Military Lessons of the Falkland Islands War: Views From the United States by Bruce W Watson

Author:Bruce W Watson [Watson, Bruce W]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, General
ISBN: 9780429705663
Google: 2tlGEAAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 59316431
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2021-11-28T00:00:00+00:00

MILITARY LESSONS LEARNED

The use of high technology weaponry caused a marked advantage for the offensive over the defensive. While more than a billion dollars worth of equipment was expended by both sides, the casualty rates show the British losing only 255 men and the Argentines about three times as many.

!he war demonstrated that:

The antiship missiles used tended to hit well above the waterline of a ship and destroy it more by the resulting fires than by blast damage.

Missiles were efficient in all-weather conditions and were usable around the clock. The heavy seas and low visibility conditions of the Falklands area seemed to have little effect on missile performance.

Because of their relatively high cost, smart missiles were in short supply and were husbanded for use against selected high-value targets. However, in the press of conflict, they were expended against lesser targets.

Antiship missiles were best used when they had a high element of tactical surprise. The Exocet hits were on targets which were virtually unaware of an impending missile attack. When antiship missiles were expected, the use of decoys proved to be effective in preventing them from hitting their targets.

An antiship missile fired from a shore battery with its land background enjoyed a high element of surprise since the land clutter prevented detection of the firing units, and only when the missile was well clear of land was it detected.

Amphibious landings which used the protection of a land background made it extremely difficult for a smart antiship missile to acquire its target. Therefore, such landings were done best in coves or up estuaries rather than on an ocean-fronted beach with a clear view out to sea.

The sea-skimmers, whether missiles or aircraft, proved most difficult to combat. The lower the trajectory, the more difficult it was for fire control systems to weed out sea return and the confusing multipath radar returns which made tracking of the missile particularly difficult.

Fire-and-forget missiles showed a marked tactical advantage over missiles which required the illumination of a target to home on. The attacking aircraft had to maintain a radar lock on the target until weapon impact. This not only greatly hazarded the aircraft but restricted the range of the weapon.

The employment of low-cost Sea Skua missiles in inshore waters against low-value but militarily important targets indicated the need for such a smart standoff weapon. Moreover, the range of the Sea Skuas allowed the delivery of the weapon outside the range of point defense systems, particularly those of low-cost simple operation, such as Blowpipes or Rapiers.

The need to program electronic emission interception and analyzing equipment (ESM) for emissions of smart missiles of western manufacture was evident as British equipment appeared to have been programmed for Soviet weapons rather than for the Exocet's terminal-homing radar emissions.

In the sea battles, the smart antiship weapons such as Exocet, Sea Skua, and AS-12 did not demonstrate a definitive superiority over plain iron bombs.

Naval air defense was layered to combat smart missiles like the Exocet. Long-range surface-to-air missiles forced aircraft weapon delivery below the targeted ship's air search radar horizon.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.