OT: All-Out in the Falklands

[raketenjagdpanzer]

Originally Posted by Webstral

I read a piece about the Falklands War recently. I started thinking. What if the Argentines had gone all-in in 1982? After the initial naval encounter in which HMS Conqueror (I think) sank an Argentine destroyer, the Argentines backed off and let the Royal Navy control the waters around the Falklands, albeit under air attack. What if the Argentines had gone all-in and had initiated a winner-take-all naval battle for control over the sea around the Falkland Islands? I don’t a very good read on this, not being a naval man. Opinions? Preferably with some substance?

The British would have probably lost about 30% of their force, the Argentinians something on the order of 50% to 70%. The British would have had to have split their forces, and pulled what little naval power they'd left in the North Atlantic south; while these reinforcements were on the way Argentinian sorties would have further atritted British naval power, sinking more cargo ships and outer cruisers, eventually hitting the Invincible (this is incumbent on how many Exocet missiles the Argentinian navy or air-force had left in stock, but I can see them going all in to bag that carrier). Invincible is what the Argentinians thought they'd bagged when they hit Atlantic Conveyer.