The need to move fast
Patrick Desmond
What seemed impossible seven weeks ago, and still improbable last Satur- day, has been done: the Task Force has got its embarked battalions ashore — and without the loss of a single man on the beaches. A helicopter accident drowned 20 SAS soldiers in a transhipment; two hits on helicopters above the beachhead killed four crewmen; the downing of a Harrier at Goose Green killed its pilot. But the five battalions landed at San Carlos — 40, 42 and 45 Royal Marine Commandos and the 2nd and 3rd Battalions the Parachute Regi- ment — appear not to have lost a man in the perilous passage between ship and shore. Future histories of amphibious operations will count this high among the extraordinary achievements of the British armed services in the Falklands campaign. True, the landing was not really an 'op- Posed' one in the technical sense. The Argentines had only a company at San ,Carlos, which was grossly outnumbered and overwhelmingly outgunned by the force put against it. The company corn- Mander clearly did the right thing by order- ing his men to withdraw. And it is very much to his credit that his missile men suc- ceeded in hitting the two helicopters with their hand-held weapons before they made off into the interior. Whither away? The Argentines, we are told, have six battalions ashore: one on west Falkland, which is effectively out of the battle; one at Goose Green, the wrong side of the narrow isthmus which links the two halves of East Falkland; and four at port Stanley, 60 miles across country from San Carlos. The retreating company is Presumably Stanley-boUnd. The landing force can safely leave it to find its own way home.
Why San Carlos, though, as the chosen landing place? Armchair strategists have all 'greed that the landing must be on the nor- thern half of East Falkland. West Falkland, Falkland being on the wrong side of the talkland Sound from the ultimate objec- tive, Port Stanley, was also 50 miles nearer the Argentines' mainland air bases, and to Fe avoided for that reason. The southern half of East Falkland is virtually an island, Joined to the northern half only by the ..,-,nose Green isthmus. A landing in 'alkland Sound is nevertheless surprising. It is an axiom that ships threatened by air attack need all the sea room they can find, so that they may manoeuvre freely. But the rules of air-sea warfare have been changed has last weeks. The sea-skimming missile nas emerged from the plethora of new technology as a dominant weapon. The o estruction of Sheffield at a range of 30 nliles Proves that. But Exocet, and similar weapons, need an unobstructed approach for their homing radar to guide them into the target. Any interposed land mass throws a radar shadow which protects surface ships from harm. West Falkland exactly provides such a shadow. And it also offers other safeguards. Three Argentine submarines are still at large, and all offer a terrible threat to the Task Force in confined waters. Indeed, it may be thought miraculous that none scored a hit during the period when Canberra and the other troop-carrying vessels were inshore. But now that the big ships have retreated to the deep, where nor- mal anti-submarine manoeuvres and precautions should keep them reasonably safe from attack, that danger has receded. However, the anti-aircraft pickets and sup- ply vessels which must linger close to shore would still be at risk had the landing been made on an open beach. The choice of a land-locked beach averts that peril, since we may presume that the Navy has laid anti- submarine sea bed sensors across the two narrow openings of the Falkland Sound, and thus ensured that it cannot be penetrated.
If sea-skimming missiles and submarines may be discounted — it is significant that both Ardent and the unnamed frigate which became a casualty during the landing were hit by bombs — the menace of air attack re- mains. The great air battle of last Friday was a clear British victory. It cost the Argentines over ten per cent of their strik- ing force of 130 Skyhawks and Mirages (the three Pucaras downed were probably Falkland-based). But the remainder is still strong enough to give the Task Force's 40
Harriers a difficult time, particularly if committed in another mass attack.
When might such an attack come? We can calculate the Task Force's order of events and timetable. It is anxious to get its RAF Harriers operating from land, either from an improvised strip or one already ex- isting: a descent on the isolated Argentine battalion at Goose Green air strip would kill two birds with one stone. It must want to get the three battalions embarked on the QE2 — Guards and Gurkhas — ashore, either at San Carlos or another nearby spot; it will then twice outnumber the Stanley garrison. And, with winter pressing, it has got to get the troops moving across the 60 miles which separate the beachhead from Port Stanley, so as to release the fleet from close attendance on the islands.
But what of the Argentine calculations? There is a great deal to be said for striking quickly, while the beachhead is still com- pact, and the ground targets therefore easy to pick off. News of Sunday's air attacks, just received, suggests that that is what they have decided to do. But there are also arguments for waiting until the troops break out of the bridgehead and head in- land, when the columns may be harried from the air without risk from the fairly im- mobile Rapier air-defence missiles now landed.
For the British, with so many hurdles behind them, now face a problem to which there is no easy solution. And that is to negotiate the truly appalling 60 miles of ground between San Carlos and Stanley. There are no roads. The surface, where it is not impassable rock outcrops or steep hillsides, is largely peat bog, covered by a grass mat which, if broken, leaves vehicles to sink into swamp. There are two tracks, north and south of the central massif, but neither is firm enough to take a weighty vehicle, and both pass through easily defended choke points. None of this means that the Commandos and Paras will not find a way through. But it does mean that the recapture of Port Stanley will take longer than desired.
Recapture, moreover, will very probably need a battle. And it is not beyond the bounds of possibility, given the way nations behave nowadays, that the garrison might seek to hobble the British by refusing to allow the civilians still in the town to leave. So the military campaign, which was sup- posed to cut the knots which diplomacy could not untangle, may relapse into the diplomats' hands once again. There are reports in any case that General Galtieri, who ought to be able to 'appreciate a situa- tion' as well as the next soldier, is now call- ing for a ceasefire. In doing so he is echoing the many voices raised against Sir Anthony Parsons in the Security Council. If the Task Force is intent, therefore, on sparing its political commanders a prolonged passage of negotiations, with muddled and un- satisfactory results, it will have to move very fast. The decisive stroke of the cam- paign looks, on D-Day plus three, as if it is still to come.
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