Nah… a couple of merchant ships loaded with commando’s to conquer the islands along with the airport,
its going to take a couple of months at least for UK to prepare a counter,
so during that time send another couple of merchant ships loaded with fuel and supplies,
this time around use the fricking airfield, load up on standoff anti ship missiles before hostilities,
set up AD to protect the airfield, a couple of aircraft with surface search radar is needed, better yet with AEW.
A couple of transport aircraft is also needed.

I honestly don’t understand why this idea comes up every once in a while, firstly it totally ignores the logistic problems of the exercise and secondly assumes that the British forces operating on the Falklands are Morons!

As Swerve pointed out they can’t approach the Islands without being checked over, cargo ships need dock facilities to offload and there are currently only two well protected very small places to do that. Those two places are more small jetty then a full harbour facility, the merchant ships would need local help to offload and I don’t exactly see that happening. The airbase is inland so somehow this force once offloaded have to travel and take that base before reinforcements arrive from the UK, as Swerve points out there is a large Garrison of British troops (all battle hardened from operations in Afghanistan) and the FIDF who have excellent local knowledge, a high level enthusiasm and are well equipped. And no Obligatory it would not take a couple of months for the UK to send reinforcements, current rapid reaction plan would have troops of the high readiness force flying out of the UK on C17 within hours. Also this Argentine force has to do all of this with no air cover and no reinforcements as UK SSN will have what is left of the Argentine navy bottled up. The Islanders are planning a proper deep water port at Port William Inlet to support the Oil and Gas industry as well as take over from the current inadequate facilities at Stanley but there is no doubt that it will be a very well protected facility.

The pictures below are of the two current harbour facilities in the Falkland Islands, just one look at those pictures shows how silly an idea it is you are proposing Obligatory.

Mare Harbour

FIPASS

Indeed, in effect the QE class is the replacement for HMS Ocean. I am more interested in two thorny RFA replacement issues, the replacement of RFA Argus and Diligence.

In respect of Argus I think a variant of the Enforcer design without the flood-able well deck but retaining the large helicopter deck. An internal vehicle hanger that can be be used for different roles and the capacity to carry equipment and troops. Like the new tankers it should be built in South Korea with final fit out in the UK.

In respect of Diligence drop all these silly barge ideas and purchase a vessel similar to the current one, in other words an Oil industry support design adapted to navy needs. Again build in South Korea and fit out in the UK.

Gurlz und Punzer does have some traits of the weird SS-fetishism that goes on in Japan.

Also it makes no freaking sense, but that is a given.
I forget, did it come before, or was it inspired, by World of Tanks?

Partially inspired by WoT. Man I have spent way too much time playing WoT!

Also that is Mach 0.84 in the straight and level not a climb. If a Subsonic jet could realistically perform QRA then everybody would be using them in the role as it would entail significant cost savings.

The first post-apartheid government rightly decided that South Africa was spending far more on its military than it needed to, because much of its spending was aimed at preventing what had just happened, i.e. the enfranchisement of the majority, & a lot was also aimed at fighting the Cold War. It therefore cut the budget. It also went overboard on spending on political correctness, & funding the social integration of former guerrillas, from within the military budget. It adopted a fairly sensible re-alignment of the forces, leading to the re-equipment of the navy & purchase of Gripen, Hawk, & the (later cancelled) A400M order. But the budget kept shrinking . . . . . & more & more of it was being diverted . . . . .

S. Africa is a middle income country, richer per head than China (& much richer than India), & about the same as Brazil.

Agreed.

Can this not turn into yet another argument about the JF-17, not as if we haven’t had enough of those already.

For a country sitting on a huge amount of natural resources that should be raising plenty of taxation to more then easily fund the ongoing maintenance of their airforce this is a crazy situation. Gripen is meant to be one of the most affordable to operate Western fighter jets on the market, retirement through lack of funding is hardly a good reflection on the governance of the country.

R-R sells interest in RTM322 helicopter engine programme

Rather surprised with this one.

Keeping 996 would defeat the point of bringing in 997. The 996 needs more maintenance and takes up more space below deck, the 997 takes up much less space and has greatly reduced through life costs.

Also I would argue does an MHPC need a large 3D long range radar like 996 in its primary role?