|
|
|
|
|
|
by remarkEon
2228 days ago
|
|
|
Xi's views are of limited relevance to you and me, perhaps, but they are not of limited relevance to how PRC operates. Of course they're relevant, and then by extension that makes them relevant for how global politics plays out. >Taiwan is a sovereign country boasting a military alliance with America. Yep, this is certainly true, and part of maintaining that military alliance will be further entangling things like high tech manufacturing. >But safeguarding global assets in Taiwan from Beijing pulling a Falklands is also savvy. I actually don't know as much as I should about the Falkland Islands War, other than the UK took a decent amount of losses surprisingly. I think PRC actually invading Taiwan is extremely unlikely, given the terrain and weather aspects of how that war would go, but doing something like launching some missiles is definitely within the realm of possibility. |
|
|
Good summary, actually! :)
Argentina and Britain lost about the same number of ships, with Britain having an edge on the air war. British troops marched into Port Stanley with dysentery from drinking bog water, but defeated the Argentine conscripts.
Ignoring Argentine military and etiquette lapses, the modern war lessons were:
1) Although subsonic, Harriers were ok ish for defending the fleet against an inferior force.
2) Argentine pilots used terrain masking (fly in on the deck at the bow, similar to "crossing the T") to sink some ships, so good tactics are always in style:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nap-of-the-earth
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossing_the_T
3) Without first-rate satellite intelligence, the British tried and failed to find and sink Argentine's aircraft carrier using subs. (Argentina withdrew their carrier to preserve it, after the traumatic sinking of the Belgrano. So tactically the British achieved the same result, but there's always uncertainty with a ship that's still floating.)
4) A British troop carrier was bombed at anchor with the soldiers ordered to remain onboard. That was a command mistake on par with US amphibious landing mistakes in the WW2 Italy campaign. Anzio, anybody?
5) Aluminum ships burn, like the Sheffield.
Having said that, the result could have been very different considering how few Harriers Britain had, or if Argentina had 10 more Exocet missiles.
(Little-known fact: An Exocet destroyed one British ship without the warhead even detonating, just the rocket fuel. The watch saw it coming, and couldn't do anything about it.)