Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/News/August 2022/Book reviews




 * By Hawkeye7

The Falklands War is a fairly obscure conflict fought between Britain and Argentina in 1982. The war was unusual in many respects, as it was fought between two advanced industrial countries, and involved amphibious operations. The availability of detailed material on a late twentieth century conflict is what has made it particularly interesting to me. Participants and historians in both countries have produced a considerable body of work on the brief war, although little of the Argentine material has been translated into English. The 40th anniversary of the conflict this year has added to the corpus.

This book is based upon the author's PhD thesis, which examines the air war in detail. A lot of research has gone into it, delving into both British and Argentine sources, most of which can be found in the appendices and will not concern readers. The author invokes the concept of centre of gravity. The idea, (mis)appropriated by the US military from Carl Von Clausewitz, is that in operational art there is a factor that is a focal point. I find the concept to be widely misunderstood and misapplied, and while it can be useful as an analytical tool or decision-making framework, it usually confuses rather than clarifies the issues, as is the case here.

Shields divides the British campaign in the Falklands into three phases: the blockade, the amphibious assault, and the ground assault. He doesn't go into detail about this; the reader is assumed to be familiar with the course of the campaign. If you're not, then this is not the book for you. In each stage, Shields argues that the centre of gravity shifted: from aircraft carriers to amphibious forces to land forces. This had implications for the air components. The decision of how to employ the available air power is always a difficult one.

Both sides were handicapped by inter-service rivalries and gaps in technological capabilities. It Argentina, the fact that the military ran the government meant that service rivalries were also political ones. The British adopted a cumbersome command structure with everything being run from Northwood Headquarters back in the UK. The appointment of a submariner to command the aircraft carrier task force was questionable. Critical capability gaps afflicted both sides, in particular the lack of airborne early warning and aerial refuelling capability. While by no means a poor man's war, neither side had all the equipment they could have wished for, and these gaps shaped the conflict.

Shields has some controversial conclusions. He finds that the Harrier Jump Jet was not decisive. I find this hard to credit, as while the campaign could have been conducted by the British with helicopters only, it would have been far more hazardous, and unlikely to get the green light. He is on more solid ground concluding that the AIM-9L Sidewinder missile was not as important as has been claimed, and that under the circumstances that the older AIM-9G could have done the job (and on occasion it did). Indeed, though both sides made extensive and good use of guided missiles, the results across the board fell short of the manufacturers' claims. He points out that there is a myth of the heroic Argentine pilot that does not fully reflect reality. He also questions the claims that the Operation Black Buck Avro Vulcan raids led the Argentinians to divert fighter aircraft to homeland defense. At the same time, he refutes claims that Harriers could have knocked out the airfield at Port Stanley.

The core of the book is an analysis of targeting, a key issue in the use of air power. Air power is extremely flexible, but determining the correct target can be problematic. Good intelligence is a start, but is hard to acquire. (Shields argues that the British should have flown more reconnaissance missions.) Again, the author has some controversial findings. He argues that both sides failed to target their opponent's centre of gravity. The usual aphorism is that an island can only be held or captured if one can control of the surrounding sea and air. If that is achieved by the attacker, the island cannot be resupplied or reinforced, and must eventually fall, much like a besieged medieval castle. In the case of the Falklands War, Argentina surrendered control of the sea early, but the British ability to maintain control in the South Atlantic was constricted; in time, the ships would need to refit, and the winter seas would become too rough to conduct maritime air and amphibious operations. Neither side was able to control the air; the British had too few carrier aircraft, and the Argentinians were too far away and could only loiter over the islands for short periods of time. The Argentine air forces targeted the British carriers (the source of their air power) and the amphibious shipping (which allowed them to maintain forces on East Falkland). Shields argues that once the land forces were ashore, they became the British centre of gravity, and should have been the primary target. I'm sceptical; whereas a single aircraft with a missile or bomb can disable a ship, the same aircraft would have little impact on the much larger and more dispersed land forces. The sinkings of the SS Atlantic Conveyor and the landing ships RFAUX Sir Galahad (1966) and RFAUX Sir Tristram had a major impact on the course of the land campaign.

Similarly, Shields argues that the British targeting of the Argentine air forces, which involved SAS raids, air patrols, shore bombardment and aerial bombing, was misdirected. The very expensive Operation Black Buck air raids managed to put one crater in the runway at Stanley Airport, and Shields convincingly details why Harrier raids were ineffective and the runway remained in use until it was captured by the land forces. He argues though that, as the Argentine centre of gravity was the land forces, they should have been the primary British target. Again, I'm not so sure; the Sea Harriers were not trained to attack land forces (although No. 1 Squadron RAF was), and I'm not sure how much impact bombing the high ground around Stanley would have had.

The book is recommended to those with an interest in the operational use of air power.

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 * By Hawkeye7

Nick van der Bijl is a prolific author of books about the Falklands War such as Nine Battles to Stanley (1999), 5th Infantry Brigade in the Falklands (2003), Victory in the Falklands (2007), The Unseen Falklands War (2022)  and Argentine Perspectives on the Falklands War (2022). He has also written other late-twentieth century wars involving the UK, including Operation Banner: The British Army in Northern Ireland, 1969–2007 (2009), Confrontation: The War with Indonesia 1962–1966 (2014), The Cyprus Emergency: The Divided Island 1955–1974 (2014), British Military Operations in Aden and Radfan (2015), The Mau Mau Rebellion: The Emergency in Kenya 1952–1956 (2017) and The Brunei Revolt, 1962–1963 (2021), and about the British Army's Intelligence Corps in Sharing the Secret: The History of the Intelligence Corps 1940 - 2010 (2013) and To Complete the Jigsaw: British Military Intelligence in the First World War (2015).

This book is a bit different from the rest as it is a personal account of his part in the Falklands War, which he participated in as a staff sergeant in the Intelligence Corps attached to the 3rd Commando Brigade, wearing a cypress green beret rather than the darker green of the commandos. Although the war was a long time ago, and there are a lot of personal accounts, what makes this book interesting reading is that few books on any war cover the work of military intelligence personnel. It has several lessons for present-day forces. Van der Bijl emphasises that the intelligence function is an advisory one; it is up to commanders to decide what to do with the intelligence they are given. It is therefore crucial to build up their trust in it.

When the war began, intelligence on the Argentine forces was minimal, and there was a scramble to build up a picture from what resources were available. This was done remarkably quickly and well, although never enough for the intelligence personnel. They were aided by Argentine security lapses; the British eavesdropped on messages to family at home that contained all sorts of details. At the same time, the intelligence personnel bemoaned British breaches, such as when journalist Brian Hanrahan stated: "I'm not allowed to say how many planes joined the raid, but I counted them all out, and I counted them all back." Thus telling the Argentine anti-aircraft gunners that they needed to lift their game, which they did.

Something that affected both sides was that only personnel considered likely to be captured (i.e. air crew and special forces) were given training on what to do when captured. In the Falklands, this did not prove to be the case; on the British side the entire garrison of the Falklands was captured in the early days of the war. Nor were individual soldiers well trained in how to response to offers to surrender, how to safely capture prisoners, and how to correctly process them. This resulted in unnecessary casualties.

This book covers the handling of prisoners in great detail, but it falls short of a history of intelligence in the Falklands War, and so may disappoint readers expecting that.

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 * By Hawkeye7

Yes, another Falklands War memoir. This one is by Roger Field who served as a captain in the Blues and Royals in the war. Initially he was a staff officer with the 5th Infantry Brigade. His main job was to man the radio on an eight-hours-on, eight-hour-off basis. There's some choice remarks about the brigade commander, Brigadier Tony Wilson. Wilson is a controversial figure who was at the heart of some of the war's major stuff ups and was cold-shouldered after the war. He retired soon after and moved to the United States. (The only place he rates a mention in our article on the Falklands War is in the infobox.)

In particular, Field criticises the handling of armour. This was a major flaw in the campaign, one that Julian Thompson acknowledged. Instead of taking a squadron as originally planned, only two troops were taken to the Falklands, each consisting of two troops of two FV101 Scorpions and two FV107 Scimitars. Field was frustrated by Wilson not seeking his advice on the handling of the armour. There were also misunderstandings of its nature. It was not realised that the light tanks exerted less pressure on the ground than a man's foot, so they could generally go wherever the infantry could go. This pointed to a gap in the British Army's training. Field could only wonder why the artillery had an officer who controlled the guns and whose advice was sought, but not the armoured corps.

In the last battle of the war, the Battle of Wireless Ridge, the 2nd Battalion, Parachute Regiment's commander, Lieutenant-Colonel David Chaundler, sought the assistance of the armour, and took Field's advice about how to employ it. He also took Field along with his, providing one of his own officers for the radio duty. At the height of the battle, one of the Scimitar commanders was wounded, and Field took his place. He participated in the battle as a vehicle commander, despite being senior in rank to the troop commander.

Ironically, the biggest failure of this book is not going into enough detail about the armour, its handling and its activities, which would have made it a useful reference. Readers unfamiliar with the Blues and Royals might not realise that the regiment has no rank of sergeant; the three-stripers are corporals and the two-stripers are lance corporals.

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