Increasing Tension Between the UK and Argentina over the Falkland Islands

Original post by Drewski

If you think that's "easy" then you're mental!

Any idea how difficult it was - and how insanely lucky we were - to shut the airfield down in '82?!

A few nicely placed motars/ artilery rounds can put holes in the runway, thus stopping planes from taking off. We were lucky in 82

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 183

Sephiroth

18

As soon as I heard the UK would be without an aircraft carrier for a decade I knew there would be trouble ahead in the Falklands. Biggest error the government has made in a while.

Reply 184

Original post by the mezzil

A few nicely placed motars/ artilery rounds can put holes in the runway, thus stopping planes from taking off

And create holes so minor that they'd be repaired in less than a day.

Op Black Buck involved dropping 1000lb bombs on the runway in order to take it out of action. That's a collossal amount of explosives.

Reply 185

Original post by Drewski

And create holes so minor that they'd be repaired in less than a day.

Op Black Buck involved dropping 1000lb bombs on the runway in order to take it out of action. That's a collossal amount of explosives.

Your not getting the point. When you have the argies steaming towards you, you cant afford to waste time repairing holes in the floor. Yes it can be repaired in a few hours, but what if in those few hours the argies are acctually landing on the beach at that time? We have no airsupport because the carrier got scrapped, and the other aircraft are about 2 days away. Our guys are pinned down trying to repel the argies and have no air cover. Not a good situation to be in.

Reply 186

hungryaardvark

12

Original post by the mezzil

Not that good thing to hear when your pinned down behind a wall needing air support NOW! And yes we have a runway and aircraf on the island, but that can be easily taken out and we dont have that many planes there either..

Well, how fast do you think an aircraft carrier could mobilise to the falklands from the UK? A hell of a lot slower than a squad of jets, I would assume. If there was a surprise attack, an aircraft carrier stationed in the UK or even anywhere in the atlantic would be of very little use.

Reply 187

Original post by the mezzil

Your not getting the point. When you have the argies steaming towards you, you cant afford to waste time repairing holes in the floor. Yes it can be repaired in a few hours, but what if in those few hours the argies are acctually landing on the beach at that time? We have no airsupport because the carrier got scrapped, and the other aircraft are about 2 days away. Our guys are pinned down trying to repel the argies and have no air cover. Not a good situation to be in.

You can, actually, because "the argies steaming towards you" looks something like: this.

Reply 188

Original post by hungryaardvark

Well, how fast do you think an aircraft carrier could mobilise to the falklands from the UK? A hell of a lot slower than a squad of jets, I would assume. If there was a surprise attack, an aircraft carrier stationed in the UK or even anywhere in the atlantic would be of very little use.

No, you put the carrier on standby near the falklands when the argies start getting mobalised.

Reply 189

Original post by Drewski

You can, actually, because "the argies steaming towards you" looks something like: this.

Hahaaa how i'd love that to be true! But that obvously wasn't the case in 82 :wink:

Reply 190

Original post by the mezzil

Hahaaa how i'd love that to be true! But that obvously wasn't the case in 82 :wink:

'Cept in '82 we had next to nothing actually on the islands in the first place and then we were ones steaming at them.

And, in the intervening 29yrs they've gone - militarily - backwards and we've leapt forwards.

Reply 191

Original post by Drewski

'Cept in '82 we had next to nothing actually on the islands in the first place and then we were ones steaming at them.

And, in the intervening 29yrs they've gone - militarily - backwards and we've leapt forwards.

Yep, but it was still a bad idea to scrap the carrier. Now we have 10 years without naval fast air support.

Reply 192

Original post by the mezzil

Yep, but it was still a bad idea to scrap the carrier. Now we have 10 years without naval fast air support.

Technically no, as a lot of the FAA's pilots have found their way into the Typhoon fleet :wink:

Reply 193

Original post by Drewski

Technically no, as a lot of the FAA's pilots have found their way into the Typhoon fleet :wink:

Yes many of them have, but it was still a bad idea to scrap the carrier so soon and not wait for the replacement to enter service. It could be put to good use, probably saving British lives if the argies decided to invade again. Also it would of been handy in Lybia aswell.

Reply 194

Fenrirs_space

9

Original post by the mezzil

Your not getting the point. When you have the argies steaming towards you, you cant afford to waste time repairing holes in the floor. Yes it can be repaired in a few hours, but what if in those few hours the argies are acctually landing on the beach at that time? We have no airsupport because the carrier got scrapped, and the other aircraft are about 2 days away. Our guys are pinned down trying to repel the argies and have no air cover. Not a good situation to be in.

You have to remember though that by taking out the runway, Argentina will effectivly be reducing their own capability to provide air support as well. Along with the T45 in the area, and any submarines that may be around (we most probably have some there that arn't declared), it'll be reduced to mainly a pure ground battle. With correct defenses in place, the troops should manage to hold for 2 days. (The geography of the area as well (hills), would make it quite easy to dig in and hold a much larger force at bay. This was one of the difficulties we faced when trying to retake the Islands in the 80s, mainly that the Argies had set themselves up in and on the hills and could see us approaching from most directions).

This is all going on the case of the runway being taken out as well of course. Doubtful that they'd manage it via an air attack, seeing as the surviellance radar on the Type 45 has a range of around 400km, and as mentioned earlier in this thread, would be able to engage and destroy any of the aircraft the argies could send before they did any damage, let alone the typhoons would have enough time to take off in the time it'd take the Argentines to reach the islands after detection. So we'd be looking at either shelling by ships, which would involve them having to move in to range to fire (which would of course take out any 'element of suprise' in an attack, and also the aircrews would be put on alert at any sign of hostile action), or commandos...which I highly (imo) doubt the argies have the experience or resources to train correctly and pull this off.

Reply 195

MagicNMedicine

20

I remember when Saddam invaded Kuwait, George Bush said that it was vital that the international community showed that it was not acceptable for one nation to invade the sovereign territory of another.

So I assume the US, our strong allies who we have stood shoulder to shoulder with in Iraq and Afghanistan, would react instantly to any invasion of the Falklands by Argentina, with B52s delivering their full payloads on Buenos Aires...

Reply 196

Original post by Fenrirs_space

You have to remember though that by taking out the runway, Argentina will effectivly be reducing their own capability to provide air support as well. Along with the T45 in the area, and any submarines that may be around (we most probably have some there that arn't declared), it'll be reduced to mainly a pure ground battle. With correct defenses in place, the troops should manage to hold for 2 days. (The geography of the area as well (hills), would make it quite easy to dig in and hold a much larger force at bay. This was one of the difficulties we faced when trying to retake the Islands in the 80s, mainly that the Argies had set themselves up in and on the hills and could see us approaching from most directions).

This is all going on the case of the runway being taken out as well of course. Doubtful that they'd manage it via an air attack, seeing as the surviellance radar on the Type 45 has a range of around 400km, and as mentioned earlier in this thread, would be able to engage and destroy any of the aircraft the argies could send before they did any damage, let alone the typhoons would have enough time to take off in the time it'd take the Argentines to reach the islands after detection. So we'd be looking at either shelling by ships, which would involve them having to move in to range to fire (which would of course take out any 'element of suprise' in an attack, and also the aircrews would be put on alert at any sign of hostile action), or commandos...which I highly (imo) doubt the argies have the experience or resources to train correctly and pull this off.

Yes I agree with this and know that we would deystroy them if they ever tried it again, but people are misunderstanding my point. A carrier would be very very helpful in this type of scenerio. It would help provide BETTER, FASTER and MORE air cover, and possibley (in fact probable) save lives because of it.

Reply 197

Original post by the mezzil

Yes I agree with this and know that we would deystroy them if they ever tried it again, but people are misunderstanding my point. A carrier would be very very helpful in this type of scenerio. It would help provide BETTER, FASTER and MORE air cover, and possibley (in fact probable) save lives because of it.

Better? Than 4 Typhoons? Not really.
Faster? Again, not hugely.
More? Not with the size of our carriers it wouldn't.

And anyway, we don't have them anymore so talking about them is entirely redundant. If we had IronMan he could do the lot on his own, but we don't.

Anyone who also reads Pprune, have we got the junior version of WEBF here?!

Reply 198