The dead man Falklands 1982. Falklands seven.

I hope not, but I just reported the body, and I never followed up on this poor Argentine kid. And so many of them were kids, three months training, here's yer gun go fight. They had numbers but nothing else, moral was shit, training shit, the class structure, where thier officers fed like kings and the squaddies got a tin of Frey Bentos a day. They could fight, but as soon as it came down to it they legged it. No wander.

Your right, they did have good troops, commandos but none of us had chance to take them on, but even then i'm not sure, they were really trained to put down insurrections at home. But as they were stationed at Stanley we never got chance to match up against them. But they were diffinately better trained, probably about a step lower level as paras and our Marines. But again thier main efforts in Argentina was aimed at keeping the government in power. so... we'll never know.

One thing we all agreed on, whatever service thier Skyhawk pilots were incredibly brave. They had very limited fuel, so they had very little time over target, and no time to really make manouvers and even fly at full speed or they wouldn't have got home. Still they kept coming. A couple of our Harrier pilots told me over a beer that these handicaps made our Harriers look far better than they were in comparison.

What we all came to hate was the BBC, the Argentinian bombs were'nt exploding, there was a lot of UXB's because they were setting thier detonators wrong for the altitude they were dropped from, the BBC world service reported this and the Argies immediately put it right and suddenly Brit ships were going up all over the place, the other thing the wankers did was report 2 Para were about to assault Goose Green... so the Argies moved about eight hundred more men into position! There were a lot of lads talked about "putting one into the reporters" by "accident" if they got the chance!

While we're on it, H Jones of 2 Para who got the VC should have been courts martialed if he'd lived. Leading this rediculous death or glory uphill charge at Goose Green was insane, he should have been in his dugout with his maps and radios directing the battle. Getting himself killed like that, been where he had no right to be left 2 Para leaderless, as soon as it was announced "Sunray is down" they were in the shit. 

Fortunately his 2oc was Major Chris Keeble, an experienced and brilliant officer, ex SAS and he got to grips quite quickly or it would have all gone to shit. Everyone loved him too and respected him. I've looked back down on Goose Green from the Argy positions and there was nothing to get down behind, muddy and open and Jones led eighteen of his men to thier deaths. Straight at emplaced machine gun positions, mortars and small arms, Keeble took over and probed for weeknesses and found them turning the battle. 

In reality he'd probably have got a slap on the wrist and his carreer prospects would probably have been put on hold. But he really did fuck up and got men killed doing it. Giving him the VC pissed a lot of lads off. Incidentally even though Keeble was so good they flew out a Colonal from the UK to take over 2 Para, which also pissed a lot off as Chris was so well liked and trusted.