Talk:Raid on Pebble Island/Archives/2008

Decisive victory?

Can somebody explain, by citing a reliable source, why this operation was a decisive victory? DagosNavy 16:15, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

There are several British sources claiming (wrongly) that Pucaras didnt operate any more over the islands after this raid when in fact they even shot down a RM scout after this operation. Jor70 17:20, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

• You are right. The Pucaras continued to flight even from Darwin-Goose Green airstrip shortly before the 28/5 battle. According to some sources, they exacted revenge on the SAS by blowing up an OP with 2.75 inch rockets around May 21. From May 25 to the end of the war, several IA-58s executed some missions from Puerto Argentino air base, and one of them (as you mention) managed to shot down a Scout helicopter on May 28 over Darwin Hill.

DagosNavy 01:50, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

DagosNavy, you wrote in the infobox that there were no casualties "according to Argentinian sources". Could you please provide a reference to those sources, to avoid any contention? Raoulduke47 21:00, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

• Well, my source is an Argentinian 20 years old book about the Argentina's Army commandos in this conflict (Comandos en acción, by professor L.J. Ruiz Moreno). It's a very detailed text, so the author mentions an after-action assessment made in situ by the Army special forces (Chapter VII, page 111). You know, the Navy was in charge of the airstrip security, so the "greens" are brutally frank in their criticism on the "timidity" (to be soft) of their colleagues in blue. They specifically deny the British version about a counter-attack, as well as that of the officer allegedly killed in action. The Argentine marines remained in their shelters all the time, thinking there was only a "routine" naval bombardment by the RN, while the SAS guys made their work completely unopposed. Other Argentinian sources (including the official assessment about the war) agree with Moreno.

DagosNavy 00:00, 13 july 2007

Well I have read an account by an SAS soldier who took part in the raid, and he specifically mentioned Argentine sentries, and a firefight with the Argentine soldiers. He also stated that Argentinian forces challenged them in the open, to which the SAS fired '203 (grenades) rounds at them, which ended the threat of gunfire, which would qualify as more than just one death. As for a decisive victory, there are hundreds of battles here which have an uncited result so why do we need one for this one? It was a decisive victory because it destroyed 11 of the 42 aircraft that the Argentines had on the Falklands, the whole ammo and fuel dump on the island, and denied the Argentinian military any further use of the airstrip. The aircraft based there could have posed a significant threat to British landing forces. (Trip Johnson (talk) 09:53, 21 April 2008 (UTC))

There seem to be a few misonceptions here.

"which would qualify as more than just one death": That's one hell of an assumption. According to this account, all that happened was, the SAS troopers fired at their opponents, and then the shooting stopped. This could just as well indicate the Argentines had taken cover. British sources say there was a firefight, and Argentinian sources say there wasn't. I see no reason to favour one version over the other.

"The aircraft based there could have posed a significant threat to British landing forces": Actually, the only significant combat aircraft stationed at Pebble Island were the six IA-58 Pucaras. While it was certainly a useful COIN aircraft, the pucara was hardly suitable for modern warfare, being both slow and unsophisticated. I find the contention that 6 pucaras would have posed a significant threat to an invasion force equipped with modern warships protected by fighter cover to be extremely dubious, to say the least. The raid on Pebble island didn't put an end to air attacks on the British fleet, that still came under attack from aircraft flying from the Argentinian mainland and from airfields in the Falklands, namely Port Stanley and Goose green, so the effect was clearly not decisive. --Raoulduke47 (talk) 21:01, 21 April 2008 (UTC)