why didnt the armies in the falklands war employ any armour?

Question

its seems from looking at the conflict that tanks and apcs would have done well in the open terrain of the falklands war, why didnt the british bring a large contingent of tanks to be launched

Answer 1

The war was fought in 1982, which was in the middle of the Cold War. The British military at the time was concentrating on stopping a Soviet attack through Europe. That meant that there transport fleet was based around getting their armor to France only a few dozen miles away. The Falklands are about 4000 miles away and with an insufficient transport capacity, it would have taken too long to get any armor there. If the British waited too long, there was a fear that the Argentinians would have had time to consolidate their gains and fortify the beaches.

The Argentinians were closer, but they had even less transport capacity. Getting men there was easy, because they could just put them on deck of any ship, but they didn't have any way to move armor.

Answer 2

The terrain was terrible for tanks. They would have been an easy target for the Argentine air force in a country devoid of natural cover and the ground was either too soft or too rocky..

Answer 3

The Brits didn't bring tanks because the Argentinian troops didn't have them. If the Argentinian troops had a significant tank force then I'm sure the Brits would have been more than happy to introduce them to their Challenger and Chiefton tanks.