The training of the Argentineans wasn't so good (conscripts) compared to the much better trained British. The Argentineans also had outdated planes ( a-4 skyhawk)and lacked the amound of (working) heavy equipment. In a book from Martin Middlebrook "The fight for the Malvinas" you will get a good view how the War was fought.

The Falkland war was a very interesting one. First it was a war fought between two more or less western countries - yes, its far stretched but in my oppinion there never has been a conflict resembling "two western countries in war" more clear. Second there were little to none civilian casualties or attrocities. This is a good sign that western military structure are target-oriented and conntrolled in their actions. Next the land battles were rather small but professional on both sides. EG a dozend british soldiers holding the last outpost against 60 argentine soldiers, later no larger battles than 3-5 platoons. On the other hand the marine theatre was decisive and determined. The decision had to be made on sea so the fighting on sea was much tougher than on land. While on land noone ever considered fighting to the last man many people did so at sea. This is a clear sign that both sides pretty much knew what they were doing.

"...later no larger battles than 3-5 platoons." It seems that my recollection differs here. Both Goose Green and the battles fought around the final mountains before Stanley were at least battalion or larger sized battles. Brit Paras lost their bn. cdr. at Goose Green. Too, I recall that Ghurkas, Scots Guards, Paras, and Royal Marines all fought outside of Stanley. These were large infantry battles, mainly fought at night. My largest impression was a highly professional army, with many of their very finest units knocked the snot out of a conscript army that really wasn't in the same league. The Argentine Air Force did great credit to themselves. Beyond that, it would appear that the Argentinian Army must have left their best troops guarding the Chilean border. They sure weren't on the Falklands. My second impression was, "What magnificant light infantry possessed by England!" The cross country hump in utterly miserable, winter-worsening conditions was remarkable, capped by an infantry brigade sized series of assaults at the close of the hump- all successful. I have an indifferent attitude about British armor/mechanized forces-only about as good as the best in the world, the U.S. However, as good as our light infantry have become through the last twenty-five years, this "war" still stands as testimony to the remarkable stamina, resilience, and aggressiveness of the British infantry.

"The Argentine Air Force did great credit to themselves." They certainly were brave, and appeared to have excellent technical training. The damage the Argentine pilots inflicted on the Brits came close to crippling the invasion. What may have been the most important failure of the Argentine air forces was in intellegence. Poor post strike analysis failed to reveal that many of the bombs were not exploding when striking the Brit ships, and the nature of the Brit anti air defense was badly communicated to the air crew. I dont know all the reasons for this, but one was the policy of the Argentine senior air leaders of keeping the air crew of different squadrons isolated from each other. Squadrons that had attacked were not used to brief those which attacked later. Neither were aircrew from the squadrons decimated early in the battle transfered to the others. The result is the fresh air units sent into subsequent attacks went without critical experince from the previous attacks.

Really, despite the across the board excellence of the British soldiers, sailors, and airmen, this battle boiled down to UXBs and poorly prepared, motivated, and trained Argentine conscript teenagers-made impossible by the dithering, coup fearing leadership. The British were absolutely operating on a shoestring, with limited endurance for the fleet, minimal ground forces, and winter closing in. Against any decent force truly prepared to give battle, Great Britain's best effort wouldn't have been enough. Frankly, Carl, the failure by the Argentine Air Command to disseminate intel is bewildering. I keep thinking coup, but can't put together how separating these squadrons, and restricting intel dumps to pilots engaged in battle made any sense. Then again, instead of coup conspiracies, maybe this was just another example of an Argentina totally overwhelmed by the speed, complexity and intensity of modern war. Bad stuff. Certainly, for the Argentine pilots, the south Atlantic was no place to ditch. I wonder whether the Brits were able to save any Argentine pilots hit over the Falklands, 'cause sure as hell the Argentines couldn't?

S2...I'm not at all clear on why the Argentine intel failure occured. One magizine artical made a refrence to isolating the surviving pilots of the decimated squadrons for morale reasons. As it was denying the fresh inexperinced squadrons the benefit of proper debriefings and direct contact lost the Argys one of several chances to win this war.

It maybe obvious but the UXBs fuses where set to the minimum safe time of flight. No point dropping a bomb if the pressure wave pitches you into the sea. You'd be better off just crashing into the ship to start with. I would imagine the Pilots knew what altitude they had to drop from and also had assesed how low they would have to fly to stay outside of the air defence parameters. However when the firing started the pilots would find they had a self presevation error in their brains programing and would approach the target at zero feet. With so little time on target thats enough, the runs no good. All of this could happen without the pilots being too aware of the error. Post strike intel would have helped but thats a story i don't know. It reminds me of an RAF pilot who was on exchange to the Navy his first carrier landing was on the day he left for the South Atlantic. Studying the Roland SAMs ( these where his biggest worry )he came up with an altitude at which he thought he'd stand a very good chance of avoiding it's radar. He thought the prospect of flying this low was a very risky affair but was sure he could just about squeeze down to it. Flying his GR on the first sortie on Stanley he found that under fire he was flying at half the altitude he had calculated and found it not a problem. Seems the tracers and radar warning recievers convinced him that he had the skill to fly lower than he thought possible!

Sorry did i say radar