Logistics in the Falklands War

330 Pages·2014·4.77 MB·English

by  Privratsky

Logistics in the
Falklands War
For the thousands of British men and women who worked tirelessly behind the
scenes and enabled victory in the Falkland Islands War.
Logistics in the
Falklands War
Behind the British Victory
Kenneth L. Privratsky
First published in Great Britain in 2014 by
Pen & Sword Military
an imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd
47 Church Street
Barnsley
South Yorkshire
S70 2AS
Copyright © Kenneth L. Privratsky 2014
ISBN 978 1 47382 312 9
The right of Kenneth L. Privratsky to be identified as the Author of
this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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Library
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Contents
Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgements
Glossary of Terms and Acronyms
Maps
Chapter 1 Prelude to War
Chapter 2 Mobilization and Deployment
Chapter 3 Initial Planning and Preparation at Sea
Chapter 4 Support Operations at Ascension Island
Chapter 5 Final Preparation for the Amphibious Assault
Chapter 6 D-Day and the Struggle to Build up Logistics
Chapter 7 The Breakout and Fight for Goose Green
Chapter 8 More Forces and Challenges
Chapter 9 Problems at Fitzroy
Chapter 10 The Battle for Mountains Surrounding Stanley
Chapter 11 After the Surrender
Chapter 12 A Refection on the British Experience
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Foreword
T his is the first book devoted to addressing the logistics of the Falklands
War of 1982. Perhaps we should not be surprised that it has taken thirty-
two years for it to see the light of day. For as the American author
Thorpe wrote, ‘surely one of the strangest things in Military History is the
almost complete silence upon the problems of supply.’ Yet almost every general
who knows his business recognises this. ‘During the last war eighty per cent of
our problems were of a logistical nature,’ Montgomery is alleged to have said.
Even Napoleon who dismissively pronounced, ‘let no one speak to me of
provisions,’ usually got it right, although lack of attention to logistics in Russia
and Spain contributed to his downfall.
Here, at last, is a comprehensive account of the logistics of the Falklands War,
from the British point of view, written by a highly experienced American
general officer. Ken Privratsky has studied the subject deeply, starting in the
1980s. Among his many perceptive observations two stand out for me, as a
senior commander in the Falklands. First his recognition, based on personal
reconnaissance, that the terrain in the Falklands shaped and impinged on the way
the ground forces received, or in some cases did not receive, their supplies.
Second, that the operation was conducted by the British over a very long
distance from their home base – as the crow flies nearly 2,000 miles further from
the UK than Japan – with one staging post approximately half way down the
route.
‘No one who has not visited the Falklands, be he Government Minister,
Serviceman, Whitehall Official, MP or journalist, can ever speak or write
convincingly about them with any sense of conviction or degree of credibility,’
wrote Major General Edward Fursdon, the Defence Correspondent of the Daily
Telegraph, after a visit a few months after the war. This belief is echoed by Ken
Privratsky, who writes, ‘I have had the opportunity to visit the Falkland Islands
twice in recent years, including a stop in South Georgia. I am not sure that
anyone can provide an adequate account of the Falklands War without spending
some time on the islands.’
Those of us fighting in the Falklands in 1982, Navy, Marine, or Army, soon
realised that the staff of the Task Force Commander (CTF), directing the war
from a bunker in Northwood, just north of London, had absolutely no idea of the
scale of the logistic challenge posed by operating in a land of rocky whale-
backed hills and peat bog with no roads, or even the most rudimentary track.
Major General Jeremy Moore originally provided the land force advice to the
CTF. The day before we landed, Moore, accompanied by most of his staff, left
the CTF’s headquarters and travelling south in the liner Queen Elizabeth II,
arrived ten days later to take command ashore. The commander and staff of
Headquarters North-East District replaced him at Northwood. The majority of
these people seemed unable to make the mental switch from driving about the
north German plain in armoured personnel carriers accompanied by self-
propelled artillery to picturing the realities of footslogging across a peat bog.
Traversing the formidable terrain was of course only a minor part of the problem
facing us. The logisticians had the far greater challenge of lifting forward every
bean, bullet, gun, and gallon of fuel by a combination of landing craft and a
lamentably small helicopter force. Before this there was the naval logistic
problem of an offload of supplies and equipment under frequent air attack.
The author also alludes to the problems inherent in conducting operations at a
long distance from the home base, and furthermore that this included that most
difficult of war fighting pastimes, an amphibious operation. He makes it plain
that this is very different from a sea-transported operation – the distinction,
operationally and logistically, is sometimes lost on the present generation of
British politicians, Officials, and the many senior serving officers lacking even
rudimentary training in the art, or even a passing acquaintance gained by reading
history, let alone actual experience of amphibious operations. With the exception
of the insertion of the UK’s Special Boat Service into Afghanistan in 2001 by
helicopter, and the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the British experience of overseas
expeditions since the Falklands has been of ‘red carpet’ operations, the classic
example being the lead-up to the 1991 war in Kuwait, where a host nation, Saudi
Arabia (and other Gulf states), provided all the facilities needed by the Coalition
forces: including docks, slipways, airfields, roads, fuel, and even five star hotels
for the RAF aircrew. The Falklands war involved a quintessential amphibious
operation where you have to take everything you need with you, or capture it
after arrival – for example a port, or an airfield – should these even exist. If, as in
the case of the Falklands, the objective for the amphibious assault is beyond the
range of land-based air, you need aircraft carriers to provide air cover and close
air support; as well as carriers dedicated to bring support helicopters in far
greater numbers than were made available to the amphibious and landing forces
in the Falklands War.
Another aspect of an amphibious operation, which the author makes clear in
this book, is that it is a joint operation in a way and to a degree that a sea-
transported or straight land or maritime operation is not. In a sea-transported
operation, as in the positioning of forces for Gulf War One in 1991, those being
transported (the land force) are to all intents and purposes passengers and have a
limited need to plan and interact with their transporters; the Royal and Merchant
Navy. They do not have to think; the movement staff will tell them what to do
on arrival. It is a movement operation. That is not to say that it does not require a
great deal of logistic planning, but in essence it is little different from taking
passengers, vehicles, and containers across the North Sea or any other stretch of
water in peacetime. Those being transported do not have to take account of the
myriad factors that have to be weighed up by their transporters to the degree that
the landing force (note change of name) has to in an amphibious operation. In
this case, the amphibious and landing force commanders must work hand in
glove, taking accounts of each other’s requirements at every stage to produce a
joint plan. This was a feature of the war in the Falklands that clearly had not
been assimilated by the 5 Infantry Brigade, the follow-up brigade after the 3
Commando Brigade Royal Marines had landed. This was not their fault. The role
of the 5 Infantry Brigade was ‘intervention,’ the British term in the late 1970s/
early 1980s for what in effect was a ‘red carpet’ operation to rescue British
Nationals from a foreign country in a time of crisis. This, it was assumed,
because it was convenient to do so, would be by invitation on the part of the
country concerned, or at worst, in the face of very light opposition: a few
dissidents equipped with small arms. In short, operations against the sort of
enemy that constituted the sole experience of all but a handful of British
servicemen at that time. The brigade was pitchforked into the Falklands without
the necessary training, most essentially in how to conduct joint operations. Other
than some rudimentary exercises with RAF helicopters, neither the 5 Infantry
Brigade, nor any other Army formation or unit, other than those in the 3
Commando Brigade, had the remotest notion of how to co-operate with the
Royal Navy.
This ignorance persists. Senior serving British Army general officers have
recently been heard saying that there is no need for elite troops, such as the
Royal Marines, that there is ‘nothing they do that cannot be done by a good
infantry battalion,’ citing the June 1944 landings in Normandy as an example.
They forget if indeed they ever knew, that, for example, the British 3rd Infantry
Division, the left hand assault division on Gold Beach in Normandy in June
1944, began their amphibious training in late 1942, eighteen months before they
had to carry out the operation. Between summer 1943 and June 1944, in addition
to numerous unit level amphibious training and courses, this Division took part
in no less than ten formation level amphibious exercises – usually landing in the
same craft that would land them in Normandy. In 1982, nobody was granted
such a bonus. It was a ‘come as you are’ party and is likely to be next time.
Fortunately, in the case of the Falklands War of 1982 there was sufficient
residual expertise among the staffs of 3 Commando Brigade and COMAW, and
the units of 3 Commando Brigade, to overcome the lack of recent joint training
thanks to financial cuts by Mr John Nott, the UK Secretary of State for Defence.
The Royal Fleet Auxiliary had done even less joint training, and the Merchant
Navy none. The point is that joint training by all parties likely to become
involved in an amphibious operation is essential.
As made clear in Ken Privratsky’s excellent book, the efforts of the
logisticians in the Falklands were remarkable. The achievement is best summed
up by an experienced rifle company commander in 3 Commando Brigade (at the
very point of the spear and hence at the end of the logistic line of
communication), who wrote later:
All comments and lessons from the logistics of this campaign should be leavened by the fact that this
must be one of the few campaigns fought by a regular force since the internal combustion engine
became generally available, where the widespread use of wheeled transport was not possible. This,
combined with the speed with which it was necessary to put the whole act together, and the enemy’s
efforts to disrupt the act, makes it arguable that we were fortunate to have any logistics at all.
A well-researched account of logistics in the Falklands War in 1982 is long
overdue; and this book will be welcomed by a wide readership, not just
logisticians.