Submarines in the Falklands Part 1

When I wrote my series on the Falklands War, there was one major gap in my account. At the time, I had very little information on the exploits of the British submarines during the war, with one notable exception. But I've since acquired new sources, which shed light on this aspect of the conflict.

HMS Dreadnought in earlier days

The story actually begins five years before the outbreak of war. In 1977, Britain and Argentina began negotiations over the future of the Falklands, and Argentina's hard-line position concerned the British enough that they began to worry about an invasion. That November, a naval force was dispatched to the South Atlantic, with frigates Phoebe and Alacrity, auxiliaries Olwen, Cherryleaf and Resurgent and HMS Dreadnought, Britain's first nuclear submarine. Dreadnought, underway for a deployment to Australia, was diverted to Gibraltar and prepared for war, including loading extra food and removing bunks to hold more torpedoes. So much equipment was taken on board that it was discovered she was too heavy to be neutrally buoyant at periscope depth.¹ Dreadnought was dispatched to the seaward approaches to the Falklands, and her orders are a matter of dispute, with some claiming that in the event of Argentine aggression, she was to expose herself to make the implied threat clear, or even had carte blanche to shoot if they moved within range of the islands. She was never detected by the Argentinians,² but it seems likely that her presence was quietly revealed to their government by the British in an attempt to deter them from taking action. The rest of the force, with the exception of Cherryleaf, remained well to the north of the islands, and returned home in early 1978 as the crisis abated. One of the biggest results was the patrol report Dreadnought brought home, which proved invaluable four years later when the RN again had to operate in the little-known waters of the South Atlantic.

As tensions increased in March of 1982, Argentina cast a wary eye on Britain's SSN force in case of a repeat of Dreadnought's voyage. When HMS Superb sailed from Gibraltar on March 26th, some thought she was headed for the South Atlantic, although she was actually tasked with one of the routine but vital Cold War patrols against Soviet submarines in the North Atlantic. Three days later, it was clear that the situation was getting much worse, and two other SSNs were recalled from patrols to load weapons and supplies for the South Atlantic: Spartan, off Gibraltar, and Splendid, in the Western Approaches. They left on April 1st and 2nd respectively, beginning the two-week high-speed runs that would carry them to the vicinity of the Falklands. It was here that the strategic mobility of the nuclear submarine really shown, as each boat was able to maintain 28 kts or more for the entire time, a capability matched by few other vessels. A third submarine was identified but not dispatched, as the UK had only six or seven operational SSNs and couldn't spare more from their duties in the undersea war with the Soviets. But things in the South Atlantic were moving too fast even for nuclear power, and even as Splendid prepared to dive off Faslane, the BBC broadcast the news that Argentina had invaded the Falklands.

HMS Splendid

The third submarine, HMS Conqueror, was ordered to prepare for a deployment to the South Atlantic, including loading a team from the Special Boat Service and nine tons of their gear. However, the Navy believed that using its SSNs for special operations support would be too much of a distraction from their main mission of sea control and made plans to deploy one of its Oberon class diesel submarines to do the job instead, eventually choosing HMS Onyx. The SSN-special forces partnership would end when Conqueror transferred her passengers to Antrim by helicopter in the rough waters off South Georgia, nearly losing two of the men over the side.

The plan for the SSNs was that three of them would cover the main bases of the Argentine navy, ready to respond to any breakout, while a fourth stayed in reserve, ready to deal with any breakthroughs. This would mean another boat heading south, and Valiant, the first all-British SSN, was chosen. She was in the mid-Atlantic on receiving orders, and only low food stores stopped her from turning south immediately. The boats would be commanded from Northwood, operating under separate orders from Sandy Woodward's surface task force. Woodward, a submariner himself, protested this arrangement, but the communication difficulties he faced meant that it was probably for the best. The British also had to figure out the Rules of Engagement the submarines would operate under once they arrived, a tricky matter at the best of times. Defense Secretary John Nott proposed that Spartan be ordered to sink an Argentine ship as soon as possible upon arrival off the Falklands, but this was seen as too radical and a 200-mile Exclusion Zone was declared instead, with submarines authorized to attack identified warships and auxiliaries inside it. The requirement for identification was easy enough when attacking surface ships, but a serious potential problem for anti-submarine work, particularly against the Type 209s Argentina operated. They could be told from SSNs reasonably well, but there was no way to make sure that they were the right diesel boat. Eventually, this problem was solved by telling everyone else to keep their submarines far away from the Falklands.³ Making the ROE problem worse, just as Spartan and Splendid approached the Falklands, American Secretary of State Alexander Haig persuaded the British to suspend the exclusion zone for fear of disrupting negotiations, earning him the ire of the submariners.

HMS Conqueror

Another issue the British faced was lack of information on their enemy. The RN had spent the past decade focused almost exclusively on war with the Soviets, and the best available information on the Argentinian Navy was found in Jane's Fighting Ships. A bit more trickled in via satellite link as the boats sped south, but one of the major lessons of the war was that future conflicts might not be against the Soviets or their clients, and western intelligence agencies needed to pay attention to systems from notionally friendly countries as well as their enemies.

Spartan finally arrived off the Falklands on April 12th, the first British vessel to reach the war zone.⁴ She and the other submarines would hold the line until the Task Force arrived two weeks later, and blunt the surface threat, a process we will look at next time.