I always found it very amusing how Croatia got those Mig 21’s past the arms embargo.

To be fair to them they are superior to anything Serbia or Bosnia can get in the air and they had pilots trained on the type. It takes time to build a quality air arm and Croatia is going in the right direction, personally if I was a Croatian pilot I would be very excited at the moment.

Agreed, the lack of Sea lift and their old C-130’s would be a difficulty for Argentina, they had that problem in 1982. We are of course all assuming another invasion was planned. What if they just upped the Tempo with agressive patrolling and used any potential new Russian equipment for that ? It doesn’t have to get to a full scale conflict; a bit of local tension can really up the ante and force a reappraisal of all the equipment down there.

Good point Nimrod.

By upping the ante with new equipment and more aggressive patrolling they could make the situation even more difficult for themselves by forcing the UK to base more resources on the Island.

Contry to popular belief in the UK the Falklands garrison is not actually that big. Instead the UK has plenty of equipment, ammunition and supplies stored on the Island which can be linked up with a rapid reaction force of troops who would be flown out direct from the UK.

A very interesting debate and a thought provoking article. The UK is currently in a very tight position with two major deployments and would be very hard pushed to run a third even on a small scale without borrowing equipment from other nations. If say Argentina was to buy a couple of squadrons of modern Russian fighters at short notice and base them in the south, this could be a scenario that the UK would not like at all and would have no choice but to respond.

Things are very different now though compared to in the past and satellite reconnaissance is now much better than in 1982 and you can be sure that regular overflights of what is happening militarily in Argentina is currently being done, unlike back then. The presence of cruise missiles in the UK portfolio is quite a major deterent, although I guess we actually don’t own enough for a campaign of more than a couple of weeks at best. The retirement of the sea harriers sent out the wrong signal to Argentina in my view and the laying up of invincible and the sale of type 23’s to Chile can’t have helped either.

Maybe positioning a few Typhoons in that part of the world would be a prudent thing to do and perhaps run an exercise to see if the E-3’s and Nimrods can provide 24 hour cover that far from Ascension, which I very much doubt.

A surge exercise sending out some GR4’s, AWACS and Nimrods would be just the job and would send a firm message. Im sure Argentina would whine a bit but that would be no big problem.

Indeed, I agree entirely. I was just suggesting that on the surface the RN looks weak and some in Argentina may see the next few years as an oportunity.
There are very real doubts over the Argentinians ability to mount an invasion, there amphibious capability is at best weak, as is the rest of their naval forces. The airforce is along way behind the British in the equipment stakes, and the army cant go anywhere with the other two. All round the Falklands look very safe and any argentine effort would likely be both unsuccesful if not initially certainly eventually and very costly.

The RN looks far to weak for my liking at the moment but on the other hand it is superior in certain areas in comparison to 1982. The amphibious assault capability the RN has now is vastly superior and at least most ships in RN service have decent small and medium rapid fire calibre canons. With decent rapid fire canon those type 21 and HMS Coventry would probably faired far better against those Argentine aircraft carrying dumb bombs.

The point of Mount Pleasant of course is to make it unnecessary to send a naval task force in the first place!;)

There is a clear capability gap emerging in the RN between the retirement of the SHAR and the new carriers coming on line. Obviously the T45 will make a big difference, but its not the same as two near super carriers. Once the carriers, come on line with F35’s and T45 numbers rise its realy all over for argentina without massive investment. The question is will argentina see this as an oportunity. It must be remembered though that there are two issues would should effect the decision making process of any rational argentine politician, firstly the potentially destabilising nature of any war and the British SSN fleet, which despite its smaller size is much more capable and still has the ability to hold up the argentine fleet and make any argentine invasion mute by preventing shipping links and general sea denial operations.

The big problem Argentina has is Mount Pleasent air base, the fighters based there are superior to their own and they don’t have the equipment or ships to dislodge the forces based on the Island or shut down the runway. The other problem they is any move to mobalise their arm forces for another invasion attempt would be noticed allowing time for the UK to surge reinforcements to the Islands.

They have nothing to touch the Cruise missile equipped SSN the RN operates in the area so the safety of their own airbases would be in question.

I completely agree,the RAAF is one Airforce that commands respect all over the world,I read a article that said that back in 1999 (i think)a F-111 at a Red-Flag meet shot down an Aggressor F-16 that was chasing a Brit Tornado,I thought that was so cool when I read that! Total respect for the RAAF

Probably concentrating so much on chasing down the low fast flying Tornado that he didn’t notice the Vark sneeking up on him;)

I could be wrong but wasn’t the S-300 system purchased by the Greek Cypriat government but then the system had to be based on the Greek mainland to avoid a war with Turkey. If I remember correctly among other things the Turkish government had issues with the fact that the system could track and engage targets in Turkey.

Didn’t the Russians sail the Kuznetsov and a battle group in the med as a show of force to ensure the delivery went ahead.