Naval History Forums

Would any modern weaponry the Argentinians have sink a British WW2 Battleship, if KGV, Anson, Howe was in mothballs?

Torpedoes, but their submarines weren't effective in the actual event.

I can't see it happening. The exocets didn't have a warhead powerful enough to cause real damage to a heavily armoured battleship. Further such ships would have powerful exocet defence, including radar guided 5.25 inch guns.

A KGV would have been very useful for bombarding enemy positions!

Tes, but pinpoint accuracy would be required.

Only one civilian was killed under the Argentine occupation. Saturation shelling in and around Stanley could have caused that figure to be much greater.

would we see the last surface to surface battle?

That depends on future conflicts.

Logically I can't see why surface ship battles won't continue in the future. The advent of the aircraft carrier didn't eliminate surface ship gunnery battles and I wouldn't expect long range missiles to do it either.

I mean would we see KGV vs Belgrano instead of conqueror torpedoing it?

KGV versus Belgrano is a no contest - battleship versus cruiser!

More interesting would be whether the Argentines would have invaded at all if KGV was in the South Atlantic in place of the ice patrol ship Endurance.....

RF wrote:KGV versus Belgrano is a no contest - battleship versus cruiser!

More interesting would be whether the Argentines would have invaded at all if KGV was in the South Atlantic in place of the ice patrol ship Endurance.....

You are suggesting the British would have used KGV as an ice patrol ship?

RF wrote:KGV versus Belgrano is a no contest - battleship versus cruiser!

I mean a Carrier battle group consisting Belgrano and there only aircraft carrier along with there destroyers?

Steve Crandell wrote: You are suggesting the British would have used KGV as an ice patrol ship?

No.

More like the role of Sturdee than watching ice floes.

The Foreign Office had plenty of warning of what was afoot, only they didn't believe that the Argentines would actually invade....

tameraire01 wrote:

I mean a Carrier battle group consisting Belgrano and there only aircraft carrier along with there destroyers?

The Argentine carrier was not in a full battleworthy condition, the main reason it was kept in port. Such a confrontation would have resulted in complete destruction of the Argentine surface fleet without the RN needing a KGV. That is why the Argentine surface fleet kept out of the British exclusion zone, except for the Belgrano incursion.....

RF wrote:The Argentine carrier was not in a full battleworthy condition, the main reason it was kept in port. Such a confrontation would have resulted in complete destruction of the Argentine surface fleet without the RN needing a KGV. That is why the Argentine surface fleet kept out of the British exclusion zone, except for the Belgrano incursion.....

As far as I know, the Belgrano was sunk outside the British exclusion zone (to be exact before the Belgrano battle group entered the BEE). It is the reason why there was so much protestation after.

There was endless debate about whether Belgrano was in or out of the original exclusion zone when it was sunk, also there were arguments about it sailing away from the Falklands at the time.

So far as the Vienciento de Mayo was concerned, anywhere outside the 12 mile limit offshore from Argentina would have marked that ship down for attack.