Buenos Aires," then I wouldn't have considered it a complete success unless we actually took out said airbase.
And if we had said we were going to do that, I'd see it as a failure too. But the British were perfectly well aware that the Argentines had C130s and Pucaras, and that there was no way they were going to incapacitate the runway for aircraft like that. It's not sensible to call something a failure because it didn't achieve something it wasn't intended to achieve.
Give a man a fire, and you keep him warm for a day. SET a man on fire, and you will keep him warm for the rest of his life...
Captain Seafort wrote:And, as Graham commented, we have another anniversary today. At 15:57 on 2 May 1982, Her Majesty's Submarine Conqueror fired a spread of three Mk 8 torpedoes at ARA General Belgrano. Two hit, and she sank a little over an hour later, with the loss of over 320 of her crew. Black Buck might not have been an unqualified success, but the sinking of the Belgrano certainly was - the Argentine surface fleet went back to port and stayed there for the duration.
A victory and a tragedy both. RIP to the poor souls who lost their lives that day.
Give a man a fire, and you keep him warm for a day. SET a man on fire, and you will keep him warm for the rest of his life...
GrahamKennedy wrote:And if we had said we were going to do that, I'd see it as a failure too. But the British were perfectly well aware that the Argentines had C130s and Pucaras, and that there was no way they were going to incapacitate the runway for aircraft like that. It's not sensible to call something a failure because it didn't achieve something it wasn't intended to achieve.
Perhaps. Perhaps my read on the matter pertains more to the intent than to the effect. In the day of modern jets, I guess I don't see the "shock and awe" value of showing the Argentines that you could partially damage a runway. If the intent was, in fact, to partially and temporarily close the runway, then you're correct - it isn't fair to call it a failure.
I can't stand nothing dull
I got the high gloss luster
I'll massacre your ass as fast
as Bull offed Custer
Looking through that news footage I posted earlier, the contrast between the way news was reported then and now is really quite startling.
For one, they are all British broadcasts - many from the BBC, no less. Yet at no point does any of the anchors refer to "Our" forces. It is always "The British" forces. Some of the reporters on scene do the "we/us/our" thing, but for the most part the reporting is scrupulously non-partisan.
For another, the reports are loaded with actual facts. In fact, that's almost all they are. Again, reporters in the field will talk about how people feel sometimes, but for the most part the reports are simple "This has happened. It happened at this time, and in this place. Mrs Thatcher said this about it, the Argentines said that about it." there is an almost total lack of commentary - there is very little in the way of interpreting the events, and what there is of that is wholly focused on the factual implications. At no point does anybody tell you what you should make of any of it. There is no 'spin' at all, there aren't even any talking heads. The type of reporting where you're told something has happened and then some commentator is interviewed to tell us all what to think about it is totally absent.
How times have changed.
Give a man a fire, and you keep him warm for a day. SET a man on fire, and you will keep him warm for the rest of his life...
Mikey wrote:Yeah, you and I are old enough to remember when the news contained... news.
Wait,
There is only one way of avoiding the war – that is the overthrow of this society. However, as we are too weak for this task, the war is inevitable. -L. Trotsky, 1939
Deepcrush wrote:So the British attacks showed that the British intense to attack... Not a surprise of any kind.
It was to the Argies - they thought we'd accept their occupation as a fait accompli.
The Doolittle raid was sent to show Americans that we could reach Japan in return. An issue in doubt during WWII, not in the Falklands.
On the contrary - Black Buck demonstrated that the Falklands were in range of land-based bombers. Quite a feat, given that the nearest base was 4000 miles away, and no air attack had ever been mounted over such a distance.
The Stanley raids were intended to take out an airfield.
As part of their objective. The other part was to demonstrate that we had the will and the capability to take the fight to the Argies, and if we could reach Stanley we could reach Buenos Ares.
None of this however is the rival of the Doolittle Raid. Which is the point that GK has been trying to mule into place.
Another anniversary - that of Operation Sutton, the landing of 3 Commando Brigade on East Falkland, and the first day of the Battle of San Carlos Water.
Only two things are infinite - the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the universe: Albert Einstein.
It's so strange to be reliving this all again. There's a ton of stuff on youtube that was filmed at the time, brings back lots of memories.
It's quite remarkable how stoic people were about it all. Our ships being sunk, our men killed daily - couple of hundred altogether, on our side, IIRC. Whilst it did raise "have we short changed the military" types of question (the answer is yes we did, and still do), people really did seem to accept that there was a "fortunes of war" element to it all. I remember one day we lost two ships in the same day, and the line the military commanders used to sum it up was "we had a good morning; they had a good afternoon." I can't imagine people being that phlegmatic about it all if we were losing ships like this today.
Today it seems we expect war to go perfectly for us.
Give a man a fire, and you keep him warm for a day. SET a man on fire, and you will keep him warm for the rest of his life...
What's the difference, I wonder? Have we somehow grown less jaded? Or is it perhaps a factor of "here" vs. "there?" While the Falkland conflict was far smaller in scale than the combined recent Middle East operations, it was on and about UK territory. Was there, perhaps, an attitude of it being more understandable for British soldiers fighting and dying on and for British territory than some half-world-away sand pit? As Vergil said, "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori."
I can't stand nothing dull
I got the high gloss luster
I'll massacre your ass as fast
as Bull offed Custer
I guess the wars we've fought over the last couple of decades have made us believe that war can be relatively painless. Not the long drawn out insurgency/terrorist phase that comes after you occupy a place, but the initial "armies fighting battles" stuff. The public perception seems to be that so long as you spend enough on super high tech killing machines, you can make war easy.
Give a man a fire, and you keep him warm for a day. SET a man on fire, and you will keep him warm for the rest of his life...
