"Malvinas 1982" scenario and Admiral Woodward's memoir

[$trummer]

I recently read "One Hundred Days", Admiral Sandy Woodward's superb memoir of his war as commander of the Royal Navy task force sent to the Falkland Islands in 1982. At the same time I've been playing the -- also superb -- CMANO scenario "Malvinas 1982 - The Pincer". I thought I'd share a few impressions.

It's a great tribute to both CMANO and the scenario designer that the scenario played out so accurately, according to Admiral Woodward's account, almost uncannily so. Steaming south, I spotted the Argentinian 707 observation platform but, unlike him, I shot it down, as my Sea Harrier CAP was at its goofy default altitude of 40,000 ft anyway (I must remember to reset these until the devs fix the default CAP altitudes). Anticipating a pincer action just as he did, I sent one sub north of the islands and kept another (HMS Conqueror) to the south as in the actual battle. To cut a long story short, the northern SSN found the northern Argentinian battle group but, unlike Adm. Woodward, who was never given direct control of the RN submarine force, I was able to direct HMS Spartan to tear into three enemy corvettes and sink them. Like Adm. Woodward, however, I never found the Argentinian aircraft carrier. Unlike Adm. Woodward, I failed to find the Belgrano to the south. The battle between the RN ships/Harriers and enemy attack aircraft was fierce, as it was in actuality, but unlike in the real battle, my ships' defensive missile systems worked, so my tally of shot-down British aircraft vs. destroyed enemy aircraft was even more favorable than Adm. Woodward's. I suppose the aspect in which my battle differed most radically from the Admiral's was in the damage inflicted on the task force. My CAPs and the ships' defensive systems saw and destroyed just about all the Argentinian aircraft, including the Etendards that took down HMS Sheffield and Coventry IRL. No enemy aircraft got within bombing range. I lost 3 Harriers vs. Adm. Woodward's 10, but my battle has not yet progressed into the amphibious phase, in which, on two days in particular, the attrition became extremely intense.

The point I'd like to make in conclusion is this: Admiral Woodward's book puts paid to the notion that this war was anything but "a close run thing". I was astonished and moved by his account of the level of destruction his fleet suffered at the hands of pretty brave Argentinian attack pilots. He mentions that he does not believe he could have held out much longer; the surrender came just in time for the British fleet. The battle was much more attritional than any of us in the UK were led to believe at the time and RN losses, as well as those of civilian ships such as The Atlantic Conveyor were devastating. He was also up against merciless weather conditions and -- again, under-reported in the UK -- missile systems like Sea Dart and Sea Wolf that did not work properly. If Adm. Woodward did not have the Sea Harriers, this would have been a historic and tragic naval defeat for Great Britain. Other telling details in the book include a well-deserved indictment of the BBC for reporting intel in public that was of great assistance to the enemy and moving accounts of the bravery of individual RN commanders.

I didn't realise until I got this book that Admiral Sandy Woodward died just two months ago. I was very sad to hear this. He belongs in the most distinguished company of Royal Navy commanders down the ages. I'm just glad that I get to play the battle in CMANO and not have to deal with the reality, which was, to use another well-worn quote, "nasty, brutish and short". The first two aspects were under-reported in the British press but corrected in the Admiral's wonderful book.

[pandoraefretum]

Nice post $trummer. I too was fascinated by the book, and wish to recreate and replay this most fascinating of scenarios with Command Naval Air Ops. I hope we see a full blown Scenario with landings soon! Ciao!

[$trummer]

Thanks!

I wonder if CMANO could model the static phase of the landings, i.e. when the troops were essentially getting set up on the beachhead and relying on the ships, the Harriers and Rapier (very important) to give them the breathing room to sort themselves out before deploying futher inland. CMANO has the necessary terrain modelling; the beachhead was carefully chosen so that the hills could screen the landings to some extent. I don't think the sim will be up to modelling the land battles any time soon so a landings mission would have to be essentially naval/air with static ground units spawning in on the beaches over time, a few SpecOps units scattered about for recon (with the Javelin that took down one Arg a/c...) and Rapier. There would also have to be a few civilian ships to replicate Canberra, Atlantic Conveyor et al.

[smudge56]

I suppose also none of your captains were on the satellite phone at thd time of the attack.

Until you just mentioned it I also didn't know sandy woodward had passed on RIP.

I have the channel 4 series on the Falklands war its very interesting. I love some of the recordings especially of the radio station persons stiff upper lip when he has guns stuffed in his face and he carries on broadcasting. I also think the governor had some defiant things to say also.

[$trummer]

Ha, is the satellite phone captain Sam Salt of HMS Sheffield? Adm. Woodward is very non-judgemental in describing how Salt was not in the ops room when the red alert was declared but then he defends him by saying that he didn't need to be. Later in the book, though, there is much thinly veiled criticism of Sheffield's failure to see the incoming missile and to get its chaff up and defensive systems deployed. I think Sam Salt was subsequently promoted to rear Admiral so it appears that the Royal Navy did not find fault in his conduct.

[smudge56]

Yep Lol what a surprise promote the incompetent. I heard somehow it interfered with the radar systems making them blind.

[JRyan]

ORIGINAL: Blighty56

Yep Lol what a surprise promote the incompetent.

Where else would we get politicians?

[smudge56]

Yes I suppose it takes a monumental act for the right person for the right time, like Winston Churchill becoming Prime minister in the darkest period as the nazis were running all over Europe.

ORIGINAL: JRyan

ORIGINAL: Blighty56

Yep Lol what a surprise promote the incompetent.

Where else would we get politicians?

[navwarcol]

Your post made me look up the Admiral, as I had not known he died recently. An interesting note... Wikipedia has him born in 1932, says he graduated RNC Dartmouth, then joined the RN in 1946.... this would have him graduating a prestigious Naval Academy by the time he was 14. I seriously doubt that this is accurate. Does anyone know when he actually joined the RN?

[smudge56]

Most of the newspapers over here have the same details taking it from whos who. Man he definitely saw a change in the royal navy from global navy to regional navy.

[navwarcol]

That is amazing if he indeed wrapped up at the Naval Academy at the age of 14.
And yes, quite a change... most of that change I think just after the Falklands. I think the RN could not have pulled of a "Falklands" type of campaign even 5 yrs after that.

[smudge56]

Well until we get some new carriers if it happened again we certainly won't be able to. Though the Falklands have more men defending it than the 80's.

[catwhoorg]

ORIGINAL: navwarcol

Your post made me look up the Admiral, as I had not known he died recently. An interesting note... Wikipedia has him born in 1932, says he graduated RNC Dartmouth, then joined the RN in 1946.... this would have him graduating a prestigious Naval Academy by the time he was 14. I seriously doubt that this is accurate. Does anyone know when he actually joined the RN?

I'll check in his Biography this evening.

[$trummer]

ORIGINAL: navwarcol

Your post made me look up the Admiral, as I had not known he died recently. An interesting note... Wikipedia has him born in 1932, says he graduated RNC Dartmouth, then joined the RN in 1946.... this would have him graduating a prestigious Naval Academy by the time he was 14. I seriously doubt that this is accurate. Does anyone know when he actually joined the RN?

I don't have time to comb through the book right now but having just read it, it appears to me that Adm. Woodward signed up for the RN at a school dedicated to supplying cadets. In other words, he was a "child sailor" very common at the time, and of course, an ancient and honorable British tradition. He went to a school ("high school" in American terms) which provided him with a conventional education but whose purpose was to train boys for careers as naval officers. Adm. Woodward excelled at maths -- he's very modest about it in the book -- and, as a senior officer in the RN, was known, behind his back, I imagine, as "Spock".

The book is a wonderful memoir, repiublished in some sort of enhanced form recently. It is a very, very British kind of military memoir, which this long-time British expatriate found moving. So self-deprecating, urbane and gently humorous, qualities rarely found in American military memoirs. The Admiral is truly humble regarding his qualifications to lead the task force and honest about his misgivings. There is no trace of vaingloriousness or the jingoism that was rife in the British tabloid press at the time; it was his duty to do it, so he did. His descriptions of his encounters with the hard men of the SAS are quite funny and he is circumspect about his attitude at the time towards the land forces, which, he felt, moved so slowly at first that he wondered if there would be any air cover left by the time they deployed inland. He acknowledges that they did a great job in the end and that their limited mobility was caused by the destruction of several Chinooks and other helo transportation on the Atlantic Conveyor, which he himself sent into harm's way, having been presented with a particularly difficult form of high-command Hobson's Choice. In the end, Adm. Woodward did the job with which he was entrusted but it must have come as a surprise to many British citizens, given the media's portrayal of the war, just how close it was, uncomfortably so in retrospect.

[navwarcol]

I would venture that most wars are uncomfortably close. The German WW2 "blitzkrieg" was always on a shoestring, even the Allied coalition in Desert Storm would appear to have been a rout, and I suppose in some respects it was, but there were plenty of things that "almost" went wrong there as well, any one of which could have thrown a wrench into the plans. Perhaps it is a good thing that most people never see until such memoirs are printed, just how close each major victory in history came to being an embarrassing defeat, instead.

[smudge56]

I'm going to ask my wife to either get me the book for xmas or my birthday. I read the book Forgotten Voices of the Falklands war recently thats was an excellent read.

ORIGINAL: $trummer

ORIGINAL: navwarcol

Your post made me look up the Admiral, as I had not known he died recently. An interesting note... Wikipedia has him born in 1932, says he graduated RNC Dartmouth, then joined the RN in 1946.... this would have him graduating a prestigious Naval Academy by the time he was 14. I seriously doubt that this is accurate. Does anyone know when he actually joined the RN?

I don't have time to comb through the book right now but having just read it, it appears to me that Adm. Woodward signed up for the RN at a school dedicated to supplying cadets. In other words, he was a "child sailor" very common at the time, and of course, an ancient and honorable British tradition. He went to a school ("high school" in American terms) which provided him with a conventional education but whose purpose was to train boys for careers as naval officers. Adm. Woodward excelled at maths -- he's very modest about it in the book -- and, as a senior officer in the RN, was known, behind his back, I imagine, as "Spock".

The book is a wonderful memoir, repiublished in some sort of enhanced form recently. It is a very, very British kind of military memoir, which this long-time British expatriate found moving. So self-deprecating, urbane and gently humorous, qualities rarely found in American military memoirs. The Admiral is truly humble regarding his qualifications to lead the task force and honest about his misgivings. There is no trace of vaingloriousness or the jingoism that was rife in the British tabloid press at the time; it was his duty to do it, so he did. His descriptions of his encounters with the hard men of the SAS are quite funny and he is circumspect about his attitude at the time towards the land forces, which, he felt, moved so slowly at first that he wondered if there would be any air cover left by the time they deployed inland. He acknowledges that they did a great job in the end and that their limited mobility was caused by the destruction of several Chinooks and other helo transportation on the Atlantic Conveyor, which he himself sent into harm's way, having been presented with a particularly difficult form of high-command Hobson's Choice. In the end, Adm. Woodward did the job with which he was entrusted but it must have come as a surprise to many British citizens, given the media's portrayal of the war, just how close it was, uncomfortably so in retrospect.

[catwhoorg]

Yes He formally Jan 5th 1946, as a Cadet.

(bottom of page 37 in my 3rd edition paperback)

[navwarcol]

That is just awesome. Thanks for looking it up. Every source I saw listed the same, but I thought they had to all be sharing the same faulty data perhaps.

[Alejo1968]

ORIGINAL: $trummer

The battle was much more attritional than any of us in the UK were led to believe at the time and RN losses, as well as those of civilian ships such as The Atlantic Conveyor were devastating. He was also up against merciless weather conditions and -- again, under-reported in the UK -- missile systems like Sea Dart and Sea Wolf that did not work properly. If Adm. Woodward did not have the Sea Harriers, this would have been a historic and tragic naval defeat for Great Britain. Other telling details in the book include a well-deserved indictment of the BBC for reporting intel in public that was of great assistance to the enemy and moving accounts of the bravery of individual RN commanders.

I didn't realise until I got this book that Admiral Sandy Woodward died just two months ago. I was very sad to hear this. He belongs in the most distinguished company of Royal Navy commanders down the ages. I'm just glad that I get to play the battle in CMANO and not have to deal with the reality, which was, to use another well-worn quote, "nasty, brutish and short". The first two aspects were under-reported in the British press but corrected in the Admiral's wonderful book.

Didn't know until I read your post that woodward pasted away, sad to konw that. I also read his book when I was in the War College in the Argentina Air Force, and found it the most interesting, full of helpful facts for any senior officer.
For some time I became a little obsessed about reading books that could make me learn about UK toughts on the war, and this one was the first.
You are right when you say it was a nasty, brutish and short war. We suffered a 25 % pilot casualty rate.
I remember my practices of attacks on naval targets flying the same Mirage 5 that were in the conflict (upgraded then to "Finger"), 550 kts, 20 mts over the water, and the eternity it took to fly the last 20 miles and pass over the ship. Must have been quite an experience for all those involved in the real facts.