The 1982 Falklands campaign is usually remembered for amphibious skill, carrier air operations, and the submarine sinking of ARA General Belgrano. In the electromagnetic domain the story is more nuanced. Electronic warfare did not hand either side a decisive blow in isolation, but EW and SIGINT shaped tempo, losses, and operational choices. British success in the campaign rested on a mix of hard-kill actions and information advantages that were supported, imperfectly, by electronic measures.
The Royal Navy entered the South Atlantic with a conspicuous airborne early warning gap. The RN had lost its fixed wing carrier AEW capability in the late 1970s and had no organic equivalent at the conflict start. That absence forced commanders to use surface radar pickets and to accept limited detection ranges against low flying attackers and sea skimming missiles. The lack of AEW increased reliance on shipboard ESM, communications intercepts, and visual spotting to create an effective sensor picture. The shortfall was so stark that an improvised Sea King AEW conversion program began during and immediately after the fighting; the Sea King AEW concept was rushed into service because of the lessons learned in 1982.
Electromagnetic attack was most visible in Argentina’s use of the AM39 Exocet. The May 4, 1982 Exocet strike on HMS Sheffield remains the canonical case study in combined ELINT, tactics, and vulnerability. Argentine maritime patrol aircraft located and passed contact data to Super Étendards which launched AM39 Exocets after tactical pop-up radar acquisitions. Sheffield was on picket duty and, according to the Board of Inquiry, did not go to full action stations in time, did not employ chaff before impact, and lacked an ECM jammer; these factors combined to make the ship vulnerable to the missile’s radar seeker. The inquiry and subsequent declassified material highlight a chain of detection, communications, human decision making, and equipment shortfalls rather than a single technical failure.
Soft kill measures were widely fielded but mixed in effectiveness. Corvus style chaff launchers were fitted across many task force ships and were credited with confusing sensors on a number of occasions. At the same time the limited numbers of Seawolf point defense systems and the uneven fit of dedicated ECM jammers left several vessels with only chaff and gun layers for defense against modern anti-ship missiles. In short, chaff and decoys were useful when available and employed in good time, but they were not a universal panacea against a well executed Exocet attack.
Signals intelligence and allied collection played an outsized role. GCHQ and allied SIGINT assets provided tactical and operational indicators that helped task force commanders prioritize threats, position assets, and anticipate Argentine moves. Five Eyes cooperation and allied technical support supplied intercepts and codebreaking that improved situational awareness at strategic and operational levels. That SIGINT advantage did not remove surprise or prevent all losses, but it produced an asymmetric intelligence edge that the British exploited during campaign planning and operations.
Operationally this created a mixed outcome. EW vulnerabilities produced high profile losses early in the campaign and forced conservative deployments such as close-in destroyer pickets. At the same time British adaptations reduced future risk. Rapid improvised fixes, improved coordination of shipboard ESM, more aggressive radar emission control discipline, better use of chaff and decoys, and post-conflict procurement changes - notably the Sea King AEW conversion and introduction of dedicated airborne and helicopter jamming suites - closed several capability gaps identified during the fighting. Those changes altered the kill chain for subsequent Argentine strikes and improved task force survivability.
Lessons for EW practitioners and hobbyist engineers are practical and enduring. First, platform-level sensors and emitters are only as useful as doctrine and training permit. Radar and ESM need clear rules of engagement, linked communications, and rapid decision loops to trigger countermeasures. Second, redundancy matters. Relying on a single sensor type or on line-of-sight pickets increases vulnerability to deception and low-level attack. Third, integration of SIGINT, ESM, and airborne surveillance is a force multiplier. In 1982 the British exploited this mix even though it was incomplete. Finally, campaigns accelerate technical change. The Falklands drove rapid field modifications and procurement priorities that closed critical EW gaps within a few years of the fighting.
From a tactical and technical point of view the Falklands campaign is less a story of EW creating victory on its own and more a textbook example of how electromagnetic capabilities and their absence shape operational risk, force posture, and procurement. Electronic warfare influenced who took casualties, how ships were deployed, and how doctrine was rewritten after the shooting stopped. For engineers and planners the central takeaway is clear: in maritime campaigns EW is not optional. It is an integral component of the sensor-shooter chain, and gaps in EW become tactical liabilities very quickly when an adversary brings modern guided weapons and well practiced tactics to bear.