Falkland Islands: Tensions Rising

Originally Posted by Chris

It is unlikely that your brother has spent much, if any, time with anyone who has genuine experience of the Type 45 seeing as the first deployment was a matter of months ago and the first deployed crew is therefore still aboard.

The Type 45 destroyer can engage more targets simultaneously than five Type 42s working together. Its radar is also infinitely better and can detect aircraft take-offs from 250 miles away, a feature the Type 42 destroyers deployed to the Falklands in 1982 lacked.

History is the reason the new Type 45s are designed and specified the way they are. It is a faulty analysis to conclude that in the event of a conflict, things would unfold as they did before. The aircraft that successfully hit our ships in 1982 would have been detected well outside of Exocet range had the Type 45's capabilities been available. They would also in all likelihood have been destroyed. And had they managed to get close enough to fire, the incoming missiles would have had an entirely new defensive system to cope with.

I thought type 45's had been around for a few years now

[Kymmy]

Originally Posted by martyh

I thought type 45's had been around for a few years now

The first one was only commisioned in mid 2009.. Along with training on the new type they've only been fully operational and deployed since mid 2010.. Daring (the first ship) has just been allocated her first mission in the gulf at the same time as Dauntless got her Falklands mission

Originally Posted by Kymmy

The first one was only commisioned in mid 2009.. Along with training on the new type they've only been fully operational and deployed since mid 2010.. Daring (the first ship) has just been allocated her first mission in the gulf at the same time as Dauntless got her Falklands mission

AH gotcha so they haven't actually seen any operational service yet just sea trials and training

[Kymmy]

Also excercises..etc..

Now lets get back on topic

[DocDutch]

Originally Posted by Kymmy

HMS Sheffield and HMS Coventry were type 42s, also the Argentine Navy has a type 42 .. and of course we still have a few of them... It was shown with the sinking of our type 42's that they seriously lacked in air defenses and was one of the main reasons for the type 45 air defence systems development.. We're talking about something that could knock individual birds with jet packs attached out of the sky at the distances that exocets were launched at.. Including even an Anti-ballistic capability..

Type 42's had Phlanx capability same as the new 45's but not a decent fire control.. otherwise the exocets would never have got close

Kymmy the 42s only had phalanx or the dutch goalkeeper systems installed after the falklands war.

To be honest with the 45 there now together with the flight of euros makes for a tight air defence network.

[Kymmy]

Originally Posted by DocDutch

Kymmy the 42s only had phalanx or the dutch goalkeeper systems installed after the falklands war.

something I didn't know..

"If you're not learning something new everyday then you're not living"

[Tim Deegan]

Originally Posted by Kymmy

HMS Sheffield and HMS Coventry were type 42s, also the Argentine Navy has a type 42 .. and of course we still have a few of them... It was shown with the sinking of our type 42's that they seriously lacked in air defenses and was one of the main reasons for the type 45 air defence systems development.. We're talking about something that could knock individual birds with jet packs attached out of the sky at the distances that exocets were launched at.. Including even an Anti-ballistic capability..

Type 42's had Phlanx capability same as the new 45's but not a decent fire control.. otherwise the exocets would never have got close

I think you missed my point. I wasn't just talking about attacks on British ships. I was talking about Argentina landing troops and equipment on the islands by air.

The Falkland Islands consist of 778 islands that cover 4700 square miles. Now although the type 45's weapons have a range of up to 70 miles. They simply can't cover the whole of the Falklands at once, to prevent troop landings.

---------- Post added at 19:23 ---------- Previous post was at 19:21 ----------

Originally Posted by Chris

It is unlikely that your brother has spent much, if any, time with anyone who has genuine experience of the Type 45 seeing as the first deployment was a matter of months ago and the first deployed crew is therefore still aboard.

Hence my edit Chris.

Originally Posted by Tim Deegan

I think you missed my point. I wasn't just talking about attacks on British ships. I was talking about Argentina landing troops and equipment on the islands by air.

The Falkland Islands consist of 778 islands that cover 4700 square miles. Now although the type 45's weapons have a range of up to 70 miles. They simply can't cover the whole of the Falklands at once, to prevent troop landings.

HMS Dauntless isn't the only aspect of the islands' defence. There are four Typhoons permanently based there and the RAF has the capability to rapidly reinforce that number should the need arise.

Troops attempting to establish a beach head are incredibly vulnerable and under constant bombardment large numbers are required (because a lot of them are going to get killed). The UK sent a very large naval force to the Falklands in 1982 but suffered greatly from being vulnerable to Argentine fighter jets - the famous Simon Weston was injured (and many of his colleagues killed) while on board RFA Sir Galahad awaiting landing.

The defensive arrangements are supposed to make the Argentine government consider a military assault too costly (hence the further unprecedented leaking of information about a nuclear submarine deployment this weekend). In 1982 the British military posture (or rather, the lack of it) gave Argentina reason to think the UK would not defend the islands if it came to a fight. The policy aim now is to let the Argentine government see exactly what they would face were they to decide to have a go.

Hence my edit Chris.

Hence my reference to him spending time with anyone who has served on a Type 45, rather than spending time on one himself (as you already corrected that point when I posted).

[Tim Deegan]

Originally Posted by Chris

HMS Dauntless isn't the only aspect of the islands' defence. There are four Typhoons permanently based there and the RAF has the capability to rapidly reinforce that number should the need arise.

Troops attempting to establish a beach head are incredibly vulnerable and under constant bombardment large numbers are required (because a lot of them are going to get killed). The UK sent a very large naval force to the Falklands in 1982 but suffered greatly from being vulnerable to Argentine fighter jets - the famous Simon Weston was injured (and many of his colleagues killed) while on board RFA Sir Galahad awaiting landing.

The defensive arrangements are supposed to make the Argentine government consider a military assault too costly (hence the further unprecedented leaking of information about a nuclear submarine deployment this weekend). In 1982 the British military posture (or rather, the lack of it) gave Argentina reason to think the UK would not defend the islands if it came to a fight. The policy aim now is to let the Argentine government see exactly what they would face were they to decide to have a go.

Hence my reference to him spending time with anyone who has served on a Type 45, rather than spending time on one himself (as you already corrected that point when I posted).

Thanks for your in depth response Chris. However I still think that a sustained attack from a country that is just 250 miles away, will be extremely difficult to repel without aircraft carriers.

My personal feeling is that Argentina would take the islands again, and then we would have to fight to win them back again...history repeating itself again.

A couple of aircraft carriers, as well as the supporting fleet in the area, would be enough to put most countries off even trying. And could save many lives.

[Osem]

Originally Posted by Tim Deegan

But they will have air superiority, which is all they need to fly troops and equipment in, and to launch air attacks on our ships.

Without the carriers we wouldn't have won last time.

No they won't because far too many of their planes will be shot down and it'd be impossible for their supply lines to be sufficiently maintained by air given their exisiting capability.

Last time was very different.

I think we're all agreed that the current situation re the UK's aircraft carrier capability is shocking and that if we had a couple available it'd be a great deterrent.

I dare say provision has been made to destroy the airfield by hook or by crook should that be deemed necessary as a last resort - doing so would require the Argentinians to parachute in everything whilst dodging a whole lot of state of the art missiles. It's also possible that submarine lauched missiles could target Argentinian airbases but that would be upping the stakes somewhat.

[Kymmy]

You have to remember that during the '82 war the naval aircraft during the conflict were limited and semi-scarce.. So they didn't do any night defence or much ground attack.. This time we wouldn't be relying on these with the current typhoons probably the equivelant to all the harriers in the task force. Also Argentine are still relying on the older Mirages which failed so miserably last time.

[Tim Deegan]

Originally Posted by Osem

No they won't because far too many of their planes will be shot down and it'd be impossible for their supply lines to be sufficiently maintained by air given their exisiting capability.

Originally Posted by Tim Deegan

The Falkland Islands consist of 778 islands that cover 4700 square miles. Now although the type 45's weapons have a range of up to 70 miles. They simply can't cover the whole of the Falklands at once, to prevent troop landings.

Or even one type 45, and 4 Typhoons

Originally Posted by Osem

Last time was very different.

I think we're all agreed that the current situation re the UK's aircraft carrier capability is shocking and that if we had a couple available it'd be a great deterrent.

I dare say provision has been made to destroy the airfield by hook or by crook should that be deemed necessary as a last resort - doing so would require the Argentinians to parachute in everything whilst dodging a whole lot of state of the art missiles. It's also possible that submarine lauched missiles could target Argentinian airbases but that would be upping the stakes somewhat.

I still think that we are underestimating them, just as Maggie did in the 80's.

Have you ever seen the program on one of the discovery channels about how close we came to losing last time. And that is was just a combination of events that we were very lucky with, that saved the day for us?

[Kymmy]

Originally Posted by Tim Deegan

I still think that we are underestimating them, just as Maggie did in the 80's.

Yet we won.. and since then their capability hasn't changed yet ours has... We might have lost our carrier base but this time I don't think they'll get to the island never mind occupy it..

[Tim Deegan]

Originally Posted by Kymmy

You have to remember that during the '82 war the naval aircraft during the conflict were limited and semi-scarce.. So they didn't do any night defence or much ground attack.. This time we wouldn't be relying on these with the current typhoons probably the equivelant to all the harriers in the task force. Also Argentine are still relying on the older Mirages which failed so miserably last time.

Do our Typhoons have full ground attack capability now? They were criticised recently because they didn't have.

Although I realise that the Typhoons have a massive advantage over the Mirage. It only takes one lucky shot by SAM, or air to air missiles, or even a mechanical failure, to knock out 25% of out fast jets. Then there is maintenance and resupplying the aircraft, which all takes time.

So my point is that our defences could be completely overwhelmed.

I'm concerned that a mad, overconfident Argentinian general, could cost a lot of lives. When he probably wouldn't even try if we had our carriers.

[Osem]

Nobody thinks it'd be easy - but it isn't the same as last time and we're better placed now than we/they were then despite the lack of carriers. Now if we had no subs either that'd be a different story.......