The Falklands War, 1982: Official U.S. Navy Report on Lessons Learned and Military Analysis of the British Execution of the Recapture of the Falkland Islands, Operation Corporate

This report, professionally converted for accurate flowing-text e-book format reproduction, reproduces two U.S. government studies of the 1982 Falklands War. The first is the official U.S. Navy "Lessons of the Falklands Summary Report" which cover all aspects of the British offensive to retake the islands, including: Air Operations, Antiair Warfare/Antiship Missile Defense, Antisubmarine Warfare, Antisurface Warfare, Amphibious Warfare, Command, Control, and Communications, Electronic Warfare, Intelligence, Environmental Conditions, Logistics/Sustainability, Mine Warfare, Personnel, Press Coverage, Readiness and Mobilization, Ship Survivability, Special Forces Operations, Submarine Operations, and Surface Snip Operations.

The second document is a recent military thesis study, The Need for the United States of America's Amphibious Capability in an Era of Maritime Focus - covering British Conditions Before 1982, The "Malvinas Issue", Operation Corporate, Operation Corporate: Events At Fitzroy, Falklands Lessons Learned, and Significance To The United States In The 21st Century.

As in nearly every battle in recorded history, the performance, training, and morale of the personnel involved were the most important determinants in the outcome. The Argentine armed forces relied heavily on conscription and had a low experience level, being trained primarily for internal security and border defense. British armed forces, like their U.S. counterparts, are entirely volunteer. Their training and exercising is oriented toward combat against the Soviet armed forces and they participate extensively in a wide variety of offensive and defensive NATO military exercises. The performance and morale of personnel in all elements of the British forces was uniformly high, and their training and experience were significantly higher than were the Argentines'. Argentine Air Force and Navy pilots performed extremely effectively, demonstrating a high degree of dedication and courage. The approximately 1,000 Argentine Marines who took part in the conflict showed a considerably higher level of experience and morale than their Army counterparts, who were generally young, inexperienced conscripts with only a few months service and only minimal training. A comparison of staff planning, logistic support, troop employment, and overall combat condition of ground troops suggests a substantial British advantage in quality of leadership preceding and during the battle.

There are obvious limitations in extrapolating useful comparisons from a very limited conflict. However, the repeated success of Argentine aircraft in penetrating British defenses in daylight, and attacking forces afloat and ashore, provides a sound basis on which to draw some lessons. The British fleet lacked adequate fleet air defense in depth, including the essential keystone of Airborne Early Warning and long-range air defense fighters with multiple missile capability. Virtually none of the aircraft which hit the British ships from mainland bases in Argentina could have done so had there been modern, full-sized carrier airwings in the opposing force. A well-rounded complement of aerial surveillance aircraft, interceptors, antisubmarine aircraft and all-weather attack bombers would have made all the difference. The British were further hampered by a lack of modern radars, target identification systems, data management systems, and electronic warfare equipment in their fleet. The outer air defense rarely consisted of more than four SEA HARRIERs, each with a short-range intercept radar, carrying only two air-to-air missiles each.