The Argentine Government has sent a formal protest after it was announced that military exercises were to be held on the Falkland Islands.
Exercises are scheduled to take place on and around the Falkland Islands between October 15th and 29th, the exercises will include the firing of air defence missiles.
The protests from Argentina come not long after Argentina staged its own military exercise in August at a training area near Buenos Aires, meant to represent parts of the Falkland Islands. Operation Maipu involved troops, helicopters, armoured mortar carriers and self-propelled howitzers.
The Argentine government said in a statement:
“Argentina rejects these exercises in Argentine territory illegitimately occupied by the United Kingdom, which does not acknowledge United Nations and other international bodies’ resolutions, which call on both sides to resume negotiations for a peaceful and definitive solution to the sovereignty dispute, as well as abstaining from unilateral actions in the territories and maritime spaces under dispute.”
A similar complaint was filed in 2016, when exercises included launch of Rapier Anti-Air missiles in the Falklands.
Argentina has long claimed sovereignty over the Falkland Islands, which it calls the Malvinas. The overwhelming majority of the islands 3,000 inhabitants previously voted to remain a British overseas territory.
Plenty of sea room around the Falklands. Think it would make an ideal exercise area for working up a Carrier Battle group in a couple of years time.
Completely safe environment as well. Argentina has no real air or naval power left to speak of, a QEC with escorts could operate with near impunity.
Completely safe environment as well. Argentina has no air or naval power left, a QEC with escorts could operate with impunity.
Callum – edited for accuracy 🙂
The south Atlantic is never safe.
Argentina really are quite boring and hypocritical over the Falklands. They could never persuade the islanders to give up their birthright to be British so back in 82 they tried to use illegal force and military occupation. That failed as well because the British armed forces were better than theirs.
Argentina’s actions may be boring but the Spanish are dangerous in their actions re: Gibraltar.
argentinas rhetoric never changes, it about time a warship acted as patrol for the area. a river class, just doesn’t do the job lets just station a vanguard off their coast and next time they spout their boring hypocrisy, let them have one (kiddin’ really).
The Falklands belong to the UK. Always have (going back 150+ years) all the residents are British citizens. All 3000 of them. Therefore Argentina can just bugger off.
I agree with previous post perfect location for a QE class battle group to deploy for exercises. Argentina really is a basket case, militarily, economically as well as having zero moral, legal or ethical claims to the islands.
“…all the residents are British citizens. All 3000 of them”
Not so. According to the 2016 census, there were 148 citizens of Chile, 72 Zimbabweans, 53 Filipinos, & 148 others, i.e. 421 residents who were not British citizens. 325 residents spoke Spanish at home, 73 Shona, 64 Pilipino, 26 French, 10 Italian, 7 German & 53 spoke other languages.
The Falklands population now is not much like it was in 1982.
Thank you Paul. Didn’t know that. Multicultural Falklands very impressed.
The insertion of a large population of your own ethnic group into a population is a known tactic if you wish to influence or gain political legitimacy in that area.
This is probably how in the end (over the long term) the falklands are likely to become Argentinian.
It’s how I would do it, work out how quickly I could get the Spanish/native Argentinian speaking population up above 50% and work on that. Then democracy will work for you.
Jonathan most of the Spanish speakers are Chilean. I seriously doubt they’re an Argentinian trojan horse.
The fact that here are people from other nations there, because of employment opportunities, is completely irrelevant to the sovereignty issue.
name the first type 31’s stanley, and the second, gibraltar.
It is worth pointing out that their are many other disputes over sovereign territory rights around the globe so the Falklands is useful to many at the U.N. as a distraction. The nebulous and vapid ‘international community’ so strikingly involved in preventing ethnic cleansing and destruction of civilian life over many years – no, wait a moment – they weren’t and never have been. The United Nations regularly appoints bizarre choices of countries to chair committees on human rights and the emancipation of women and minorities without blushing. The chief problem with Argentina’s claims in recent decades is these were stimulated by the U.K. Foreign Office signalling their enthusiasm to get rid of tiresome overseas obligations inherited from centuries past. Nice one.
Argentina was happily slaughtering indigenous South American peoples thirty years after our colony had been established.
Domestic guff for domestic consumption because the Argentines can’t make a go of country that should economically be on par with most of Western Europe.
argentina reminds me of italy, a political and economic wreck
Andy they make Italy look like Switzerland.
Slightly off topic but none the less important!
F35 fleet grounded.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-45827795
Yes. This is why we need two families of fast jet just in case this happens.
I bet they have been buying fuel hoses off ebay instead of buying from the dealer. 🙂
Sea Tempest anyone?? 😉
I did ask when the concept was launched whether they had been any mention of a carrier version.
If the french can do it with the rafale then we could do it with the tempest! day dreaming a bit again! but if the will was there, the main obstacle would be strengthening the airframe, particularly the rear end!
For 24/48hrs whilst the fuel feeds are double checked.
Concerning. Let’s hope this doesn’t overly disrupt the Sea Lightning’s testing on HMS Queen Elizabeth
Mmm. They can’t seriously be training up another generation to try and steal property that has never and will never belong to them?
If so QE can’t be made fully operational soon enough.
Maybe afterwards the debrief could be held at their “training area meant to represent the Falklands”?
Time for Mrs May to up the budget to 3%.
Yawn.
Keep it up Argentina. I enjoy the aughs.
And it appears this could be the reason why UK f35’s have not been flying?
“Spotting outside RAF Marham, home of the UK’s stealth aircraft, on an ordinary day.
On Tuesday Sept. 25 afternoon, The Aviationist’s contributor Alessandro Fucito went to RAF Marham, near the village of Marham in the English county of Norfolk, East Anglia, UK, to take some photographs of the first British F-35B STOVL (Short Take Off Vertical Landing) stealth jets based there.
Whilst test pilots at the F-35 Integrated Test Force at NAS Patuxent River, Md. are involved in the first of two First of Class Flight Trials (Fixed Wing) phases, performing a variety of flight maneuvers and deck operations on board HMS Queen Elizabeth to develop the F-35B operating envelope for Britain’s newest aircraft carriers, the 617 Sqn at RAF Marham has eventually ramped up flying activity to achieve initial operating capability (IOC) from land bases. Indeed, there is still a lot to do, considered that the UK-based F-35Bs have flown less than expected during the summer: as reported by Aviation Week’s Tony Osborne recently, none of the UK-based aircraft has flown for 34 consecutive days, from Jul. 26 to Aug. 29 (not including the arrival of five F-35Bs belonging to the second batch which arrived from the U.S. on Aug. 3)!”
https://theaviationist.com/author/cencio4/
All F35b’s should be FAA.
34 wasted days that could have and should been spent with the ITF. Or at least helping them. Those extra airframes would have cut the trials time in half.
The RAF having any of these machines is a total waste of time, effort and money.
And all so they could go on annual leave!!!
This nonsense is costing the taxpayer a fortune. Money that would have been saved if they had just all been ordered for the FAA in the first place.
The RAF should stick to the Typhoon with Tempest to follow.
What a load of drivel!
“All F35b’s should be FAA.”
The RAF need the F-35B just as much as the FAA, by operating them at the same base in a merged force saves significant time and resources. This petty inter-service rivalry from each services cheerleaders from the sidelines is tiresome.
“34 wasted days that could have and should been spent with the ITF. Or at least helping them. Those extra airframes would have cut the trials time in half.”
Those extra airframes in the UK would not and could not cut the trials time in half, they are not Orange Wired unlike those at Pax or Edwards. They are in the UK to allow 617 and 809NAS to work up.
“The RAF having any of these machines is a total waste of time, effort and money.”
No it is saving time and money through the pooling of resources, the FAA is a smaller organisation than the RAF. Without RAF support it is unlikely the FAA could have returned to Fast Jet operations.
“And all so they could go on annual leave!!!”
Work life balance and quality of life is a significant retention issue for the UK armed forces, allowing personnel to go annual leave means they are happy in the lives and more likely to stay on.
“This nonsense is costing the taxpayer a fortune. Money that would have been saved if they had just all been ordered for the FAA in the first place.”
No it isn’t, quite the reverse actually.
“The RAF should stick to the Typhoon with Tempest to follow.”
The RAF is sticking to the Typhoon for the moment alongside the F-35B, the Tempest is a paper plane at the moment and there is many a hurdle to jump before it becomes a real thing…
The drivel is unfortunately all yours.
I suggest you study who made the decision to cancel the FA2 to 3 Sea Harrier…I can go further back there are so many contemporary accounts or maybe the “joint” decison to bin the JFH in favour of Tornados. That decision cost the taxpayer a fortune over Libya until the Ocean turned up with the AAC Apaches.
Next you’ll be saying that the RAF crews will be staying onboard the QE for her first deployment without being rotated! Then turning too like all other members of the ships company.
Total waste of effort and money.
The RAF have done this three times before and each time its resulted in failure.
Fundamentally because the service ethos are different.
You do not join the RAF to be a sailor.
That’s it pure and simple. Its not a cruise ship.
The F35bs are there to be worked not sat on a ramp doing sweet FA for 34 days because its the summer holidays.
If they’d been delivered to the FAA they would have been working to complete trials. Not collecting dust to benefit the rationale for having another couple of dozen Wing Commanders..
“The drivel is unfortunately all yours.” – Nope but if you want to dig your nonsense hole a bit further I’m game…
“I suggest you study who made the decision to cancel the FA2 to 3 Sea Harrier”
Well aware of the causes for the retirement of the Sea Harrier, the mythical Sea Harrier 3 was an unaffordable pipe dream.
“I can go further back there are so many contemporary accounts or maybe the “joint” decison to bin the JFH in favour of Tornados. ”
Retaining the Tornado over the Harrier made sense, the loss of the former would have removed more capabilities from the RAF.
“That decision cost the taxpayer a fortune over Libya until the Ocean turned up with the AAC Apaches.”
Never heard of RAF Akrotiri? Sending Ocean with Apache was a sop to people like yourself…
“Next you’ll be saying that the RAF crews will be staying onboard the QE for her first deployment without being rotated!”
Ask the RAF, the future is Purple get over it!
“Total waste of effort and money.”
No it isn’t
“The RAF have done this three times before and each time its resulted in failure.”
Well you are rather out of touch as by all accounts it is working well now.
“Fundamentally because the service ethos are different.
You do not join the RAF to be a sailor.”
Blah blah blah, heard it all before. Reality is proving otherwise…
“That’s it pure and simple. Its not a cruise ship.”
I can agree with that but not the intimation…
“The F35bs are there to be worked not sat on a ramp doing sweet FA ”
I can’t help it that you don’t understand how the workup for the F-35B into UK FOC works or how aircraft trials are conducted.
“If they’d been delivered to the FAA they would have been working to complete trials.”
Nonsense
“Not collecting dust to benefit the rationale for having another couple of dozen Wing Commanders..”
We get it you don’t like the RAF, doesn’t change the simple fact that you are comically wrong on all counts. Now go and have a nice cup of Horlicks and let the grown ups have a proper conversation!
The RAF do have a long and deep history of destroying and decimating the fleet air arm, that can’t be argued with, the reason we didn’t get another set of carriers in the 60s was because the RAF lied about the incredible capabilities of the TSR2(which was pretty good but not as good as they made out to be, and probably not as good as carriers) which did end up getting cancelled anyway, all the way up to the joint harrier force where the RAF snuck their way into the fleet air arm and dismantled it more! Now it will not surprise me in the slightest if the RAF refuse to let the QEs have their full potential, I believe the only wanted 6 F35s on the carriers originally, there is going to be a lot of the RAF hogging the jets in the future without a doubt. Now the RAF do need F35Bs but the Navy NEEDS its own substantial number of F35Bs to happily fill up the carriers without outside meddling, I think 96 is the number talked about but that is never going to happen ever, 72 sounds adequate to me!
Ali- surely it doesn’t matter who owns/flys the F35’s,if there is a potential fault that needs investigating resulting in a grounding of the fleet what difference does it make ?Also wasn’t the idea of Joint Force Harrier and now F35b to pool resources and ultimately save costs ?
The F35 fleet fault is believed to be fuel line related. The grounding is until the teams can check their airframes. Apparently 24/48hrs.
The next bit is very long apologies but here goes…
The abortion of JFH that was Admiral West’s fault. From what I have understood from the related documents he simply did not understand the implications of the decision he made and if he did for whatever reason not recorded he chose to ignore it. He left the fleet without a viable air defence asset. The FA2 was actually an extremely capable air superiority fighter. Its modification to FA3 was cancelled at the behest of the RAF, championed by Air Marshal Torphy, who decided that it was too expensive (£100m for the whole fleet of airframes) and a threat to Typhoon and the then future JSF.
At that time the RAF had as many senior officers as the entire of all the USAFs put together and the MoD was full of them giving invaluable advice no doubt.
The empire building (maybe more accurately bureaucractic self defence) of the RAF really began from its inception in 1918. HMG at the time was concerned that they would end up with two rival airforces competing for cash with the Army’s RFC and the then RNAS. So they came out with mobile global RAF mk1.
WW2 loomed the RN’s carriers had few planes and even fewer pilots as shockingly chaps didn’t join the RAF to go to sea for months on end so fleet squadrons had been starved of money, planes and pilots. The FAA was created to fill the giant gap.
Bascially change a few names, reduce the force sizes drastically, rewind twice and press play twice and we’re here again!
It simply does not work you end up with doubled up effort and wasted money with planes and people sat around at airbases not working to their full ability because they did not join the RAF to go to sea.
Fundamentally this has got stuff all to do with inter service rivarly its a complete waste of effort and therefore money.
The F35b is a maritime plane it has been designed to spend as much time as possible at sea or at least on and off carriers as often as needed.
Already we have them sitting around doing nothing for 34 consecutive days. Its happening all over again.
You do not join the RAF to be a sailor.
“The next bit is very long apologies but here goes…”
Several paragraphs of ill informed axe grinding later:
“The F35b is a maritime plane it has been designed to spend as much time as possible at sea or at least on and off carriers as often as needed.”
No, the F-35B is an asset that can be deployed by land or sea to provide effect as required by UK Gov. The QE class is a platform that they can be deployed from not the reason for their existence. If you bothered to look into current planning around carrier strike you will find that they are not a permanently attached element but an asset that can be deployed from the QE class.
Mr Dune man…. I don’t think you actually have a leg to stand on on the “desk jockey” front. Maybe read some books or google it instead of just reacting to comments. This is not about the RAF protecting itself its about what works and what clearly does not. History repeats itself and the wheel very sadly, for money reasons, is always turning when it comes to UK aircraft carriers.
34 days doing sweet FA says it all mo fo.
Except it is not 34 days of sweet FA, going on what you have written so far I clearly have superior Google-Fu than yourself and far more well read. Work up to FOC is not an over night thing.
Your petty ill informed axe grinding does nothing to inform the debate.
Sadly not ill informed.
I wish it was.
The RAF themselves answered the question when challenged on why the planes had not been flying. They really have been sat around doing nothing for 34 consecutive days because of annual leave. A bit of support work and thats been it. Hence my comments.
Waste of time …waste of effort..,waste of cash.
I read this article, I have no I idea where I saw it and Ill believe it when I see it, the article said that china was considering giving arms to Argentina in exchange for extending their presence and allies in South America, I suppose they would barely notice if a 100 Su-27s were given away, and a few frigates, all of this with the intended purpose of invading the falklands again! again Ill believe it when I see it!
In fairness, the typhoon based there with meteor and the presence of astute would render any ‘given’ airframes and frigates redundant. The training gap for Argentinian forces in almost all areas would take years to recover from even if hardware suddenly became available. I do seem to think there was talk of a China deal though that fell through?
The Argentine armed forces are in a poor state, but our own are also a shadow of what was available in 1982. Never underestimate your enemy. If you look at what our top commanders said about the conflict you’s realise it was a VERY close run thing indeed. Planned cuts played a huge part in pursuading the Argies they could succeed.
In terms of critical mass yes, our forces are significantly smaller than they were 35ish years ago, and I realise that the conflict was closer than anyone uninformed may realise. However, it’s not a case of underestimating Argentina.
Smaller we may be, but we have been operationally active in terms of troop deployments these last 15 years than at almost any point in recent modern history. The current equipment at the RN disposal, however lesser in numbers is straight out of the top drawer. Lack of sailors would become a moot point in a situation such as Falklands 2.0 as leave would be cancelled and standing commitments and exercises elsewhere would be cancelled to make available max number of assets.
You cannot underestimate the impact of astute. Two of these in and around the islands in case of any hostility would gut anything the Argies could cobble together. They’d also be able to flatten pretty much any runways and infrastructure on the Argentinian mainland relating to their airforce courtesy of Tomahawk.
A re-run of ‘82 would look a lot different today than it did back then. A British Armada leaving Portsmouth? Most likely not. Astutes quietly leaving and enacting the above with a reasonable amphib force to follow with T23, T45 in tow. Most likely. Throw in a few Apache on the LPD’s and things start to look quite bleak for any successful landing force.
That’s not to mention any successful Argie landing force facing significantly stiffer opposition than it did back then.
Astute with Spearfish and Tomahawk make this practically a non starter. In my opinion anyway!!
Pretty much summed it up there buddy, no need for any further comments lol. Cheers.
Rfn-Weston – which begs the question,how good are Argentinian Special Forces,have they got a Cyber Warfare capability,surely they would not be stupid enough to try a re-run of 1982 but look to how Russia has conducted its recent business and go down the asymmetric route.
Russia in Crimea benefited from a significant number of sympathetic indigenous residents that were very Pro Russia. That doesn’t exist in the Falklands.
Asymmetric warfare in the Falklands would look much different due to the lack of residents, infrastructure and civil division. It would be obvious that third party state actions were responsible thus potentially triggering my previous post.
The main problem with defending the falklands is the distance. Does anyone seriously think there is one of 7 astutes, anywhere near the islands today, I highly doubt it.
Looking at the defences and I don’t think they are as strong as we think. From what i understand there is about 100 infantry (although the other units there could pick up a gun and fight, but are not combat tested for front line fighting). 3 batch 1 typhoons that have no anti-ground or anti-ship capability, an upgraded batch 1 river OPV and some massively outdated rapier missiles.
If we saw them coming, they wouldn’t stand a chance, subs could be sent quickly there and we could air lift in a large number of reinforcements, but that takes probably a week at best, realistically probably more.
With the typhoons there, an air attack is out of the question and so its a matter of shipping the troops in. If it was me, i would send an advance team to sabotage Clyde, and therefore get a uncontested crossing (a gamble that there is no sub in the region, but equally its a big region and so highly unlikely). They would then up against the clock, can they take out a significantly better trained British army (gear wise it wouldn’t be much different, since land warefare hasn’t advanced a huge amount since WW2, as seen in iraq/afgan) that is i assume well dug in, before reinforcements could be brought in. Failing that could they get close enough to Mount Pleasant to put in place air defenses to stop any airlift (lets face it, A400/C17 would be pretty easy to take out as they landed) and therefore force a navy reinforcement (buying more time).
Gear wise Argentina has seriously problems, but equally in a ground war, gear is mainly nullified.
If they could work a way to build up enough troops and get across without being spotted or at least most of the way across, then they might succeed.
If i understand correctly, last time around they stupidly sent back most of their heavy weapons, after the initial invasion was a success, i doubt they would make that mistake again. Which would make the counter attack harder.
The question then flips, can we build up enough units and enough escorts to re-take the islands. With Argentina navy/airforce non-functional, we would be uncontested at sea and air (so carriers not needed, but clearly would be rushed into service for it) and so its a question of getting troops a shore in large enough numbers, this is the bit we might struggle with now that the armed forces are significantly smaller.
Saying that the biggest force multiple, we now have, is the apache. Plus without any air threat, the chinooks would make it over this time around, which would make a big difference being able to get troops and supplies forward.
What amazes me is that we are no further forward now than we were in the 80’s with being able to deploy heavy weapons in a boggy battlefield, although i guess there is always the underslung delivery with a chinook.
My opinion is that if Argentina was serious about retaking the islands, they probably could succeed, but its highly unlikely they would be able to hold them, unless someone sells them some new jets/missiles to be able to hold off the navy.
5 Eyes would detect them long before Steve.
There are British SIGINT installations in the South Atlantic, satellites we have part ownership of, and Defence Attaches in Argentina, as well as, at a guess, an SIS Station.
Too much faith in the intelligence services. Sat surveillance was around in the 80’s also, and failed to spot it.
The problem is you have to not only spot a build up of troops/gear but you also have to join the dots. I suspect it was be the joining up of the dots that failed last time, someone spotted the build up but wrote it off as a military exercise.
The challenge is politics gets in the way also. Someone notes the build up and passes it up the chain and the question gets asked if to send reinforcements. Politicians will then question how this would be seen from a South American ally perspective and question the cost, resulting in no reinforcements being sent.
That was my point Steve. In 82 we were warned in advance. By the defence Attache. By Chile. By GCHQ Sigint derived from a box above HMS Endurance, and other places. It was ignored by the FCO.
Intelligence indeed had the data. It’s then up to the numptys above to either take heed or ignore.
They ignored. Although I recall some SSN were already an route.
With previous from Argentina already, and enhanced capabilities to what we had in 82, with real time data not recovered from a reel by some bods listening in at Oakley days later, as well as Two Boats and the JSSU Falkland Islands, which did not exist in 82, I for one have every confidence in the intelligence services.
I don’t work in intelligence, but I assume how it works is that you have triggers that may indicate something and then it is down to someone taking that indication and interpreting it. I assume also as it gets escalated up the chain, people add possible alternative interpretation to allow the decision maker to have all the info needed to make the call.
There is never a desire for a war (unless your Tony Blair) and so there will always be a natural bias to add weight to the alternative interpretations.
So as long as Argentina are not stupid about it and add some disinformation and/or false flags (a few military drills that look similar but are just drills but work to reduce the perceived threat), they probably could get away with it again.
Like i said further down, i don’t think it would happen, but i can see how they could do it, if there was a desire. The main problem last time posed to Argentina was they were in a hurry to do the action as thy needed the good press and the people back on side, and there was massive distrust between the navy/airforce and army resulting in a botched deployment. If they were willing to play a little longer game, say 5-10 years, they could add enough smoke and do it.
For that matter, land-based Tomahawks could be based in the Falklands for all the world to see.
The British defence plan and posture on the Falklands is very carefully titrated. Any real threat should result in air deployed reinforcement routed via ascension and air to air refuelling by Voyager tankers. C17, A400s could bring in a battalion sized infantry unit with some heavy weapons in 24-48 hours.
If a landing was successful and the garrison militarily defeated, which would require a lightning strike by Argentina and a capable ally working together. Then response would be Astute and Trafalgar class tostrangle off the islands from naval support and a QE class battle group deploying with amphibious group to recapture the islands. This would likely mean total commitment from all available RN/ RFA assets.
Max we could probably deploy would be
1 QE carrier
2-3 type 45s
4-5 type 23s
Albion or Bulwark
2 Bay class
Couple of River and River batch 2s
5-7 MCMs
3 subs either astute or Trafalgar class
Ideally we would get a couple of the flat top container ships to act as auxillary helicopter carriers (like Atlantic Conveyor and Atlantic Causeway) to allow Apache, Chinook and commando variants of adequate numbers to deploy.
Lightning’s on QE as well as Tomahawks from subs would cripple Argentinian air base within range. Although to be honest currently the Argentinian air force has zero high performance combat jets operable.
With the QEs now in-service the Falklands are safe for the next 50 years. Just so long as Corbyn is not voted in, all should be fine.
If Corbyn is voted inI am moving to Alaska asthe UK will rapidly become a haven for fundamentalist Islic terrorists and Assad/ Putin lovers.
Astute
Type 45 would also mess up the Argentine air activity in and around the Falklands.
Throw in our new QE class carriers and F35B with Crowsnest carrying Merlin’s and anything other than the US or Chinese navy would be seriously worried.
Astute is such an amazing weapons platform we should order a further 3-4 and up our sub numbers back to at least 10 SSNs. Astute would be a war winner.
I can literally see no scenario in the next 20-30 years whereby the Argentinian armed forces could first invade and take OUR islands and then hold onto them.
If Comrade Corbyn gets in to power maybe they won’t have to!!!
Also-really surprised UKDJ who are normally first with the news don’t have a dedicated article on the grounding of the F35’s
Geoff the grounding was bound to happen after the very first aircraft loss. It is only going to be temporary until cause of crashed F35B is known and fixed, couple of weeks max.
Understood-they have to err very conservatively especially when lives may be at risk and also as they are very expensive aircraft! But-anticipate screaming headlines from the gutter press a- la- minor leaks in the QE which was in imminent danger of sinking according to the Mail online!!
Hello fellow FIW Vets, It’s great to read your Views here. personally, I’d be happy If We never had a Repeat.
I think a repeat is extremely unlikely but can never be fully ruled out. The events that triggered the last invasion were pretty extreme. Military junta in charge that had lost the people, massive economic crash in the country, withdrawal of the navy ship in the region, the defence review announcing extreme cuts and negotiations between the countries indicating that Britain was willing to consider handing it over.
Move forward to 2018 and a repeat of so many ducks being lined up in the same period is just insanely low.
Very True that.
The RN is suffering from an acute manpower shortage. This needs rectifying to make best use of existing hardware. USN has an eyewatering 600,000 sailors.
With all this positive talk about the possible Typhoon replacement. What if Mr Corbyn gets into power and cancels the proposed Tempest among other future defense programs?
Nicholas – a case of deja vu maybe if he did,we made it through the 1960’s with major programmes cancelled,if that happened again we would just have to persevere with what we have.
Honestly I think the key risk for the Falklands is in the long term. I’m sure the south Atlantic and Antarctic will in the end open up to significant exploitation ( like we can leave any bit of the planet alone) as it becomes more economic to fight the south Atlantic environment for the resources. This would inevitably lead to the Falklands becoming a hub and gateway, at that piont it will become more challenging politically, militarily, financially and culturally keeping the Falklands British. It will at that point become a higher risk/reward endeavour for a number of international players ( both South American, UK and other world powers).
This is true, right now it is not economic to get the oil out there in any amount, but if the prices rise a lot as the supply runs out, that will change.
Not just oil, mineral extraction as a whole will be reviewed in 2048, I suspect at that point the BAT will open up as a new mining fronter. The BAT covers some of the most accessible (in antartic terms) parts of the Antartic and the most likely to be exploitable. We are going to need to be ready to fight off all comers (in a legal and political control sense, not warfighting) challenging our claim (including otherwise allied nations) to the BAT. We will also need to be able to police the area and ensure we can military handle more agressive nations (China) impinging illegally on the BAT.
I can see the RN and RAF actually having to allocate a lot of reasources to the south Atlantic by the end of the 2030s-40s.
HMS Clyde could be taken out very easily by any surface warship:It only has a pea shooter!-no AAA, CIWS, SAM, ASM, med gun or ASW. It’s a token presence meant to say we’re not withdrawing our presence & will take any incursion seriously. But it is very vulnerable! Disturbing to read the Falklands Typhoons have no anti-surface capability, indicating a quick attack landing troops could catch us out. Mount Pleasant is a game changer for rapid reinforcement, so long as the Agies don’t take it by some surprise attack, when it would benefit them rather than us. Now we’re re-establishing CAG capability, another invasion would seem remote indeed. China re-equipping the Argentine navy & possibly basing in Argentina in the future would be a headache.
We need to continue exercising in the Falklands to leave the Argentines in no doubt we will never surrender them. The more cuts we make, the lower down the ranking of military powers we slip & the less other powers take us.
With Chinook being able to deploy the company strength of infantry based there at ease, and tranche 1 Typhoon with cannon/able to drop laser guided bombs designated by ground troops (assuming the armoury carries paveway)… that should cause a sincere headache for any amphib force looking to sneak up on us.
The remainder of the 1000+ personnel there should be more than capable of digging in and defending fixed installations, even with only Phase 1 basic training.
I agree with Daniele, 5 eyes combined assets in the South Atlantic wouldn’t miss the kind of build up needed to make this a success. Whether it was taken seriously is another matter.
Surely seriously enough to deploy Astute though in advance? A quick passing visit noted in a press release in view of any perceived build up would likely stop any plans to launch in it’s tracks.
Very unlikely to happen, very unlikely to succeed but lie they say, never underestimate the Opfor!
Foreign and Commonwealth office to Argentina:
There was a war. The UK won. Cheers.