Why air defense struggled in San Carlos Water

Rapier positions and programming failed to protect the anchorage as intended. Some batteries were hundreds of metres from their planned sites, while the fire-control setup emphasized the landing area rather than ships in the bay. Hills, cloud, and ground clutter also degraded Sea Dart and Sea Wolf, pushing defense back toward visual warning and machine-gun fire. Clapp nevertheless exploited those same obstacles to shorten Argentine attack runs and place the best-armed amphibious ships at likely approaches. British survival also depended heavily on Argentine bombs failing to detonate after low-level delivery. The Argentine Navy already understood the fuzing problem, but interservice rivalry kept the Air Force from applying that knowledge before the BBC publicized the defect. A bomb could still damage a ship without detonating, but an internal explosion would have been far more destructive. Terrain, joint coordination, and technical settings all shaped survival in Bomb Alley.