OH NO NOT THE FALKLANDS AGAIN?

During one of my late night boredom, I decided to search on ‘youtube’, and remembering back to a college assignment I did about the Falklands war a few months ago thought I might have a look at some of the videos on youtube about it.

Now there are a few things I’ve noticed…
A. There are a lot of young and old argentines still feel that they own the Falklands, and got me thinking, that if they decided to invade again they would have the backing of their whole country… but at present could we mount another successful mission to retake the islands? We will not be able to have any US help (see B for more information on why if you don’t know already)
B. A lot of Americans seem to think that they (and Chile) helped us via military assistance, but they only helped us with intelligence information, they couldn’t have helped us because they had political alliance with us and the argies, us via NATO and them via inter-American treaty of reciprocal assistance (or Rio pact) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inter-American_Treaty_of_Reciprocal_Assistance ,
C. The argies seem to think that they did a lot more damage to our task force than they really did, take this video for example, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNhtrEeG2qs its shows ‘proof’ (according to the argies) that HMS-Invincible was hit by Argentina air force

Take a look at the videos on these links and comment if your heart tells you to…
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=falklands
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=falklands+war
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=+Malvinas+
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=+Malvinas+war
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=689eOgHM6XA this one is about the sinking of the HMS Antelope being sunk. But seems to go into decision about WW2…

The links may come up with the same videos but some of the videos are different…

 

The Argentines have done litte else but winge since the shoeing in 82. I have engaged Argentine posters on a number of boads over the last few years over a number of issues particularly their inability to mount a credible defence given the time span between their invasion and the arrival of the task force and their claims that Invincible was sunk and replaced prior to it's return, (even the tin foil hat brigade on above top secret were having none of it).

The fact is that since Argentina declared it's self independant of Spain it has seen it's self as the stong man of South America, without it's strength ever being tested. 1982 was a reality check that they constantly mitigate with over blown tales of success and myths of the use of US air assets. They are as a nation unable to accept the reality of the defeat they suffered and subsequent humiliation in the eyes of their neighbours.

I could go on for hours about this issue but the fact remains that though it was a close run thing ( closer than was admitted at the time), our boys were nails and carried the day. Argentina is a democracy thanks to the team we sent and the Argentines should remember that it was British blood that bought them the rights they have today, what a bunch of ungreatful cnuts

 

Well the argies can carry on whinging and claiming the Falklands as long as they want 'cos they aint going to get them. Don't they also claim ownership of Antartica? Fat lot of good that does 'em.

 

We didnt lose so many blokes back in 82 just to have the Falklands retaken nowadays. We'd owe it to the Islanders and our predecessors to prevent it from falling.

They'd have to prise it from our cold dead fingers.

 

And South Georgia (somewhere they have never occupied pre '82) and South Sandwich (somewhere no Argentine flag has ever been planted)

Spain occupied the Islands - rightfully, Argentina gained independence from spain then occupied the islands 15 years later fr a couple of weeks.

It is as absurd as the US post independence claiming India.

 

Too right.

 

Ok, a few thoughts...

Take this as a scenario. Its the next TELIC roulement. Every serviceable airframe Crab Air owns is involved in rotating the troops in and out of theatre. There are reams and reams of just how hard they find this...

At the same time, we have to continue our efforts in Afghanistan. That uses quite a few airframes too, I should think.

Meanwhile, as we read today, most of the Navy is now in mothballs. We have no Sea Harriers anymore.

Suddenly, Argentina launches a 'Big Military Exercise' in the vecinity of the Falkland Islands. Whilst we might like to poke fun at them, they aren't stupid. They have done their lessons learned - and they also read our papers. While they probably would stop short of a full invasion, they posess the capacity to make us look very, very stupid. The Argentinian President has been talking about Las Malvinas rather a lot lately (see The Economist for details)

So just what does UK PLC respond with? A chartered 747 full of our reserve? Is it gonna cut it? Hmmn...

 

1. With the Indicators and Warnings (I+W) system we have in place now there should be none of the political "intelligence blindness" that was so evident in 1982.
2. The extended runway at MPA now allows us to reinfoce rapidly, albeit we would probably need to loose the " Counter 9/11" capability currnetly stood to in east Anglia to provide a south Atlantic CAP.
3. The outbreak of democracy in Argentina will probably prevent a similar adventure on their part again.

However, agree we no longer have the teeth or logistic tail to meet an emerging threat, whilst engaged on one front, let alone two and the blokes and their families are living in sh1t state back at home

 

If they were to go for it right now, it may get to that stage. I haven't searched for it yet, but how big is their current capability and with what's left of ours, could we repeat the result in 1982?

 

I suspect that overstretch would not be an issue. People on R&R would be flooding back to work to get the chance to kick the Argies out of a BRITISH territory.......it's more personal than Iraq or Afghanistan, isn't it?!

 

Whilst I don't know how many are in mothballs, the Navy currently shows 9 SSN patrol submarines on it's orbat. In addition to maintaining sea dominance in the South Atlantic, the TLAM capability, ( that we did not have back then,) would be able to inflict attrition on Argentine military infrastructure.

Provided they did not throw away all those target files CPL Sonic used to maintain for Operation Certain Death

 

we have 187,970 active troops and 233,860 TA, (as told by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_active_troops )
and argentina has 71,800 active troops and no reserve force

im not sure if these facts are soldiers or army, RAF.airforce and navy...

but they are still using the FN FAL, and the same sh1t as they did back in 82,
and back in 82, their artillery outranged us... but as BigT says there are alot of crazy mo-fo argies and it would take just a few of these to get into power and we in trouble...

would the EU thing 'if you pick a fight with 1 of us you pick a fight with all of us' come into play? or do the falklands not come under the EU even though the falklands call themselves british? its seems bit of a gray area...

 

Adjutant,
spot on. If the Argies want to make us feel stupid they could just noisly fly past the islands sonic booming all day long as their navy strutted the near by seas.

Yes that would please the Argintinian lads and remind us of the importance of not fighting wars that we don't need to because you never know when you might really need the forces you have got.

Ooh, I hope they do it just to wind Blair & Co up.
And give us more s'hit to sling at him.

 

I saw a documentary in the late `90s where Brigadier Julian Thompson stated that the UK wouldn`t be able to mount an expedition to retake the islands if they were invaded again, and that was before the UK became involved in a two front conflict. That said, there is more of a standing presence there than in `82. I think Argie politicos bringing up the subject of the Falklands is more to divert the citizens attentions from their p iss poor economy than anything else.

 

But never mind the Argies,

The frogs have been keeping their powder dry up until now, smiling all the while whilst the Spanish are begining to want to have a little word with us about some ships of their's we sunk a while back.
They are both starting to think about now would be a good time to pay us a visit.