Concerns were raised recently regarding the adequacy of air defences in the Falkland Islands in response to Argentina’s acquisition of F-16 jets from Denmark.
Robert Buckland MP, Chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, posed a critical question to the Secretary of State for Defence, seeking clarification on the UK’s current defence posture in the South Atlantic.
In his official response, Leo Docherty, Minister of State at the Ministry of Defence and Minister for the Armed Forces, reassured that the defence readiness is continually assessed to address various developments.
He affirmed the UK’s commitment to ensuring the security of the Falkland Islands, stating, “We keep our defence posture in the South Atlantic under regular review to take account of the full range of developments. I am satisfied that the current military presence in the South Atlantic is at the appropriate level to ensure the defence of the Islands.”
The Falkland Islands are currently host to a robust UK military presence, including RAF Mount Pleasant which provides a vital airbridge between the islands and the United Kingdom. British forces stationed there include an infantry company, an air defence battery, Typhoon fighter jets, and typically a patrol vessel from the Royal Navy,
F-16s?
Argentina has officially signed for 24 ex-Danish F-16A/B aircraft in addition to Sidewinder and AMRAAM missiles. Argentine Minister of Defence, Luis Petri, recently led the signing of the historic purchase agreement for 24 F-16 combat aircraft, with which Argentina will recover its supersonic interception capacity after many years.
“Today we are completing the most important military aeronautical acquisition since 1983. These are 24 F-16 aircraft that have been modernized and equipped with the best technology, and that today are at the level of the best aircraft that fly in the skies of the South American region and the world,” said Petri, who also spoke with President Javier Milei, who witnessed the event via videoconference.
“With these new aircraft we are taking a momentous step in our defense policy, recovering the supersonic capacity of our aviation and achieving the definitive entry of our Air Force into the technological challenges of the 21st century,” Petri asserted.
Ending his speech, the minister assured: “Thanks to this investment in defense, I can proudly say that we are beginning to recover our aerial sovereignty and that our entire society is better protected against all those threats that put us to the test.”
#F16 🇦🇷✈️ Estos aviones, equipados con tecnología de punta, representan un hito en la modernización de nuestra fuerza aérea y subrayan nuestro compromiso inquebrantable con la protección de nuestra soberanía. pic.twitter.com/wBGZ6I1kev
— Ministerio Defensa (@MindefArg) April 16, 2024
The Ministry of Defence in Argentina said:
“It should be noted that these F-16 fighter aircraft will be the backbone of the air defense system in Argentina, a mission that the Mirage aircraft performed for more than 40 years until their deprogramming. The purchase of these aircraft ratifies the government’s decision to promote investment in Defense with the objective of strengthening the capabilities of the military instrument.
The F-16 system acquired from Denmark includes single-seat units, two-seat units for advanced pilot training, weapons and support equipment. This aircraft of North American origin has characteristics of a multipurpose aircraft with functions of air-to-air and air-to-ground combat.
The agreement includes the delivery of four flight simulators, eight engines and spare parts for the aircraft will be guaranteed for five years. In addition, the contract provides for the training of pilots and mechanics who will work on this weapons system.”
I’ve become quite positive about the possibility that the Argentina question has been finally resolved. Every future Argentine president has a simple reality in front of them: they can continue to play ball with NATO and get good press domestically for the international prestige that the Falklands fixation shows they crave as well as rebuilding their military, or they can go back to being a pariah state with a collapsing military. I don’t see a reason for anyone to choose jumping off that cliff instead of just continuing to pay lip service to the great Malvinas myth like every president… Read more »
The best thing for UK defence would be for Argentina to invade the Falklands. Our forces are far far better equipped to mount a retaking operation today than they were in 1982 and any British operation would have minimal casualties. It would also put to bed ask the haters and Russian bots constantly bashing the UK much the same as it did in 1982. That being said 4 Typhoons and a land Ceptor battery are way too much for some older F16’s to take on. Also UK SIGNIT intelligence is now so next level that we would probably know Argentina… Read more »
You wrote “The best thing for UK defence would be for Argentina to invade the Falklands”
Are you aware that Treason is still a crime in the U.K ? It’s pretty well watered down, but it’s still there one part of it defines Treason Felony as :-
That’s actually the bit that got William Joyce hung !
I suggest you contact Admin and get your comments removed before too many folks read it.
You’ve lost it man. This isn’t the Soviet Union. Free to discuss hypotheticals at will.
Lock him up in the tower
I can’t imagine I’m stirring Argentina by show casing how they would lose.
Why would Argentina take orders from a random guy on the Internet?
They might, have you seen their president 😀
And when they failed, as fail they would, and the bodies on both sides have been counted, and the Prime Minister points and says, I told you we didn’t need to spend any more on Defence, would you still think it a good thing?
I wouldn’t put much faith in our signit, for 2 reasons. Firstly Argentina know its there and so will play around it, for example having a few training excersies to cast doubts, and secondly and way more importantly is polictics comes into play, even if the miltiary was pretty sure an invasion was coming, policticans would ditther and do nothing until it was already happened. They suspected it was coming last time around and didnt’ act.
“I wouldn’t put much faith in our signit”
I do.
Yes, Captn of HMS Endurance and the DA in Argentina had said as such.
Just look at Russia invasion of Ukraine. Everyone saw it coming and yet nato didn’t even deploy extra forces to its borders until after it started and even then it was a token deployment.
Not everyone. French didn’t. UKUSA saw it coming and were saying so for some time. The thing is UKUSA is not wider NATO, the intelligence sharing has its limits, at least initially.
Agree on the dithering of the politicians. God help us with Captain Hindsight then!
I guess it is also a complex polictical decision. Deploying a large force to the falklands would cause issues across latin america which would hit trade, plus the US would not be happy about it. Additionally it would expose the serious gaps in the forces, as it would require to pull troops/planes/ships from other committments, as there isn’t enough to go around.
Yep, agreed there.
They’ve got to mount a successful operation to take them first. They can land, but if we have possession of MPA, we win.
I’d also suggest a rerun would involve less conventional forces and more SF, Cyber, ISTAR and smart stand off weapons, all of which were in short supply in 82.
SF enablers and logistic tail now are on a different level to then too.
And to add, by SF I also mean non SF but elite level forces able to deploy and operate at range, the FCF,16AA, PP, BPT, and the ASOB.
The question is what does Argentina land forces have this time around. Assuming they can get across and defeat the garrision before it could be reinforced, what tech do they have available that they didn’t have in 82 to stop a uk landing force. The UK only won because they were able to covertly get a beachhead before the defenders were able to react. Argentina would need a way to monitor for any potential landing ships and deal with them using land based missiles. I have no doubt that if a beachhead was formed again that the much better trained… Read more »
Another thought occurred to me. What agreements if any remain with Chile? There was close co-operation during and after the conflict.
We were propping up a dictator at the time, not sure they would be so interested in getting involved this time around.
Sure. I mentioned as I recall reading that we have an agreement that gives us, in perpetuity, use of a certain location.
That’s interesting, not heard that.
Yes, IF it is true.
I’d read a quite comprehensive article on our collaboration with Chile in a mid 80s issue of “Warplane” magazine. Covered everything from blacked out windows at a certain airport where RAF Canberra PR9s and Nimrod’s were flying to the RAF Int/Radar types over the border to the Hawker Hunters we gave them as a thank you after. The ref was in there.
Time changes, the handbook’s the same.
You would get air superiority with F35/Meteor and then we could just bomb them… cut the air bridge to and from Argentina, put a naval exclusion zone in place with SSNs.. When they have had enough call for the surrender. You could insert SF to do their thing. You could even get the paras to jump in and secure a bit of coast and in come the RMs…. Also we have land attack missiles like NSM/Tomahawk etc. no need for the RAF to send a Vulcan. We could also hit their high command if Argentina… Last time it was a… Read more »
The question though is have they also. Ready access to anti tank missiles and drones and portable air defence could make it it a lot harder than it could be. I have no idea if Argentina has adopted the low cost mass Drone concept but clearly the UK hasn’t yet as none have been purchased outside the protectors.
The fact the UK has a sovereign carrier strike capability means in any scenario whereby Argentina was able to retake the Falklands the outcome would be the same as last time around. Argentina will be defeated. Only this time they’d be on the receiving end of tomahawk, over flights by F35Bs and the destruction of their armed forces C3 sites, radar sites and airfields and possibly military dockyards. Then don’t get me started on what a single Astute class submarine could do to whatever naval forces care to foray into the South Atlantic. Our armed forces although drastically smaller than… Read more »
MPA is the key and all the defence planning is to keep MPA operating for 24-48 hours with the existing QRA typhoons and Sabre battery and ground troops.
Fly down additional Typhoon, F35, Voyager and troops.
No need for ships.
RN Subs doing a fast 10-day transit would negate any landing.
Yes they can get ashore but they cannot resupply or retreat with a sub in the area. MPA would own the skys.
Existing typhoons wouldn’t last long. Batch one typhoons won’t massively over match the f16s and they would be massively out numbered. If the air field is taken out then reinforcing the islands would be impossible without a naval task force.
I don’t think today Argentina has the interest or the military to do it, but who knows in 10 years. They are rearming at the same time as the UK is doing the reverse.
We would simply adjust the force posture to any developments 10 years down road as they come.
Na we won’t. We have already pulled the frigate from the region as we don’t have enough, another 10 years and I would expect the typhoons to be pulled also as there is no plan to replace the batch 1s. With the overall force being cut again probably more troops will need to be pulled back for other duties etc. The issue is it will be a gradual build up on Argentina side and like a frog in hot water the uk gov will progressively stay comfortable until its too late. I can’t see Argentina actually doing it a second… Read more »
Steve, we would never withdraw the Typhoons (Batch1) from FI and not replace them. They are MPA’s main asset and a key part of the integrated air defence of the islands, which is fundamental to enabling reinforcement from the UK base.
I was down there in 1999/2000 – we were certainly ready then (in-country and at PJHQ) for further aggression from Argentina – I doubt it is different now.
Who knows if they will get withdrawn. A decade ago the same argument would been made about the perm frigate deployment in the region.
The MoD’s website Navy section under ‘News & Latest Activities/Operations’ under tab ‘Atlantic Patrol Tasking South’ says: “The Royal Navy’s permanent presence in the region – typically in the form of a patrol vessel and a frigate, supported by tankers from the Royal Fleet Auxiliary – undertake a range of maritime security operations”.
However whether a frigate still occasionally visits the islands or not – the periodic presence of a single frigate is less significant than the permanent presence of 4 Typhoons.
Without the Typhoons the layered AD crumbles and we would have just a battery of Sky Sabre.
The frigates was symbolic as pulling the ice patrol ship led to the attack. Its presence was designed to show that the UK has not lost interest. So pulling it was big move, but a required one as not enough frigates to do the job.
I believe the Typhoons in the Falklands are ‘batch 2″ I.e. FGR4s, not the batch 1 F2s. IIRC, some of the first tranche 2 FGR4s were sent down to MPA.
Thanks. Someone suggested that they were Tr1. I stand corrected.
But my main point is that MoD would never withdraw them and not replace them just because the Typhoon fleet overall reduced due to loss of Tr1s. The operational imperative is overwhelming. There might be an argument for the contingent to be increased by one or two aircraft.
Could be airdrops, paratroopers and lots of other stuff this time from the U.K. to deal with also.
Air drop out be insanely risky as there would be no air cover, due to the range being way too far for typhoons to provide it, even with lots of refuels.
A modern day Pebble Island on MPA would be interesting if it were ever captured
Nigh on impossible I imagine in the form the real raid took as MPA is I believe much, much bigger than the strip at Pebble Island, and even with Pebble apparently the troop could not cover all of it as the aircraft were dispersed.
MPA is huge.
Lots of people there.
Its not easy to get to hence the location chosen to build it.
Its very very defendable and the people their practise doing defending.
Agreed. Wide open with little to no cover either. Far enough north of Mere Harbour too. Exactly the problem the SAS,SBS had when they were reccing the place.
And Tomahawk SLACMs raining down on their airbases which we didn’t have last time. F-35s flying strike missions I am sure could penetrate their home territory air defences. It would be over quickly. The only thing to watch is if China or somebody else tries to help them, which seems less likely now given the better relationship they have with the US.
Even Ukraine didn’t believe us, only UKUSA knew, I’m not sure even Putin knew he was going all the way before we did.
Listen to the OSINT Bunker episodes in the run up. It was known by UKUSA and anyone who listened to open source podcasts. The US was talking about it in October 2021
and the OSINT Bunker was talking about a Ukrainian government leak in November both of which pointed to Feb 2022. Ukraine wanted to hush it up for some reason and didn’t want to admit it openly, but they knew.
They were told repeatedly but they failed to mobilise until after the Russian’s invaded.
The Russian Invasion of Ukraine is a red herring in this discussion, Ukraine was/is not a member of NATO so whether it was seen coming is neither here nor there.
It’s not, there was a serious risk it would spill over into the Eastern nato block, it was the biggest risk to nato since it was formed.
Our SIGNIT is significantly deeper than listening to battlefield comms. Ever heard of ECHELON.
Its not about how good or bad it is, it’s about the human and political element. One thing knowing something is likely to happen another doing anything about it.
ECHELON just monitors communications and so if the enemy knows your listening they can use it to their advantage.
It does way more for that, it also looks for behaviour in the data and or lack of it.
It will certainly give you enough to consider flying a few more typhoons to the FI or a battalion of infantry on manoeuvres.
Plus it was generally considered Russia had the best intelligence/ counter intelligence networks, including a huge number of sleeper agents and governments members in their pockets, how well did that work out for them?
Who considered Russia had the best intelligence, GRU and FSB are a joke or are your referring to the Soviets? Remember Russia made up like 35% of the Soviet Union.
What a ridiculous statement.
Argentina has the same claim to the Falklands as the UK has to the Faroe islands which is **** all.
The reason the UK has never tried to annex the Faroe Islands is because it’s not a failed state, populated by muppets who have a misplaced grandiose view of their place in the world ( much like the Russians)
Until Argentina stops exhibiting such characteristics I don’t see this ever changing.
Spain is much the same with its claims over Gibraltar and I don’t see that ever changing.
Like Turkey before they invaded Cyprus.
The problem is historically Argentina has bern quite unstable. Who is to say after they rearm (thanks to the US), a military hunt-a takes over and has another crack at the islands. Do not forget that Argentina has never renounced its claim to the islands and it is one of their stated aims to get it back. All bets are off if the military take over again.
Of course now we have a working CSG with F35 Argentina could not keep the islands even if they captures them…
Congratulations to Argentina for getting back on its feet enough to buy some fighters to protect the nation. It’s taken them 40 years since the disasterous attempt on the Falkland Islands. I hope they’ll realise that attacking will get them nowhere and leave them open to potential attacks from others.
They have been trying to by fighters for decades, it’s been the U.K. blocking them, not just the state of their economy.
A lot of this gear is nearly knackered anyway.
At almost any time over the last 30 years they could have phoned up the Russians and bought jets.
As with buying from the US, buying from Russia or China comes with strings, they probably didnt’ want to accept them.
Argentina’s GDP has plummeted by 6% over the last 12 months and has an inflation rate of more than 300%.
If Argentina isn’t in default, it is on the precipice of default. Argentina is a perennial basket case and will always be so. Bloomberg stated that there is a 63% chance of default by the end of the year, rising to 95% within 5 years.
It’s hard to believe today that up until the 1930s, Argentina was one of the 5 richest countries per capita in the world; richer than France, Italy and Germany.
Great photo. That’s some height to be able to see the curvature of the Earth?
Hi Daniele.. Good Afternoon to you.. Going on to another subject. Did you see the very impressive pictures from Wattisham the other day. Around 15 British helicopters taking off en route to Scandinavia. Involved 9 of the latest Apache helicopters plus 4 Wildcat and two Chinook’s.
I did!!! Was hoping to see an article here. Looked awesome.
👍Yes, l did see on one website the figure of 38 of the latest Apache helicopters have now been supplied to the Brits!
Another 12 to come then. Not enough of course.
I think although in NATO. Denmark selling the F16s to Argentina. should Russia invade them, we shout at the Russians to show we don’t approve.
That was all we did in the run up to the Russian invasion of UKR. Both Biden & Johnson basically said,”Please don’t invade; but if you do we’ll not send any forces to oppose you”. Blundering, imbicile statecraft. If we’d left it a strategic ambiguity it would’ve been far more useful than efectively giving Putin the green light.
I think that whole situation wasn’t an imbecilic stupid move by Johnson and demented Jow. It seemed it but it was carefully orchestrated to get Putin to commit, out him for what he is, a mad blood thirsty dictator and to make Ukraine the killing ground it has become. Ukraine has become the nexus by which Russia has lost its international credibility and the cream of it’s armed forces. The Russians have had to put their economy into a war footing, that’s expensive and not sustainable long term. Then there are the casualties….hundreds of thousands killed and injured. Upto Russian… Read more »
I would really love to see this issue put to bed. We used to be joined at the hip to Argentina, it would be nice to return to that. With their new administration it may be possible to do so
Improving relations should be key role for our ambassador, however given our current crop of incompetent politicians on all sides, they would likely appoint Jeremy Clarkson.
Appropriate, he means too weak to defend against the next Argentine invasion and we haven’t the means to evict them again so just give up as we maybe the 6th biggest economy in the world but we don’t have the priorities right at any point in our government
Could you please detail the current OOB for the Argentinian armed forces please? Then we will know what to be wary of.
I am sure you can look stuff up as well as I but you have a country that keeps saying it wants the Falklands, there’s now oil there as well to make the target more tempting, i am certain that Russia,china or Iran will happily supply them with more drones, planes, ships, ammunition and ‘little green men’ if it gives them the chance to distract and weaken us. Frankly it is only a matter of time and given our continual cut backs it will be soon. Let’s face it a few more weeks last time and we wouldn’t have had… Read more »
The oil hasnt’ proved economical to extract, if it had been then im sure the story would be different, both from a level of defence in the islands and the level of interest by Argentina.
Who popped 20p in this guy? 😆
How Ukraine has dealt with the Russian navy will have given Argentina and any other nation ideas on how to deal with any UK task force, especaily considering the number of escorts would be a quarter or less than in 82.
Absolutely, the navy isn’t even a flotilla any more after labour and conservative hacking. Apparently some ships will get lasers to shoot down missiles and drones (or at least those not carrying mirrors:)) . We are going to have to stop them first and frankly we don’t have the forces left to stop cubs invading us
The Russian Navy are doing close shore work near their home bases in relatively enclosed waters. In a Falklands conflict the UK fleet would sit 20 miles from the coast, hundreds of miles from Argentina and have the South Atlantic weather as a defence against small USVs. Argentina have little AShM capability, none of it modern, and the UK has effective integrated missile defence that isn’t really comparable with the Soviet era Moskva.
The point is that Argentina-UK is not comparable with Ukraine-Russia.
The Falklands are all about sovereignty, nothing to do with the resources that may or not be in the area.
As long as we have an Astute at sea there’s a strong deterrant. Nobody knows where it is. Make the threat that’s its headed south with orders to sink anything entering an exclusion zone and Argentina will stay at home. The astute could be sitting 10 mile off the UK coast and still achieve the deterrence effect.
Only our mod is leaking like a sieve and the russians certainly know where our submarine actually is
Is the MoD leaking? Where? For the Russians to know where our submarines are they need to be in Northwood in Com Ops pocket or CTF345 or the CTF ( number I forget off hand ) which oversees where SSN are at any given time to deconflict with USN and other NATO subs. Those discrete organisations are just a tiny part of the wider MoD and that is some accusation if you are saying they have spies within either? Given our SSNs historical ability to follow Russian SSBN, SSN, and even enter their harbours and territorial waters almost at will… Read more »
Of course it’s leaking, the whole of Whitehall leaks, it’s full of people trained and educated by the same places that gave us Philby and blunt and has been working to do the russian bidding on disarming us, on replacing a PM who did something about Ukraine with one content to say we are sending 1.5billuin in aid while the civil servants manage to ship less than 400,000 out to Ukraine.
Whatever the truth of that, which I doubt, but you never know,😉 the fact is, which was my earlier point, that wider MoD has no need to know what a few dozen people in Northwood are aware of, and thus the locations of our submarines, which is a closely guarded secret unless HMG have reason to reveal them ( like sending a political message with reporting that Astute rearming at Gib ) is quite safe from wider Whitehall.
It would seem ‘our Dave’ has a bit of a bee in his bonnet😀
“or the CTF ( number I forget off hand ) which oversees where SSN are”
Just checked, unless it has changed it was CTF311.
I wouldn’t bank on that, the info will be known by a select few. Even the crew don’t know more than they need to know
“we haven’t the means to evict them again”
How about an SSN sitting offshore TLAMing every site of value that any Argentinians set up?
Numerous other means. 👍
Block IV TLAM a real game changer, could easily wipe out the Argentine Air Force and air bases before any uk task force approached. You could see DSTL going heath Robinson launching storm shadow from C17 as well.
Happened in the Falklands, all the corner cutting. In war the usual goes out the window.
Also…Aircraft carrier with fifth generation aircraft that could penetrate Argentinian airspace at will and strike at will…actual AEW linked to exquisite AAW destroyers as well as all frigates with very good short range area defence in CAMM larger amphibious vessels than in 82..it may be small than in 82 but the RN of the 2020s is designed for expeditionary warfare against a close peer…the RN or 82 was not ( infact only 3 of the frigates in the south Atlantic had any anti air self defence capability worth the name).
Yep. There are so many capabilities. Mere numbers is not a correct indicator and never has been.
That doesn’t evict them, you can’t cover the whole of the surrounding air and sea routes, we don’t have enough to do that to the isle of white never mind the Falklands. More over look at last time. The french helped them with excess, the yanks turned their backs on us because the argues were their friends, the UN is all for giving them to the argues anywhere , and the Israelis fighting to get the hostages back from Hamas are criticized for every one they hurt or kill even by the BBC, how do you think we would get… Read more »
The SSN capability covers the sea, as can a QEC group. They are evicted on the land by the bravery and professionalism of ground troops just like last time. “The french helped them with excess” And they also helped the RN how to combat Mirage and Super Etendard, and French Intelligence helped SIS interdict any Exocet supply. “the yanks turned their backs on us because the argues were their friends” Depends who you mean on the US side. The State Department was trying to appease both sides, the intelligence community and Reagan sided with Britain. How else did we receive… Read more »
I think we’d struggle to retake the isle of Wight if Argentina invaded that tbh – spread way too thin
As long as the UK has QEC with F-35s it’s a non starter for the Argies
The modern RN is small but it is designed to stand off a near peer and undertake power projection and expeditionary operations..the navy of 82 was not at all…so infact the modern RN would be in a better position…the issue would be that it would have to abandon any NATO commitments for a long time to do it.
Especially as its only across the solent lol
The aim of the F-16 deal was to thwart China. We have to be vigilant but I suggest we take another deep dive into Blighty’s history. Traditionally we make lucrative deals instead of war. Argentina was once a trading partner. With some finesse there could be a prosperous future relationship again.
The obvious point being missed by many commentators is that at this moment the military presence is appropriate because the F16s are still in Denmark and the pilots and support crew need to be trained – when will they have even ioc? So plenty of time to multiply the Typhoon force. Typhoon pilots practice against F16 regularly. Argentinian pilots won’t have had that experience. And speaking of Typhoon numbers there are 87 Typhoon airframes flying over the past 4 months or so.. that’s about a 90% availability assuming the 30 or so tranche 1 are at Shawbury in store.. How… Read more »
When your best military hardware is 50 y. o. you should not boast about it.
Time to talk with Argentina, better friends with mutual respect and a 1982 situation avoided,some more assets could be put down in the Falklands,
24 F16s for Argentina is quite appropriate & not a significant threat to the Falkands. It’s about the minimum force for a country the area of Argentina to have a basic air defence/policing capability, long lapsed. I’d like to see Eire & New Zealand with a similar capability. NZ is practically inviting a Chinese takeover with its tiny armed forces & massive capability gaps. We will of course keep a wary eye on Argentina. Better a few F16s than a load of Chinese fighters & possibly hosting Chinese bases. The Falklands can be reinforced a lot faster than in 1982… Read more »