Never mind the UK's conventional forces may be under subcribed to but whatever Argentina throws at the Falkland Islands wont cut it with one of these... :E

http://ladyraine.files.wordpress.com...iana.gif?w=500


Having said that i've heard that the Rad Background count in Beunos Aries is quite high anyway ;)


BTW - I'm just joking ok

... I hope

Althenick,
You may jest, but the UK Vanguard class do carry a sub-strategic warhead on some missiles, so the rad count would not rise appreciably ..

there's a lot of kinetic energy even without the sunshine.

See para 41. of this link

I am impressed at how the lessons of history are forgotten.
Wasn't it a certain HMS Renown and HMS Prince of Wales that were thought to be invincible to all attack, that were steaming up the coast of Malaya in WWII. The small, glasses wearing Japanese were to be no match for the might of the RN and Britain.
The invincibility of the Daring class is not yet proven, even with all these jingoistic posts about one ship taking out all Argentine airforce single handed.
This is not to say the Daring class aren't very impressive warships.

John

I take your point about lessons being forgotten, because they always seem to be, but I'll disagree with you if I may.

The sinking of HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse serves to show those that do not change with the times that obsolescence in warfare can be very painful.

Does it show that ships are incredibly vulnerable to air attack? Well, no. It shows that they were. The RN believed in the battleship whilst modern and excellent brains such as Mitchell knew they were out moded. But times have moved on again, as they tend to.

Maybe those that think an attack by manned aerial systems (aeroplanes to you and I) will finish off a warship, because it did in WW2, are those with the legacy mindset these days.

I would love to see the brief for a crack at a Type 45 in the open ocean. Ugly scenes.

orca
Quite right - it was Repulse and Prince of Wales.
John

Orca, while you are correct, perhaps you are wrong as well.

Repulse and PoW were optimised for surface warfare, because thats what we decided was the big thing. Dauntless is optomised for Air warfare - and is not exactly overflowing with surface or sub-surface capabilities - because, again, we have decided that Air warfare is 'the thing'.

of neither occasion did we bother to consider what our enemies would consider to be 'the thing'.

but of course i must be wrong, because the MOD is an acknowledged world leader in learning from the past, clear thinking, putting itself in the enemies shoes, and anticipating future threats

Marcantilan,

Thank you for posting.

Believe it or not, none of us are anti Argentinian; well I suspect no one is. What I, and many others, are somewhat upset at is President, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner with her hectoring, bullying, threatening manners. It would appear that she wants war.

In Defence of our assets?
 

As I recall In the cold war, certain UK NATO declared airfields were defended with around 16 Bloodhound and 20 Rapier SAMs. The nice friendly chaps just across the border had only obsolete and agricultural ground attack jets. Unfortunately - they were likely to be throwing around 100-150 of these at each base....100 minus 36 = 64 It was an equation we were not particularly happy with. War exercise scenarios were lasting only 3 days and were always ending in tears...

How many obsolete and agricultural jets are available to certain South American countries? Not many I hope....

Too difficult? - Tell you what - let`s just ignore decimal point positioning and spend 42 billon to save RBS funding it from the 4.2 billion cut from Defence. You know it makes sense.:ugh:

Its a bit of a silly game being played by Ms Kirchner at the moment which has no outcome other than to stir up emotions. A more sensible solution would be to remove any claim to Las Malvinas and offer to support the industry developing mineral and oil extraction, including the development of terminals and facilities in Argentina. Argentina will then reap some of the economic benefits of such an approach and before you know it, the Falklands would be populated with sapnish speaking workers and the whole issue would go away!

Notwithstanding this, I think the bigger issue is further south and the Falklands are the closest deepwater port and airfield to territory that is claimed by several nations and has potentially vast riches under the ice.

"somewhat upset at is President, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner with her hectoring, bullying, threatening manners"

Not involving (again) in the main issue, I must say that her manners are as you describe. With that manners, she deals with internal affairs also. I couldn´t stand watching her on TV, even when is speaking about meat pricing...

Regards!

Widger

"Notwithstanding this, I think the bigger issue is further south and the Falklands are the closest deep water port and airfield to territory that is claimed by several nations and has potentially vast riches under the ice."


That is certainly going to get interesting in the future and the Falkland Islands are well placed to possibly capitalise on it.

All this ranting and raving about Dauntless, the press seem to think she is steaming south at high speed, guns blazing! Saw her this afternoon peacefully at anchor whilst still undergoing the rigours of FOST.

In response to the previous inquiry, still no Phalanx CIWS. Daring got hers, but none of the others yet.

Mighty impressive looking ships though, especially at full chat!!!!

does one not just lie an Astute Class somewhere nearby and lob Tomahawks at significant mainland targets until the threat is neutralised.

Not as a pre-emptive strike, but in response to aggression.

Just a thought

You mean the only Astute class boat in service.
Too many posters fail to realise there are some big gaps out there at the moment, the government promises by 2020 all will be well.
Wilson said a week was a long time in politics; personally I fear that 8 years is an effing long time in international politics.


And yes I know things will get better and our 'can do' armed forces will but the whole SDSR is surely tempting fate especially as the cuts really start to bite; I refer you to the HCDC Report on Libya.

UN press conference
 

Having watched the Argentinian ambassador to the UK giving the press conference last week I can only say what a joke his claims of UK militarization of the South Atlantic are, he talked of the increased threat of the new equipment that has been deployed by the UK but ignores the fact that the older equipment has been withdrawn from service.

Any neutral observer will see the accusations by the ambassador to be a gross manipulation of the facts for home consumption, the likelihood is that he has been instructed to ramp this up to distract from bad news that the Argentinian government would like to hide.

The UK should just keep a cool head, carry on as normal in the Falkland islands and have a hunter killer submarine lurking west of the islands

Doesn't have to be Astute class to provide a TLAM capability.

HMS Dauntless deployed last week.

So much for the usual media suspects claiming that the Type 45 would never deploy. She even did a bit of SAR on her way.

And what happens if and when they then have to be positioned in another "Bomb Alley" location and one or two systems of line for whatever reason ?

Seems the Argies did OK with Iron Bombs 30 years ago and would have done even better if they had got the fusing correct.

Yep and I'm sure that the 1SL or whoever is in charge of boats has been told - we cannot retake the FI, ensure you do not lose them.

Don't forget there is a few more troops on the islands than before - all they have to do down there is drink, train, drink, exercise, etc - if push came to shove I would put a fair chunk on any invasion force given a really bloody nose - typhoon or no.....

And yep, any T boat "down that way" or on long patrol will have a set of charts for going south to be noticably not there.

Subs are the best offense/defense weopon to degrade land/sea targets.
Unless the captain "parks" the sub on a scottish sandbar they do not get easily spotted.

if you can't find it you can't hit it.

"if you can't find it you can't hit it."

Satellite technology ?

Just because the Argies don't have it, doesn't mean they don't have access to it.

China would be the one I would put the $$$$ on to provide for some trade off against other resources from the South American block since they are one of he biggest spenders.