Gannet: from anti-submarine patrol to early warning

What was the Gannet and why would it have mattered in the Falklands?

It was first a carrier anti-submarine aircraft and later an AEW platform; an airborne warning asset could have improved fighter direction in 1982.

The original Gannet was an anti-submarine aircraft, while later variants carried airborne early-warning equipment. Contra-rotating propellers, long endurance, and its distinctive folding-wing arrangement made a large patrol aircraft workable aboard Royal Navy carriers. Gannets or suitably equipped Sea Kings could have put combat air patrols farther forward during the Falklands War. The first purpose of that warning would have been to break up coordinated raids and give shipboard defences more time, rather than necessarily destroying every attacker. Earlier warning could therefore have reduced ship losses by disrupting attacks before they reached the fleet.