Air Power in the Falklands Conflict: An Operational Level Insight into Air Warfare in the South Atlantic. John Shields. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Air World, 2021.
The line between celebrating heritage and creating a fully rounded history can be a fine one in many institutional histories. Appreciating this tendency, Royal Air Force-insider John Shields reassesses the 1982 Falklands Conflict, seeking to explode multiple myths while also providing a better assessment of the air campaign by focusing on the operational rather than the tactical level of war. Shields served thousands of hours navigating on the Tornado F3 and earned a Ph.D. from King’s College London. He also has a deep interest in professional military education; he currently teaches at the U.S. Air War College. These areas of expertise and passion shine through in this work, making it particularly valuable to any Western military planner or operator. In short, Shields wrote a case study about the Falklands War that can be read more broadly as enlightening air operators about air campaigns.
Shields contends that previous scholars have placed too much emphasis on the “tactical level outputs of the campaign” such as sorties flown rather than the actual effect of weapons, particularly regarding how weapon employment affected the “ability of each side to strike the decisive blow against their opponent.”[1] As such, he stresses identifying the British centers of gravity and how they changed during the conflict. U.S. Department of Defense doctrine defines a center of gravity as “the source of power that provides moral or physical strength, freedom of action, or will to act."[2] Shields explains how initially the British aircraft carriers served as the center of gravity due to their ability to control the air through their Harriers. However, air control only functions as an enabler; thus, over time the center of gravity shifted, because the key to victory required taking and controlling Stanley, the capital city of the islands. As a result, the second and third centers of gravity were troops on the ground: first the amphibious assault force and finally the British land forces moving toward Stanley.
Shields shows little partiality for his own institution, seeking to provide an objective account. Indeed, he argues the conflict’s “outcome was a function of Argentine failings rather than British successes.”[3] Neither side, importantly, had adequately prepared for this conflict. He even suggests Argentina may have lost the war twenty years before the conflict began by doctrinally deciding to prioritize air support for the ground, thereby choosing to fund immediate needs over the pursuit of a more balanced long-term strategy to develop a force for an unknown future.[4] Of course the U.S. and multiple other nations have done the same, such as in the Global War on Terror, when Secretary of Defense Robert Gates cut F-22 production to focus on capabilities needed for counterinsurgency.
Despite inadequate preparation, both forces had an opportunity to adapt.[5] Shields notes, however, that interservice rivalry significantly undermined the air campaigns of both sides.[6] The Argentinian Air Force also made critical apportionment errors, increasingly using its aircraft for ground attack when it had yet to secure enough control of the air.[7]
As a result, Shields repeatedly shows how Argentinian aircraft struggled to employ their weapons effectively. In the first phase of the war, between May 1 and May 19, in which airpower predominated, for example, they planned to employ 206 weapons. Aircraft carrying 170 weapons managed to reach the Falkland islands, with aircraft carrying 107 weapons subsequently evading British combat air patrols. Aircraft, however, only managed to employ 15 weapons against the British fleet. With only one weapon detonating successfully, Argentina had a success rate of .005 percent. This low rate owes much to the challenge that the Argentine Air Force had in locating the British, having not adequately organized and developed its intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities prior to the conflict to support joint operations. Shields effectively supports this information with helpful and clear infographics.[8]
The second phase of the war was Operation Sutton, in which the British offered up a decisive target for the Argentines as its amphibious force approached and landed on the Falklands. Because Argentina lacked effective intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities, however, the British successfully approached the islands and began landing their troops and equipment 28 hours before Argentina detected the landing.[9] As a result, they “doomed themselves to a reactive strategy dictated by British decisions for the remainder of the campaign—all for the sake of a useful intelligence gathering capability.”[10]
They also failed to adapt mentally, not realizing that focusing on striking British carriers was not the most effective use of their weapons at this phase in the war, or so Shields asserts.[11] Whether he is correct is unknowable, however, given that human behavior is unpredictable; the sinking of a British carrier at any phase in the war could possibly have caused British civilian leadership to disengage from the conflict.
Flight deck operations on board HMS HERMES. A Sea Harrier takes off from the ski-jump while various missiles, helicopters and vehicles crowd the flight deck of the carrier. (Imperial War Museums)
Shields also asserts the Argentine Air Force continued to be its own worst enemy. Of its overall weapon employment in particular, two causal factors explain 46 percent of failed missions: canceled missions and weapons missing their targets.[12] By contrast, the defensive effect of the Harriers fell far lower on the list during this phase, only impeding six percent of Argentine sorties.[13] Shields thus consistently seeks to undercut the myth of the British Sea Harrier’s success in this conflict.
The third phase of the war consisted of moving the 5500 troops from their landing area at San Carlos to Stanley, a task made more difficult by the sinking of the MV Atlantic Conveyor, which contained helicopters needed to provide mobility. Now those troops would have to travel on foot.[14] Despite being presented with vulnerable ground targets, Argentine air forces failed to identify or mass sufficient combat power to stop advancing British troops during this phase.[15] Despite outnumbering the Royal Air Force, the Argentines also began to struggle to sustain their campaign, such as in replacing aircraft and crews.[16]
3 Battalion, Parachute Regiment disembark from a landing craft during the landings at San Carlos. (Imperial War Museums)
The Argentine Air Force did adapt during this phase by using about 62 percent of their assets for counterland operations while reducing their maritime focus to 38 percent.[17] Still, in this phase the Argentines continued to be their own worst enemy, with 74 percent of allocated weapons not striking their targets successfully, either because they increasingly sought to avoid risk and aborted their sorties or because those continuing to engage simply could not successfully hit their targets.[18] Shields does note the increased Harriers’ contributions during this phase, although pointing out they still did far less than commonly asserted.[19]
Throughout the campaign, Shields continues to stress how Britain did not so much successfully defend its centers of gravity as Argentina failed to identify, find, and successfully target those assets of Britain’s continuously shifting centers of gravity.[20] On the other side, though, Shields contends that British air planners’ seeming obsession with attacking Stanley Airport was a wasted effort. Instead, he suggests British airpower would have been more effectively used targeting Argentina’s center of gravity: the troops surrounding and protecting Stanley. Such an approach, he argues, would have been more joint minded instead of the seeming dogmatic insistence of British airmen on gaining control of the air. This point, however, somewhat conflates the rationale for seeking control of the air with the benefit of attacking the airport because it served as the island’s logistics hub.[21]
The better question may have been: how much would attacks on this logistics hub have affected the Argentine center of gravity in the short, medium, and long terms? Moreover, it is not entirely clear how British aircraft could have more effectively targeted Argentinian land forces. Overall, the British employed a total of 493 weapons, of which only 15 were precision weapons. If the British struggled to put an airport out of operation, it is difficult to envision how much damage they could have done to dispersed and dug in soldiers given British aircraft, sensor, and weapon limitations.[22] Even seventeen years later in Operation Allied Force in similarly challenging weather and terrain against dug-in and dispersed troops, NATO struggled to have a significant effect on Serbian troops.
In another similarly revisionist point, Shields interestingly undercuts the utility of the Exocet anti-ship missile. He contends:
[t]here is no point in having a highly advanced and expensive capability if it cannot sustain the required campaign effects throughout the campaign. The Argentine Super-Etendard force is an excellent example of this dilemma; once the Argentines had expended their limited Exocet stockpile, the Super Etendards became an ineffective force and retired from the battle two weeks prior to the culmination of the campaign.[23]
On the flip side of this intriguing claim, however, is a counterfactual: had the Argentine air force been able to find and effectively target the aircraft carriers, such a limited asset may have successfully struck at the British center of gravity early in the war.
The aircraft carrier HMS Invincible silhouetted against the horizon as she sails towards the South Atlantic. (Imperial War Museums)
As these discussions hopefully indicate, Shields’ book provides much for the airpower practitioner to ponder. For students new to the Falklands War, however, this book may be tough due to the lack of an overview of the conflict. Instructors assigning the book might consider an introductory lecture on the conflict or a short supplemental reading. More helpful are the many helpful maps and, in particular, charts. Despite being a challenging read at times, Shield’s work is a wonderful addition to the historiography of the Falklands Conflict.
Heather Venable is an associate professor of military and security studies at the U.S. Air Command and Staff College where she teaches in the Department of Airpower. She is the author of How the Few Became the Proud: Crafting the Marine Corps Mystique, 1874–1918. She is a Managing Editor for The Strategy Bridge and a non-resident fellow at Marine Corps University’s Brute Krulak Center for Innovation and Creativity. The views expressed are the author’s alone and do not represent the official position of the U.S. Air Force, Department of Defense, or U.S. Government.
The Strategy Bridge is read, respected, and referenced across the worldwide national security community—in conversation, education, and professional and academic discourse.
Thank you for being a part of the The Strategy Bridge community. Together, we can #BuildTheBridge.
Header Image: Super Etendard (SUE) of the Argentine Navy, 1982 (Author Unknown).
Notes:
[1] John Shields, Air Power in the Falklands Conflict: An Operational Level Insight into Air Warfare in the South Atlantic (Philadelphia, PA: Air World, 2021), 5.
[2] Department of Defense, Joint Publication 3-0: Joint Operations, 11 Aug 2011, GL-06; www.benning.army.mil/mssp/security%20topics/Global%20and%20Regional%20Security/content/pdf/jp3_0.pdf#:~:text=Joint%20Publication%20%28JP%29%203-0%20is%20the%20keystone%20document,%2C%20preparing%2C%20executing%2C%20and%20assessing%20joint%20military%20operations.
[3] Shields, 3.
[4] Shields, 40.
[5] Shields, 16.
[6] Shields, 186.
[7] Shields, 64-65.
[8] Shields, 81.
[9] Shields, 85-86.
[10] Shields, 85.
[11] Shields, 95.
[12] Shields, 93.
[13] Shields, 94.
[14] Shields, 100.
[15] Shields, 103-4 and 117.
[16] Shields, 108.
[17] Shields, 115.
[18] Shields, 123.
[19] Shields, 122-3.
[20] Shields, 150.
[21] Shields, 166, 170, 176, 181.
[22] Shields, 175.
[23] Shields, 194.