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April 23, 2019, 01:00 PM
#1
Wouldn't It Have Been Smarter If Thatcher Didn't Announce When The British Fleet Would Be Leaving For The Falklands?
Good afternoon
I was recently re-watching 20th Century Battlefields episode on The Falklands War and on top of other documentaries watched over the years had a thought strike me for the first time, would things not have gone better for Britain if they had waited till the fleet arrived near The Falklands before publicly announcing the campaign?
At a certain point it may become impossible to hide as they did have Argentinean military operated 707s shadowing the fleet along the route south who could have picked the fleet up on radar or visually regardless but at the least it would allow for around 20 days where the enemy wasn't preparing as hastily and possibly even allow for some landings before the full fleet and air response.
The Argentinians had SAM missile batteries only days away from being fully active on the island and considering they also had Exocet missiles and nearly half the ships in the quickly assembled British Task Force consisted of vulnerable merchant vessels (including 2 troop carrying cruise liners) you would think they would want to avoid all possible contact with the enemy not alert them weeks beforehand they would be arriving. We know troops were moved quickly to The Falklands/Malvinas and it gave them time to prep the air force on the mainland being just in range of the islands, countering them were 46 British Harrier jets.
In other documentaries I have seen British soldiers lament the fact they were a bit arrogant and while learning Spanish phrases for "surrender" or hands up" they never thought to learn things like "I surrender", could this have been part of the reason for Thatchers declaration? Thinking a 2nd or 3rd rate nation would be a walkover?
Tl;Dr - Churchill would never have gone on radio and announced The Allied Fleet would be leaving for Normandy in a few weeks so when it comes to this case why did Thatcher give an enemy at that point enough information to be able to quickly move troops and equipment around, fortify, etc?
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