Brazilian Navy antarctic ships from within, I hope you enjoy the 350+ pics! Text is in Portuguese, use Google translator to get the whole story of the rebuilding program for the Brazilian fire-stricken antarctic base.

http://www.alide.com.br/joomla/component/content/article/105-edicao-58/4529-a-recriacao-da-estacao-antartica-comandante-ferraz

Have fun!

Regards,

Hammer[ATTACH=CONFIG]220037[/ATTACH]

Problem appears to be a lack of market.

For light subsonic strike we have the EMB-314 Super Tucano.

For poorer non-Western aligned we have F-7 and second hand Su-25, F-5E/F and Kfir (super sonic .

Western aligned “light” market – F-16, JAS-39.

Non-Western align “light market” – MiG-29, JF-17, upgraded Su-25

The market for combat aircraft is shrinking too. Those that can afford aircraft go for multi-role supersonics while the rest soldier on with what they’ve got or downgrade to turboprops and helicopters.

I belive thobbes has summed it up nicely! This discussion seems to have skirted well past the industrial and political aspects that are so central to any understanding of military aircraft procurement…;) For example: during the Cold War, many countries “operated” fast jets such as F-5A/Es or MiG-21s, but thruthfully how many of these nations REALLY payed for those planes or for the training needed to turn them into really effective weapon systems? I supose not so many… Fighter selection has a tendency to be more driven by political adhoc alignments then by comprehensive multi-supplier competitive bidding… This is certainly not the same as a western airline studying its best options for the next fleet lineup… Industry makes an important part in this too. When the French decided to go ahead with the Rafale they knew it would be too expensive and capable for most of the missions being then done by Mirage F-1s, Jaguars, Etendards, etc. But for the sake of industrial effectiveness through larger production runs the Rafale HAD to be the one type to replace everything else then in use in the French combat aircraft fleet… Political considerations also play a good part in the success or failure of some aircraft programs the AMX is a great example, although very capable, neither Brazil or Italy had the geopolitical weight to “convince” smaller nations to buy it (specially if and when faced with strong opposing US or other European political pressure…) nor the brute economic leverage to simply “give it away” to many poor Asian, African, Latin American nations…

The Super Tucano is clearly “a notch down” in the performance side from what this thread originally advocates but it has been proven to work quite nicely. I recall that the F-5 was sold to many countries that wanted the Phantom but to whom this particular cutting edge fighter of the 60s/70s was overtly denied by the US Department of State. Comments? So I believe it will fall to Super Tucanos or second hand older fighters to fill this identified market niche.

Coments?

Hammer

More like a nice big target.

Allow me to disagree with you, here WB. I’m certain that no sensible military man in the UK armed forces would ever brushoff this casually as you do the just discovered possession of Backfires (and its companion long range antiship missiles) by Argentina’s Navy…

Get real! This plane alone would put the UK into immediate war footing and result in gigantic new defense equipment bills for the Falkland Islands garrison.

Regards,

Hammer

1 – http://en.mercopress.com/2009/10/23/typhoons-were-flown-non-stop-to-the-falklands-with-support-from-ten-aircraf

Great link Nick, thank you!! This is exactly what I had in mind, delivering more Typhoons by air is a monumental undertaking even if you ignore any opposing fighter threat. If the 4 Typhoons had to deal with fighting off enemy fighters during transit their fuel consumption would be much larger leading to an increased number of tankers to be needed… If on the contrary you decide to deliver 16 more Typhoons to the Falklands, instead of only four then things become exponentially more demanding, and risky. certainly NOT a normal day at the offices if this ever gets needed. This is a powerful argument for Argentina to get their hands on long ranged fighters such as Flankers… Why they haven’t done so till today it escapes my understanding! 🙁

2 – Fly as close to friendly soil as possible and eject

This would imply in a Africa coastline hugging route since if they landed in Uruguay or Brazil they’d probably end up being interned for a while… The distance between Ascension and the Falklands is 3500 NM (6300 KM)!

3 – Chile has always been the diversion, even if they had to fight there way past some hostile aircraft

Since the Argentinians certainly know of this it shouldn’t be hard for therm to set up some sort of barrier Combat Air Patrol that would push the exhausted British fliers on a much longer still southern then western route into Punta Arenas… Potentially an additional 2200 NM (4000Km) ton top of the initial 6300Km flight! Very dangerous, even if you discard the damning effects of bad weather in that godforsaken region of the planet.

5 – Probably 4 Meteor/AMRAAM and 4 ASRAAM

I imagine that for safety the fighters planes must certainly be fitted with three external high capacity fuel tanks. Adding these to the above listed missiles, over such a long trip this ought to represent a significant drag increase and consequential fuel burn rate, demanding ever more air2air refueling to compensate it. Man this is a nightmare operation! 🙁

6 – They would fight there way in, they would have to make it for any chance of success

“Fighting” over the empty ocean with a severley limited fuel supply to star with, seems exactly what the Argentininan Mirage III/V pilots had to deal with in 1982, ironic ain’t it?

7 – I don’t know what you mean, It would be used to transport ground forces as the Voyagers would support the Tiffies

What I meant was that to the the Voyagers their “own” Typhoons would naturally serve as deterrence for Argentinian long range fighters where lone C-17s would never have such level of “natural” air defense. 🙂 So the realities of both types of flights are significantly different requiring a totally different planning logic.

———-

When you think of it we would have 30 Aircraft down their after 24 hours, only 12 less than 1982, and with better multi-role capability

Also we would see the aircraft at full combat readiness on the way down, with a short stop at Ascension (Would we deploy a 2/3 aircraft flight to guard Ascension???).

By the time this hypothetical war will happen we will have T3 coming online and possibly CFT’s?

Regards

Nick

Forgive me Nick for thinking that your above reasoning seems rather “simplistic”… Jet fuel for once will be a very rare commodity over there, ,how large are The Falkland’s air base reserves for fuel and how long would they last once the full complement of Typhoons starts flying heavily? After that this initial fuel will have to be replaced by ship from the UK How long would it take to do so? Wouldn’t these fuel tank farms be natural first day of war targets for hypothetical Argentinian Special Forces? Much more than the local fighter planes themselves…

Comments?

Hammer

In addition, these three ships are now old. There is not that much service life left, therefore there value would be questionable, especially, if they have to be converted for their new role.

And additionally don’t foreget that the all-turbine propulsion of the Invincibles and the Principe de Asturias effectively guarantees that operationally they will NEVER be cost-competitive in the exclusive LPH role when compared to a newbuild Mistral, for instance…

Regards,

Hammer

Another possible option to the C-17 an A400M would be the Embraer KC-390.. The French have guaranteed earlier that if Brazil gets the Rafale they will buy the 390…

Coments?

Hammer

Once the UK has its A330 MRTT’s up and running I think it should be able to deploy 12 Typhoons every 24 hours to Falklands add to this the C-17 fleet and the UK could deploy a lot of forces in around 48 hours . As for an SF raid to what standard are Argentina’s SF as the British SF – Royal Marines – Para’s – Gurkha’s and RAF Regiment have seen nearly continues combat for 20 years with Gulf war 1&2 and Afghanistan and a number of other operations which should mean they are more battle hardened and sharper an peace time forces

Please, I don’t mean to be a trolll by any means here, BUT how feasable is the thought of sending Typhoons on a straight flight from Ascension Island to the FALKLANDS against Argentinian opposition. I have some questions for the more knowdgeable here.

1) How many Typhoons could be sent down with each Voyager on each trip?
2) What happens if there is a malfunction on the Typhoons refueling probe?
3) In this specific case where would the Typhoon crew alternate to?
4) Would a multi-Voyager/multi-Typhoon transit package be more safe then a single Voyager 2/3/4 Typhoon formation?
5) What is the minimum weapons configuration these Typhoons would have to carry with them during the trip down? (Meteor?/AMRAAM?/ASRAAM?)
6) If a “bogie” shows up in the fighter aircraft’s radar screen converging towards them what should the do? Return? Move further to the east? Separate from the Voyager and intercept the “bogie”?
7) In the case of C-17 (without the presence of Typhoons) what should the transport do in the hypothetical cases above?

I think this is an interesting discussion. For if somehow the tanker is shot down by a long range missile wielding Flanker all the Typhoons may end up falling down to the ocean once they run out of fuel…

Comments?

Hammer