I dont know if you have read "the Falklands War" by Max Hastings, excellent history of the conflict by someone who sailed with the Task force.
Of all the arms of the arge forces the Airforce was the only one that really took the war seriously and pressed its attacks to the fullest of its abilty, some of the posters have mentioned it, but most people dont seem to realise how good the Argintine pilots were, and the incredible dash and bravery that they pressed there attacks with. (a British Captain at the time said they shouldent have been suprised they could fly, as argentiana regularly turned out first class F1 drivers!)
There Iron bombs failed to arm in the air due to the fact that the planes were coming in so low that the bombs had insuffient flight time. The Americans declined to pass the knowladge of how to fuse there bombs on to the argintaine airforce, if they had, and all those bombs that stuck british ships exploded, they could well have prevented the british from landing.
It was a very close thing, the Taskforce deserves great credit as it did'ent put a foot wrong during its operations, but this doesent change the fact that if the Argintines had have had of had a few more exocets or knew how to fuse there bombs for a shorter flight time, the Taskforce could had been decimated.
During the first days of the Landing the Taskforce had real problems with sea dart and sea wolf, and vectoring in there fighter CAP. During there the first two days there was a very real possiblity of the Taskforce being turned back, if the Agentines had a bit more luck, this conversation would be about how foolish the British were in sending out such a poorly protected Taskforce.
Could have been done, & I think the Argentinean air force argued for it, but the army generals in charge weren't interested. Argentina had the equipment & engineers to do it - on the mainland. They could have had a ship unloading heavy earth-moving equipment & steel matting in Stanley the day after the invasion, & flown in everything else after shipping movements got tricky, but all the transport was taken up with thousands of half (& in some cases un-) trained conscripts.
I'd have fixed the airstrip as number 1 priority, sent no more than half as many men, made sure they were all properly trained (regulars, or at least fully-trained conscripts), properly dressed, with plenty of food & ammo, enough vehicles, fuel for them, & helicopters. Not tried to defend everywhere, just Stanley & the airport, & perhaps a couple of dispersal grass airstrips for Pucaras, with constant armed aerial recce everywhere else (the Pucaras would have been perfect for that). With trained troops with transport (cross-country vehicles & helicopters), it should have been possible to oppose any British cross-country movement much more effectively
With the forces the Argintines had on the ground, even with active patrolling they would only have delayed the envitable British victory once they landed on the Islands.
Thier best troops remained on the Chilian border guarding against a possible Chilian suprise attack.
But even thier best troops would have been found lacking against the British forces, mainly because they had'ent been conditioned in modern killing techniques, when the arge conscripts fired there guns they rarely shot to kill, where as the British troops shot to kill everytime(the crew serviced weapons and snipers did'ent have this problem, and most of the british causties came from those sources).
What was criminal from the Argintaine point of view was the sheer lack of communication between the services, the navy gave no support to air operations against the Task force, not even Radar intelligence! it was like the wanted them to fail!
