Waiting that long would be taken by everyone as acceptance of the fait accompli. Our closest allies would have refused to have anything to do with such an undertaking, & told us in private we were crazy. They’d have been very angry. Instead of the help we got in 1982 (including from the French), we’d have got obstruction.

And what would we have done with those cruise missiles? Shot up the place – but to what purpose? SSNs can launch SLCMs, but not an invasion.

Waiting 13 years is hardly as bad as waiting 270 years to make a claim/reclaim and you’d be surprised at the demoralising effect of getting a cruise missile through the roof of parliament.

Supposedly this is the configuration. Fat chance of carrying that 4,000 miles.

Both F-15 vs F-22 and F-16 vs F-35 top speed comparison depends on the “combat load”. With 4 AIM-120s, F-15C>>F-22 > F-16C>>F-35; if we assume F-22 and F-35 will reach their top speed with 4 AAMs and take F-15/16 data from flight manuals. F-16’s may need EFTs to match F-35’s fuel, but F-15C is still faster than F-22 irrelevant of fuel load.

We don’t really know what an F-22’s top speed actually is but it’s kind of irrelevant, because the F-22 will kick the F-15C’s butt up to Mach 2 all day long, and in reality that’s what matters.

Several good reasons..

1. the Pk of your BVR missiles is anyone’s guess
2. in a jammed environment, it might get even much lower
3. against a RCS-reduced opponent, you might not be even able to lock on at BVR ranges and need to go WVR
4. ID is still a problem, normally you have to get much closer than the nominal range of your BVR weapons
5. with the F-35, you only have four internal missiles.. don’t be surprised to have them depleted on a single (reasonably advanced) target
6. once close-in, you cannot disengage at will bcs you’re slow.. you need to fight even if the odds are not in your favor

Good luck jamming an IIR missile fired from far WVR or near BVR. ID via IRST. IIR missile cares not about stealth.

Kh-58UShKE(TP).

It’s good that you don’t. At least you can concentrate on the contents of the message, not the messenger himself.

Most of the die-hard F-35 fanboys here are able to dismiss a claim based purely on the author’s name.. regardless of how many times his claims have been proven right.. but at the same time want to sell us Code One, which is LM’s paid and owned propaganda leaflet, as a source of objective information.

Oh? How many times have Sprey’s claims been proven right? That radars are useless? That missiles are ineffective?

It’s actually studies of real life kill statistics and causes that have led to the F-35.

Not given that it would have had to carry some of the bombs externally. And the Vulcan’s combat range is longer than the Mirage IV’s stated ferry range.

The problem with this quetion is that it requires a different Argentina. Think about why Galtieri launched the invasion. It wasn’t planned for years. It was an ad-hoc response to a domestic politico-economic crisis, an attempt by a failing military government with a slumping economy to hang on to power by gaining legitimacy via a quick, cheap (especially in lives) & popular victory. It was therefore necessary to go with what they had. Waiting until they were better prepared would have negated the purpose. The crisis would probably have caused the fall of the government.

There would have been no invasion if it had needed a long, expensive build-up. If it had been expected that there’d be serious fighting, there would have been no invasion. The financial cost ruled out a build-up, & the expectation of significant casualties ruled out an invasion against more than token opposition, or where any attempt to re-take the islands was expected. The cost in lives or money was politically unacceptable – & still is.

^This. They couldn’t afford to do that described in the first post.