The U.S. State Department has approved a significant Foreign Military Sale to Argentina, involving Basler BT-67 aircraft along with comprehensive logistical and program support, totalling an estimated cost of $143 million.

The Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) has officially notified Congress of this potential sale.

Argentina’s request includes several Basler BT-67 aircraft, along with spare engines, spare parts, repair services, and major modifications. The package also encompasses a wide array of support services such as aircraft and ground handling equipment, technical documentation, personnel training, and U.S. Government and contractor engineering services.

The Basler BT-67 is a utility aircraft produced by Basler Turbo Conversions and is a remanufactured and modified Douglas C-47 (DC-3); the modifications are designed to significantly extend the DC-3’s serviceable lifetime.

Highlighting the strategic importance of this sale, the DSCA stated, “This proposed sale will support the foreign policy goals and national security objectives of the United States by improving the security of a major non-NATO Ally that is a force for political stability and economic progress in South America.”

The aircraft are expected to enhance Argentina’s capabilities for airdrop and airlift operations, particularly servicing Antarctica during the winter season, thus reducing the burden on other national airlift resources. The Argentine armed forces are considered fully capable of integrating this equipment seamlessly.

The DSCA reassured, “The proposed sale of this equipment and support will not alter the basic military balance in the region.” Moreover, “There will be no adverse impact on U.S. defense readiness as a result of this proposed sale.”

Basler Turbo Conversions in Oshkosh, WI, has been named as the principal contractor, with no known offset agreements proposed in connection with this potential sale.

George Allison
George Allison
George has a degree in Cyber Security from Glasgow Caledonian University and has a keen interest in naval and cyber security matters and has appeared on national radio and television to discuss current events. George is on Twitter at @geoallison
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64 COMMENTS

  2. That’s it then we can expect an Argie version of ‘Market garden’ in the near future😀 Oh hang on they want to join NATO we are safe!

    • Unforuntely NATO has nothing to do with it, as the falklands are not covered by NATO. Although im sure if they did anything in regards to the islands the UK would be giving every pressure it could to get them kicked out.

  3. Hard to believe these airframes are all essential 74 to 88 years old…..it’s a bit of a bonkers business model but seems to have worked out for the company as it has converted amost 90 old DC3s to something new.

    sort of shows the MRA4 was not such a bad idea really…..shame the government ended up scraping it at the point it had effectively been completed and the public accounts committee estimate cancelling it cost the public 3.4biliion pounds a 10 year capacity gap which every knows the Russians took advantage of as well as ending up with a more inferior aircraft.

    • I’d hardly call the P8’s inferior, world class as it stands. Plus we’d be looking for a replacement for them now anyway

      • Not saying the P8 is bad..it is simply not as good as the MRA4…as an example the MRA4 has a range of almost 7000 miles vs an at best ferry range of 5200miles in the P8…the MRA4 could carry about 54,000kg of fuel, weapons and stuff the P8 about 23,000kg…..

          • No not that I’m aware of….most people also forget the MRA4 was also effectively a strategic bomber…able to deploy a large number of storm shadow and bombs.

        • A fair amount of posters have not really been a fan of MRA4, but like yourself I’ve always fought its corner having a better capability than P8. Even though it never did enter service ,yes it was over budget but what insnt.For me it was government at the time Cameron😟 all about saving money 💰.

          • The reality is we stilled ended up paying more money for less capability…getting the 9 operational MRA4s +the three pre production planes was never going to cost the extra 3 billion that we then spent on P8..a very very bad decision in a year of bad decisions.

      • We should have gone for the Kawasaki P1 instead of the P8. It was designed as a ASW specific aircraft from the outset and not a conversion from a civilian airliner.
        Spiritually it would have been the natural successor to the Nimrod.

        • Indeed a far better platform and what’s really frustrating is within a couple of years we were all in on joint development of various complex weapons with Japan.

          • I’m always curious how people come to these conclusions about one being far better. Yes I can understand the P1 being a purpose built platform but are we making the common mistake of “fighting the last war” with this one. Take for example comparing a 4th gen fighter against something like the F-35. Going by traditional metrics like aerodynamic performance the f-35 seems outmatched but we all know better. I think what’s happening here is something similar. Future combat will be dominated by sensors, data links, computing power and the weapons to take advantage of it all. Does the P1 have all the sensor tech of the P8 (APY-10, AN/APS-154) and the weapons (LRASM, HAAWC, QUICKSINK) that is coming with it? It’s been acknowledged that the P-8 has much more computing power than the aircraft it is replacing, able to monitor significantly more sonarbuoys simultaneously. It’s also able to sync with high flying drones like the global hawk to form a massive sensor network. I personally am a huge fan of the P1 but when comparing it to the P-8, its an easy decision for me.

          • I suppose but patrol and ASW is also dominated by some very basic capabilities..

            1) range
            2) loiter time and resources to stay on operation
            3) ability to manoeuvre at low level ( it’s still easer deploy systems at low level from torps to lifesaving equipment and MAD only operates at low level). Or you may just want to be sneaky and hide below the horizon.
            4) spending a lot of time over oceans is better with four engines than two..a P1 can keep on mission with one engine down…lose an engine on a P8 and its home time.
            5) ability to cart ordnance and fuel ( see 1 and 2)

            in all of these areas the P8 is inferior to the four engined ASW jets P1 and MRA4..so it’s the physics bit that makes it inferior. But the reality is the P1 is only marginally better at most of the above compared to the P8 ( apart from low levels flying)…but the MRA4 pissed all over both…it also happened to have the ability to undertake a second role as a strategic bomber ( with a range of 7000 miles and a large load of storm shadow and guided bombs…everyone forgets that bit).

          • Again I believe you are thinking about fighting the last war.

            1 and 2 are fair points that are both are mitigated or even surpassed by better sensors and being apart of a much larger network of sensors

            3) The systems on the P-8 have been designed specifically to perform most of its mission from a higher altitude.

            4)Look at almost every single modern aircraft, military or commercial and you would be hard pressed to find any 4 engine aircraft being produced. Engine tech has become so efficient and reliable that 4 engines are now seen as adding unnecessary complexity and cost.

            I won’t even mention the MRA4 as that was never produced and so it’s a waste of time attaching capabilities to something that never existed.

          • Hi net king the MRA4 was in existence and had been flying and being tested since 2004…infact the first 3 orange wired MRA4s had by 2007 undertaken a full set of operational testing and by 2010 the RAF had its first production model delivered…it was actually due to go into operation for 2010/11 but in 2009 the Labour government but a two year delay on it to make in year savings….the RAF were actually in the middle of training the first operational crews when it was canned…they destroyed actual working aircraft as well as two that were almost completed.

            re 2 vs 4 engines..I think you will find almost all ground up designed large modern military aircraft come with 4 engines..especially if they are designed to transit and operate over occeans…I give you the B2, C17, A400, P1 as just four examples..all the 2 engine large aircraft are civilian builds turned to military usage..the reason for this is that although improvements now mean that a two engine aircraft suffering an engine failure can get home from mid ocean…all is doing is limping to the nearest runway …and it’s mission is over..4 engine aircraft are designed to continue their mission with and engine failure.

            Im not sure you can completely mitigate the need for low altitude operations…high altitude still comes with all the disadvantages around detection and deployment of systems..even if they have work arounds…I’m sure a low altitude torpedo drop is alway going to be more accurate…and as for a life raft….your going low for that no question….MAD is still an important detection system and that will only ever be low altitude…..

          • B2, C17, A400

            Only one of these became operational since the turn of the century and to support my argument even more, the replacement for the B2, the B21 now has 2 engines and it’s expected to have an expended mission set compared to the B-2.

            Now I point all this now to say that the P-1 is a bad aircraft. I have no reason to think that. My main argument is the tech has advanced tremendously and we need to start consider that some things don’t have to be done the way they were decades ago.

          • The big game changer for me in warfare is not the one you seem to think of. I see the rise of cheap non sophisticated UAV as being the next challenge. We have real time combat experience from Ukraine and now Arabia. Missiles being fired at huge cost to take out a few hundred pounds worth of drone. The armament of ships and their ammunition reserves are being rethought as we speak. Not to mention ships being forced to operate further from shore.
            .

          • Hi royal if you read a few of my comments on other treads you will note I very much put a focus on drone warfare…but in reality that is changing the face of the littoral…it’s not changing the ASW game in blue water….it gives the potential of some other tools..but distance and speeds have a greater impact on blue water….drones are a massive threat if your operating 10 miles of the coast in the Black Sea or Red Sea…not so much if your 1000miles into the blue.

          • I would again offer a different point of view on that. It is already known that all big players are experimenting with underwater autonomous warfare. What we don’t know is how far that has gone.

        • my guess is the sensors within the P8 are better, as it has the R&D budget of the US behind it. The airframe might be better but there is more to it than that.

          • I don’t think you can say that…it’s pretty well acknowledged that a UK astute probably has better sensors than a Virginia…Just because it’s US does not make it better…meteor is another example…

          • There is no way to know on either as if there has been any comparison tests the results will be classified. The only way the general public will find out is if there was a shooting war.

          • so I was ironically “making a guess” the senors were better because it’s reported that the Uk sensors are better…🤣😂

          • “Our sonar is fantastic and I have never before experienced holding a submarine at the range we were holding USS New Mexico. The Americans were utterly taken aback, blown away with what they were seeing.”

            2012www.gov.UK from commander HMS Asute.

          • This is a PR statement, not saying its not true but if the sonor completely failed he would have said the same.

            There is a load of similar statements around the air defence capability of the RN pre falklands and after the truth came out that the navy knew it wasn’t fit for purpose.

          • yes but in this case there are plenty of other reports…that’s a statement from the commanding officer…not a politician….the U.S. want our sonar, that is know.

          • Commanders are highly political, they arent free to talk it all gets filtered, at least when it comes to official statements to the media.

            However your final point is key, if another country is choosing the gear over other options, and its not purely a budget decision then there is an indication that it is great.

          • the thing with US submarine operations are they never talk about it. thats why they call it the silent service (not just cause the boats are silent). its all shrouded in secrecy. they’ll never say whether they were tracking the astute the whole time or whether they had no idea where it was, nor the results of the exercise. its just their policy.

          • That will be why the USN bought our S2076 Flank suite then!
            They never had anything like it never mind as capable. Flank is in fact a better Broadband passive system then either our or their Bow BB passive system. It’s why they bought it.

          • The airframe doesn’t come with sensors, you buy/build and fit them separately to buying the airframe.
            There is nothing to suggest that US equipment outfit is any better or worse then our own. Our own kit on the Nimrods was just as good as anyone else’s. Buying from Uncle Sam does not necessarily equate to the best.

          • This is fair but as we have seen with the likes of the British chinook and apache, putting stuff not designed for the frame is an expensive exercise and we would have ended up with less of them.

            Impossible to know if US gear is better today but my guess is it will become it as the much bigger buyer base to pay for r&d to keep the kit up to date.

          • We have always built some pretty good kit, especially both sonar and radar equipment. The downside has always been due to the small numbers it has always been expensive kit.
            My background is Sonar, I don’t think that I would be far wide of the mark in saying that we are among the world leaders in ASW systems, the USN is buying our new ship sonar for putting on their Constellation class ASW frigates.
            You could apply this to some of our missile systems too. Eg Meteor. Unfortunately we don’t seem to export enough of them.

          • I was expecting NLAW to have a massive export market after the early successes of Ukraine and yet it didn’t appear to happen. Would guess just too much politics in military purchases. Combined with small purchase number of missiles etc make the per unit price expensive.

    • MRA4 was an absolutely bonkers idea. Nimrod was based on the airframe of the worlds first commercial jet airliner. Putting new wings on a 40 year old airframes was never going to work, not least because every single plane was effectively a different variant.
      The original idea for MRA4 to be a new airframe made a lot more sense.

      We should have bought the Japanese P1.

      • The P1 was not an option at the time the MRA4 was developed and going in service..the Japanese did not indicate to anyone that they would offer it until 2014..

        Lets not forget they scrapped MRA4 because they though they could do without and cut the capacity as part of the 2010 madness…it was due to have been in service by that point anyway but the Labour government delayed the in service date to 2012 for in year savings purposes…the three trials aircraft had been completed and flown…the first 2 operational aircraft were almost completed by the time they were destroyed…it was an act of national vandalism..nothing more nothing less…remember that MRA4s had been almost paid for..when HMG finally admitted what a catastrophic decision it was to not have maritime patrol and ASW aircraft in 2017 it then had to fork out a further 3 billion pounds to get something inferior.

      • Agreed if they build new airframe I think it would of been a world beater . Playing around with old and new was bonkers has you say but once again government wanting to save money 💰

        • Indeed and if you look the original contract figures were insane really 20+ top end ASW platforms for 2 billion quid was unrealistic in the extreme…the bidders also had to fund their own bids as HMG had only allocated funding for an off the self basic capability then decided on a bespoke gold plated capability that included turning it into a long range bomber…

    • these modified DC-3s still do a lot of essential work in alaska moving supplies and fuel to remote villages landing on ice or dirt strips. sadly one crashed a couple of days ago. its a dangerous job bush piloting, but lots of neat aircraft and skills utilized.

    • Got to love: that is a force for political stability and economic progress in South America.”

      Have they not seen argentinas economy? Its interest rates are through the roof and its economy is struggling big time. They are a matter of months away from defaulting and complete economic collapse.
      The new leader said he would sort it out but it turns out saying things is much easier than actually fixing them.

      I don’t know what the answers are but Argentina is in serious trouble. Such a shame.

  5. Nice to see the US rearming Argentina – just like they did before the Hunta got in. In time of conflict these will become maritime patrol platforms, of used for paratroops….

      • The reason the US didnt’ want to get involved in the falklands and initally tried to go against the UK in the UN is because they want to maintain their influence in latin america, both because of the economical advantage them them and also to stop China (Russia at the time).

        The reality is every country is in it for themselves, anyone thinking otherwise is very nieve. If Ukraine was not on the border of major european countries, impacting trade heavily, and instead in africa, do you think the west would be helping them. Don’t really need to guess on that as we know the answer from historic african wars.

        • All nations are amoral…geopolitics is amoral, anyone who thinks otherwise is a bit bonkers..nations only work in their own self interest…the western liberal democracies Simply operate using enlightened self interest ( making you stronger makes me stronger)…but it’s still amoral and only based on self interest.

  7. At the risk of blowing my own French trumpet, I think the decision by the Aéronavale to upgrade their Atlanti 2s to v6 was the right one. More than 20 in service, updated sensors, torpedos, laser guided bombs, exocet missiles, sonabuoys and MAD, a very good platform for both MPA and land attack / recce missions. I reckon we got good value for our investment. And we’ve got the numbers. Not too shabby methinks.

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