Last time this got hot, the Argentine military was unwilling to leave Buenos Aires without fichter cover. Which meant that a squad of their airforce spent the entire last conflict on alert in the capital area. If we assume the Argentine military would do the same in a new, hypothetical, scenario. Then what would Argentina need to take and defend the Falkland/Malvinas?

An interesting thougt is also the following: the next few years will be Argentinas best chans to (in a hypothetical military scenario ofcourse) to take the islands. When the Royal Navy is finally operational with AMRAAM equipped F35s I believe it will take considerable more kit from the Argentine side to take and hold the islands.

Hi guys, please allow me to join the fray here….

There was a very interesting post above discussing the different geopolitical realities of “de facto” and “de jure” sovereignty rights…

To me this is the whole center of the discussion, the current population’s democratically expressed political desires, or the “historical” imperatives tend to take a back seat to much more mundane aspects such as:

a) “How important/critical politically (as measured both internally and/or externally by each of the contending governments) is the ownership of this particular piece of land at this point in time”?

b) “How much will it cost my treasury to be able to fully guarantee our possession of this particular land”? and finally:

c) “What is the political goodwill to be gained internally and externally by militarily guaranteeing this possession”?

Without having any hard data to support my claim I think that to the “average Briton” (please note that I’m not putting this in terms of the opinion of the “average Kelper”…) ownership of the Falklands is not as important or vital as ownership of the Malvinas is to the “average argentinian”.

The desire for possesion of the islands runs deep in the national subconscious of the Argentinians, while before 1982 most Britons would find it very hard to locate the Falklands in the globe or on a map the same could not be said about teh Argentinians.

There are several books that now claim that the British government was at the end of the 1970s looking for a “way out” of the task and the cost of maintaining these pretty expensive frozen rocks… Economically speaking since the definirive demise of the whaling industry in the XX century the islands simply did not generate a surplus requiring a steady capital flow from London to support it. Turning them over to the argentinians was the basic idea that the British government, specially the Foreign Office was examining at that time. At least the Argentinians had ways to integrate the islands to their mainland generating economic efficiency and development from that.

The radical change in spirit came through strong and competent lobbying from teh Falklands Island Company representatives in the houses of Parliament, from this point ios that the “desires of the local inhabitants” became an important subject of discussion in Britain.

Going back to “de jure” and “de facto” rights as long as the subject of sovereignty claims continue alive, and there is no way it is going away in the near future (even more now with oil being found) our question reverts to how economically relevant will the UK and Argentina be respectively in 25/50/75 years time from now?

It is true that the Argentine Governments of the last 20 or so years seemed to have made every possible wrong economic move they could have done, but the UK has also declined in the relative global economic pecking order continuously as new up and commers assault its economic standing in the global ranking.

The loss of the 82 war followed by the rise to power of some revenge-minded left wing politicians, has hit the argentine military direly and at some point in the future they will have to be recreated, rebuilt, probably from scratch. On the other side, military costs in Britain seems to be spiraling out of control and participation in the “hard to leave” Afghan conflict might prolong the massive financial hemorhage even longer producing deeper and deeper cuts on the British standing military forces. As we all know cutting is always much easier to do than rebuilding those ever more expensive military means…

Having this in mind I think that the Argentines, if they are steadfast they may still in the end inherit the Malvinas back from a cash-strapped, militarily emasculated future United Kingdom…

Coments?

Hammer

The “NG Demonstrator” already flies with the new internal tanks, the new pylons, the new undercarriage, the new radar, the new satcom, the new MAWS, the new engine, etc.
On my book that qualifies has something prety close to a production model.

Hi Sintra, allow me to expand on your comentary and to answer the following question at the same time.

The Gripen Demo aircraft is a concept validation aircraft and also a Risk reduction exercise for the Gripen NG model.

It’s first objective is to validate the higher range provided by the new main landing gear folding system. This is the system that allows the Gripen NG to carry much more fuel in its central fuselage, thus maximising the fighter’s range figures.

The Demo aircraft is intended to compare the performance numers of the heavier setup against Gripen C/D established parameters. this Demo model is also intended to experiment with the new “Y” shaped missile/bomb pilons first offered in the “Gripen N” proposal.

After its initial test period the aircraft was reconfigured toi catty the new SELEX Galileo AESA Radar and some of the new avionicas intended for the NG model. In this stage the question is are the avionics weight, mass distribution adequate for the NG model? How does the aircraft’s avionics behave in terms of radiation interference between the various on board systems?

So we are left with the the issue of “if all the answers are positive, what would be left of the program for Brazilian companies to develop”?

Let’s get back first to the “new wing” issue. The external shape of the “new wing” is almost ABSOLUTELY IDENTICAL to the current production Gripen C/D wing, all the changes are in the new wing’s revised internal structure that was created due to the new main landing gear folding method. Although the Demo’s has the new shape of the MLG folding system it was not tested extensively to determine that it had the adequate structural robustness to garantee a 40+ year operational lifespan and at the same time to insure that it was the lightest possible design to reduce to the least the aircraft’s MTOW figures. This is the effort that will be left to be done by Brazilian companies if we chose to join the NG program.

After this new wing is fully designed all the testing and structural validation and subsequent testing is due to be done in Brazil.

Finally there is also the Brazil especific items such as local datalink systems, etc. These aree due to be resolved by Brazilian companies assisted by Saab.

My point is that Gripen Demo is a great step ahead from the baseline Gripen C/D but there is till a lot (A LOT!) of engineering man-hours left in order to get us to the production-standard “Gripen E/F”, this being the ToT opportunity for the Brazilian Industry.

I hope I’ve been able to clear the picture a little better.

Best Regards.

Hammer

What embargoes have you suffered in the past?

There have been several instances in recent years…

– Two-color I/R sensors for our Piranha short range Air-Air missile program
– INS/GPS navigation for the Brazilian P-3AM upgrade program
– Anti-radar technology for MAR missile program
– Wing aeroelastic data for F-5 upgrade program
– Thermal treatment for Brazilian Rocket external steel casing
– Sounding Rocket program technology embargo
– INS and gyrometric block for satelite aplictions
– Honeywell EGIR Embeded GPS Inertial and Radar Altimeter

Amongst other systems….

More details here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GURWeWJsyR8

Regards

Hammer

Cavour arrives this morning in Fortaleza Harbour

http://www.alide.com.br/joomla/index.php/component/content/article/75-extra/1049-nae-cavour-chega-a-fortaleza-a-caminho-do-haiti

It will pick up two Brazilian Navy helos (one Squirrel and one Super Puma) and a medical team to join the italian doctors and nurses already on board.

Also on the Cavour are 4x SH-3s and “two other smaller helos” one of which can be seen from the pics to be a AW-101.

More info this afternoon.

Regards,

Hammer

P.S. : There is a Google translate function on the upper right side of the page!

yeah, right… there’s only a minor thingy named “aircraft carrier” that SAAB never made anything to operate from… piece of cake…

be my guest 😀

Thank god Dassault never thought the way you do here because it would never have developed the original Etandart… Good for them. 😉

Regards,

Hammer

Your link is bad…

Regards,

Hammer

I wonder whay aren’t they expanding the aprons with those modular steel plates used sice the 2nd world war to create emergency landing strips… that might help produce more space for the aircraft to extract their cargoes and fly off as soon as possible.

Do I make sense?

Regards,

Hammer