The Story of the Uk is pushed forward for some time. The British government had not failed to consider the possibility of war in the Falkland Islands, and had also made a deduction and formulated a plan for reinforcing nuclear-powered submarines.
On 29 March, when the shadow of the war was becoming known to the British government, Defence Minister John Nott advised Margaret Thatcher to immediately dispatch the HMS Spartan to the South Atlantic, where it was expected to depart as soon as 31 And arrive on Falkland on 13 April, as supplies would need to be reached in Gibraltar first. A second nuclear-powered submarine reinforcement plan is also being proposed, with the expected candidate being the HMS Splendid of the same class.
The Sparta had just left Lisbon to participate in the exercises, but was stopped by the cruiser Brilliant and told by an underwater telephone to travel to Gibraltar as quickly as possible. The Brilliant was now tracking the Soviet submarine, and when he floated up to the depth of the periscope to communicate at a fixed time, he received the order to return immediately to the Naval Base in Faslane, Scotland, to prepare for battle.
In Gibraltar, the Spartan "looted" the resources of friendly warships, including the torpedoes of the diesel-electric submarine submarine oracle HMS Oracle, as well as spare decryptors, as well as equipment such as spare decryptors, at which point the captain learned of the situation in the South Atlantic and was ordered to travel to South Georgia as soon as possible.
Sparta set sail on 1 April and has since maintained a full speed of 28-29 knots. After a brief 18-hour stay, The Splendor also left its Fsransky base for the South Atlantic the following day, on which Argentina occupied Falkland Island.
At this time, the British government was hesitating whether to deploy a third submarine, which was at the peak of the Cold War, and the British Royal Navy had only 6-7 submarine ships that could be immediately dispatched, second only to the United States and the Soviet Union, and was also an important component of the intelligence collection and vigilance mission of nato submarine force. The diversion of too many submarines from the current mission would detract from the credibility of Britain's shared strategic and defence commitments at NATO and give Soviet submarines a window against british submarine tracking restrictions.
In fact, the British government knew that they were too late to prevent Argentina from capturing Falkland Island, and they lacked confidence in the recapture of Falkland, and even the Minister of Defence personally denied the possibility of retaking it to Thatcher, so naturally there was no interest in sending more troops. The turning point was first secretary of state of the sea, Henry Leach.
Henry Richie had a unique background, his father John Richie served as captain of the battle ship Prince of Wales during World War II, and the battlecruiser Hood sank in the first battle with the battleship Bismarck. Given the loss of his wingman and the ship's poor condition, John Ritchie chose to leave the engagement and maintain tracking at maximum distance until reinforcements arrived. However, this decision saddled him with accusations of cowardice and even nearly went to court-martial. Eventually, the Prince of Wales was assigned to Singapore as the flagship of the Z Fleet.
Henry Richie, then an officer on a light patrol in the Far East, had one last dinner with his father on December 8, 1941, who died two days later in an air raid by Japanese bombers along with the most powerful warship in the Royal Navy under his command.
Henry Rich witnessed the death of his father during the country's darkest period, and then witnessed the decline of the British Empire despite his rise to high position, as well as the gradual bleaking glory of the Royal Navy in front of the United States and the Soviet Union, and repeatedly became the biggest victim of spending reduction policies.
When he learned of Falkland's anomaly he rushed into the House of Commons, although he was immediately restrained by the guards without prior notification. When the party secretary rescued Richie from the guards and brought him to Mrs. Thatcher, a gloomy-faced Thatcher repeated the question.
Thatcher: Can we do it (to retake Falkland)? RICHIE: We can, Prime Minister. RITCH: And, while I shouldn't be saying this here, we should be. Thatcher: Why? Ritchie: Because if we don't do that, if we act in a way that cringes and doesn't achieve full success, in a few months we'll live in a different country, a country where words don't matter.
Thatcher felt a sense of relief and relaxation, which only meant one thing, that Britain would fight Argentina at any cost and risk.
As the British expeditionary fleet prepares for war, reinforcements from more nuclear-powered submarines, targeting the Conqueror, are imperative. The Conqueror, a Churchill-class nuclear-powered attack submarine II, entered service in 1971 with a length of 87 meters, an underwater displacement of 4,900 tons, a maximum speed of 28 knots, six 533 mm torpedo tubes, and can carry 35 spare bullets. Its captain, Chris Wreford Brown, commanded the Conquistador for no more than three weeks.
The Conquistador was also at the Fasland Naval Base at the moment of the invasion of Falkland Island, and as soon as they heard the news of Falkland Island's occupation, the ship's personnel immediately began to prepare for the voyage.
Usually the Conqueror carries 90 days of supplies at a time, but no one knows how long the war will take, so they must prepare for the worst, so all available space on the ship is filled with food, including the walkway floor, a part of the shower and the lavatory; and in order to avoid the problem of uneven weight during the consumption of the supplies, the chef must also step up the preparation of a sequence of material consumption tables so that the distribution of the ship's weight and center is as consistent as possible.
The Minister of Defence also ordered the Conquistador to be loaded with 14 Royal Navy Boat Fleet (SBS) special forces and their combined nine-ton equipment, which he believed would be an important force in retaking Falkland Island. The Navy disagreed, however, and wanted to ensure that nuclear-powered submarines could focus on blockade missions in the no-go zone, but the order came from the minister, and they could only make some compromises: the Conqueror was only responsible for sending special forces to the theater, not directly assigning tactical delivery missions.
On 4 April, two days after Falkland island was attacked by Argentina, the Conqueror set sail south and remained in full power for the next 21 days. Together with the Already Departing Splendor and Sparta, the three nuclear-powered submarines will live up to their high speed and endurance advantages to become the first Royal Navy warships to arrive on Falkland (minus the icebreaker Patience, which was on a local expedition before the start of the war), and they form Task Force 324, commanded by Vice Admiral Peter Herbert at Northwood Naval Base.
On the fifth day of leaving the base, there was an accident, the ship's reactor was stopped without warning, and the submarine began to sink at a high speed; because the ship carried too many extra materials led to overweight, even if the crew immediately began to empty the ballast water tank, it could not recover the depth for a period of time, and finally stopped the sinking and began to float at a depth of 700 feet. This accident did not cause substantial damage or subsequent effects.
After three weeks at sea, the Conquistador arrived south of Georgia, about 900 miles from Falkland Island. The next day the Conqueror passive sonar heard noise from the diesel engines, most likely from the Argentine submarine ship Santa Fe. The Conqueror immediately prepared for battle and floated up to the depth of the periscope. The surface of the sea was empty, and it could indeed be considered a submarine, but when the Conqueror re-diveted, sonar lost contact and has not been able to rebuild since.
As the ship contained SBS, on 10 April the Conqueror was sent to South Georgia to support the recapture operation. On 25 April, the defenders of South Georgia, occupied by Argentine forces, surrendered to the British, and the Conqueror then sent the SBS by helicopter to the Antrim, where on the 28th she was ordered to the southwest of Falkland Island in search of General Belgrano, which had been identified by the British as being active nearby.
At 11:08 a.m. on 30 April, shortly after arriving at the patrol area, the Conqueror, with its tow array sonar, detected an oil tanker accompanying Task Force 79.3 100 miles away, in line with the position previously judged by the British to be general Belgrano, while Task Force 79.3 was sailing east while Conquistador remained in sonar contact about 75 miles south-southeast of Task Force 79.3.
At 07:40 on 1 May, the Conqueror increased its speed to 15 knots and maintained it for the next 1 hour to get closer. At 08:54 the Conqueror floated to periscope depth and made the first visual contact with Task Force 79.3, confirming that the opposing formation consisted of a cruiser, an oil tanker, and two destroyers. Conquistador has since remained constantly tracked at a distance of about 9,000-14,000 yards at a speed of 21 knots.
However, the current rules of engagement do not allow the Conqueror to attack General Belgrano.
While Britain was determined to fight and prepared, it did not mean that war was the only option. The first is that there is still a possibility of resolving the conflict through diplomatic channels, the risk of war is still very large, and the United States, NATO and many South American countries are also on the side of the United Kingdom to assist in negotiations, and it seems that there is still hope to resolve the conflict from diplomatic channels.
However, if the Argentine warship is sunk during the negotiation period, the negotiation is bound to break the situation; and the message of the submarine is sent and received by timing, and there are often incomplete problems, so it is impossible to suddenly order the submarine to close when the negotiations are progressing.
This is particularly important, especially as the United States, while agreeing to provide any form of support other than direct combat, has also urged the British government to refrain from imposing a total air ban for the time being so as not to jeopardize their diplomatic coordination.
The second is the risk of hitting a third party by mistake. Surface ships are fine, but underwater identification is very difficult, and the United Kingdom will not think that third countries have no interest in such a close contact with the Royal Navy's combat process; and if a third-party submarine enters the war zone, there will be a risk of accidental attack, and the most serious possibility is naturally the sinking of a Soviet submarine.
The principle summarized above is that the use of force by the Argentine army must be restrained and avoided as much as possible from sinking too many ships or killing too many people. Therefore, the rules of engagement granted to submarine ships in the beginning were that they could only be tracked and monitored even in no-sea zones, and they could only counterattack when there was a need for self-defense and there was no way to avoid it.
Of course, this does not mean that the British government, at least the Royal Navy, wants to be looked down upon by Argentina, arguing that authorizing an attack on the carrier would help deter the Argentine army from the threat to the task force on Falkland Island. As an aircraft carrier, the most difficult feature of the May 25th for the British army is the strike range.
The May 25 Aquila theory had a maximum strike range of 300-400 nautical miles, and could be further extended with the Super Flag and the Flying Fish Anti-Ship Missile (although the British were not sure whether the integration of the carrier and the Super Flag was completed at this time), and the 200-nautical-mile no-sea zone might not necessarily pose an obstacle. But conversely, since the use of force is not restricted by the no-navigation zone, and the political symbolism is huge or a unique aircraft carrier, the attack permit for the May 25 is more diplomatically and politically reasonable.
The biggest problem was that the British Navy's Task Force 317.8, commanded by Woodward, was not a good balance of strength with that of the Argentine Navy, which commanded only two carriers, four destroyers, and five cruisers, as well as Task Force 317.9, which was responsible for retaking South Georgia, and another destroyer and a cruiser, which had completed their mission but would not be able to return until May 2.
Some of the reinforcements are still on the road, but they will not arrive until after mid-May. More importantly, the outcome of the war depended on the ownership of Falkland Island, and even if it could annihilate every Argentine ship, as long as Britain paid a price so heavy that it could not retake Falkland Island, Britain would face strategic defeat.
It is true that the Argentine Navy's old World War II second-hand American destroyers, General Belgrano, and May 25 may not be in very good shape, but there are also cutting-edge warships such as the Drummond class or type 42; and the British army that hastily assembled and went on an expedition against the bad weather of the Atlantic Ocean had many problems, and its state was at greater risk of deterioration due to its isolation abroad. At the same time, almost every Argentine warship is equipped with four flying fish anti-ship missiles, and even those second-hand US destroyers have considerable anti-ship capabilities.
If the surface combat strength can barely be said to be equal, then aviation is an absolute disadvantage: the British two aircraft carriers only have 20 Sea Harriers, compared to Argentina has hundreds of jet fighters, including Aquila, Dagger, Phantom III, Super Flag, Canberra, etc., but this gap can be partially offset by the distance of Argentina's mainland, and its land-based combat aircraft one-time attack capability is limited by the number of tankers and the success of aerial refueling; as for may 25, the British army is estimated to be able to carry 10 Skyhawks.
Since the gap in strength was not large, the British naturally did not want to even give the initiative to the Argentine army, after all, it took a long time for the battlefield information to be transmitted back to the mainland and then summoned the ministers of various departments to discuss the results and then send it to the fleet. It is likely that the warships have already been poisoned by Argentine carrier-based aircraft, and the home cabinet is still debating whether to authorize the attack on the May 25.
The active hunting attempt for the May 25th began on April 21. Defense Chief of Staff Terence Lewin persuaded Thatcher to authorize The Splendor to leave the patrol area to actively search for the May 25, but the foreign secretary at the time, Francis Pym, was not consulted, and he thought that such an approach would lead to an exchange of fire between the Glory and the Argentine submarines on the basis of self-defense needs, perhaps even outside the no-sea zone. The next day Thatcher retracted the order, demanding that The Glory return to the patrol area immediately.
Abandoning the search from the no-navigation zone is not entirely out of political necessity, the no-sea zone originally has only three submarine ships maintaining the blockade, and the transfer of submarine ships to the periphery of the no-navigation zone is likely to lead to insufficient blockade strength. Even if submarines can find aircraft carriers, the current rules of engagement only allow for surveillance and tracking, which seems very uneconomical. Therefore, it was not until April 24 that intelligence pointed out that the Argentine carrier contingent was close to the no-air zone that the Cabinet again authorized the Brilliant to search and monitor north, although the question of whether to authorize the attack on the Cabinet was still debated.
On 29 April, The Splendor discovered two Type 42 destroyers and three Drummond-class frigates, but the 25 May carrier was not identified, and it is not certain whether it was simply guarded at the core of the fleet or had returned. The Brilliant then noticed that the frigate was heading south, so Northwood ordered the Brilliant to catch up to see if she could follow the vine to find the carrier. However, the follow-up search still found only destroyers and frigates, and Brilliant decided to continue to track existing targets, but never waited for the aircraft carrier, and finally decided to go north to investigate the intelligence of suspected Argentine submarines.
On 30 April, Britain updated its rules of engagement to authorize an attack on the 25 May carrier, even if it was outside the no-air zone. However, the British still had no idea where 25 May was.
Woodward learned around midnight on 2 May that the Argentine patrol aircraft had approached the task force, and the British Sea Harrier intercepted it, but he immediately assigned the Sea Harrier to search backwards along the direction of the patrol aircraft's entry, and successfully detected a number of large surface targets in the northwest; more importantly, the Sea Harrier was once tracked by the Type 909 fire control radar, so it can be determined that it is a Type 42 destroyer, and the identity of this fleet is also known - Task Force 79.1. However, both the Splendor and spartans were 100 miles from this surface formation, and with the time it took submarines to receive enemy intelligence, it was doubtful that they would be able to catch up in time.
Woodward was anxious about the situation, and the Argentine Navy was under pressure from both directions, with home air support, but he could not rule out the threat of either side – there was no possibility of air strikes on the mainland. Although the Conquistador was staring at General Belgrano, the current rules of engagement did not allow fire on it.
Another setback for Woodward was that as a professional and experienced submarine force officer, the submarine command and dispatch authority was still in the hands of Northwood's command, and he was unable to dispatch the Royal Navy's most deterrent combat resources.
However, on the other hand, the high-level approach is not unreasonable, as the command ship of the Hercules aircraft carrier has a full set of command equipment, but in the coordination of the command of a large and scattered task force is still stretched, such as to increase the efficiency of the submarine command responsibilities may also have doubts, not to mention the British front-line combat warships also have electromagnetic emission control needs to reduce the possibility of being detected by Argentina.
To make matters worse, while British politicians were still looking ahead, the British knew argentina was planning an attack on the British. British intelligence could crack most of the encryption of Argentine communications, and while not all of them and deciphering and distributing them would often result in intelligence lags of several hours, the British could indeed know more about their movements and rules than their opponents.
In this way, the British were able to confirm at 1 May 2007 that the 25 May had received permission to engage the British task force, starting with the 25 May air strike on 2 May, the 79.3 contingent would also launch an offensive against the British contingent headquarters when the results of the air raid were favorable to Argentina, and the 79.4 task force would attack scattered British ships as appropriate, and after the air raid on 25 May, the British would quickly distance themselves from British retaliation.
How can Woodward, who is shouldering heavy responsibilities and facing the pressure of strong opponents, break the deadlock? The next part will continue to be revealed for everyone!