The usual problem raised, is last time we sent a medum and a light aircraft carrier with air to air (Sea Harrier) and air to ground (Harrier GR) aircraft.
This time we would be sending, at best, two light carriers and they only operate air to ground aircraft, although on my understanding, the air to ground can still fire air to air missiles, it just lacks a radar to aim them at long range.

Now on paper, that looks very bad, however its questionable how bad it would be in real life.

The Argentineans lacked a long range strike arm, our fleet was at their maximum range and they had a couple of minutes to actualy sight a ship, attack it and break for home, air to air combat was usualy us disrupting their efforts to sight a ship, or shooting them down as they bolted for home.
The Argentineans still lack a long range strike arm, and have much fewer planes (we shot most of them down as they headed home) however they now have radar allowing them to find our fleet much easier and bomb it much more accuratly.

But, in 1982 we didnt have a long range strike capability to hit their airfields with, now we have Astute, and even if the Americans havent and wont sell us any more, we should have 40 Tomahawk missiles we can fire from just off the coast.
We could probably render their airforce impotent with such an attack.
In theory, we could carry 200 missiles south if we sent all available submarines.

Our ability to actualy land an army is greater than it was, both as reinforcements by transport jet, and if that fails, by a variety of landing ships, happily capable of landing a tank regiment, a mechanise regiment and a few thousand infantry soldiers, and then going back to pick up extras off “borrowed” cruise ships.
Last time the Argentine defence was unable to deal with 4 CVR(T)’s, this time it could face C2′s, AS-90′s and Warriors deployed in force.

Theres also the question of combat experience.
Argentina last fought a war against us and has taken part in a few peace keeping ops around the world.
The British Army has fought actual wars almost none stop since 82, including the last 4 years in Afghanistan, which has been about 48,000 6 month deployments, many of them multiple tours.

As for the actual task for we would send, everything we could frankly.
Both Carriers if they could be readied, as many landing ships as can be readied, as many destroyers and frigates as we can pull together and as many submarines as we can spare, plus as many ships as we can “borrow”.
Cost would probably be a billion or so depending on losses and how muhc of a fight they put up

And as Admin rightly says, the best way to win a war is to never fight it.

You might hear that often said here but in general, my view is that I would rather we didnt have to mount an operation in the first place i.e. defend the islands rather than retake them in a rather expensive manner, we all tend to forget what came before the invasion and concentrate on after.

If you wade back through the posts on here you will find analysis and historical figures on defence spending and equipment numbers. In many ways our amphibious capability is much better than it was in 1982

Could someone explain to me what sort of modern taskforce we’d need to do so, and how much that would cost? I’m trying to grasp the scale of how defence has fallen down the priorities list (Since, no matter the current situation, we’re still better off then we were in the 70s).

Thanks,#

Mark

” the MR2’s aren’t landing from their last flight and then being dragged of the runway and set upon by angry mobs” Well they will be parked up on the Apron and have equipment removed and basically decommissioned by techies and they may be angry who knows? And I doubt there will be enough of them to call a mob. The MRA4’s will be appearing but everyone will need training as the MRA4 is positively space age in many respects compared to the MR2 it’ll be nice to see them in service. Maybe whoever is next up in Government might see sense and put the MRA4’s into immediate service and convert the 3 test aircraft so we have the bare minimum but that’s optimistic. Ideally they would order more to maybe coming close to the numbers that were meant to be as well as additional aircraft to maybe replace the R1’s but hey looks like we are getting RC-135’s the last time I checked.

Richard I don’t see how you can mothball a nuclear capability you are either nuclear capable or you are not and we are already at the bottom as one sub on patrol is our only nuclear capability at present. You could maybe find a slightly cheaper alternative but I’m in the camp that believes that SLBM’s are the only true option for a survivable nuclear deterrent that is however a totally different discussion. If you went further you drop to having the capability of designing producing nuclear weapons just like many other nations currently do in some form. We would not be a nuclear power in my opinion nor I suspect would we be considered as such abroad and it would also have a negative affect although it would have a positive side to it.

We could always mothball our nuclear capability to save a shed load of money and just bring it out in a crisis?

However I would like to point out that Britain hasn’t become entirely useless since the last conflict when we managed to put a rush on quite a few things for the war.

If it came down to it and we really needed Nimrods, the first MRA4′s are ready or soon will be, they just don’t plan to start operating them for a couple of years, it doesn’t mean we couldn’t in an emergency. Likewise, the MR2′s aren’t landing from their last flight and then being dragged of the runway and set upon by angry mobs, they’ll still be there to use if we need them for a while at least.

And as someone else pointed out, if it comes down to it, integration work on Typhoon for Harpoon could be done pretty quickly if necessary. The problem is a lack of will at the moment, but put an imminent (election losing) threat there and suddenly its amazing what we can do in a short time. Hell i’ve even heard people say that with a quick overhaul we could have a small number of sea harriers (sat in the Culdrose deck handling training area in a workable state) back in action. It’d at least be on par with what the Argentinians could send our way.

So it’s not all total gloom and doom.

Why indeed. Which current aircraft are you using?

During Op Corporate, a lot of the RN ships were attacked and damaged by bombs when they were too close to the Islands, which cluttered the ships radar. Also, the Argentines lost some 22 aircraft in doing this, which highlights the risk. Why get in close and risk aircraft and crew when you can take a vessel out at long-range with a Harpoon?

We’ve cut our defence budget and opened up a capability gap, as we will have no Nimrod for two years and no air launch anti-ship capability. We should be maintaining this capability rather than trying to get by with having to use Tornado’s.

Why not crate up half a dozen Tornado GR4s and a supply of LGBs – that should take care of the Argentinian navy.

Also, the Argentine corvette that was intercepted happened on 28 January. It makes me wonder if its something the Argentines do on a regular basis, much like the Russian Tu-95 Bears probing UK air space.

How about making a start by flying in a couple of hundred Royal Marines to Ascension to look after the airfield?

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2868056/Destroyer-HMS-York-sends-Argentine-warship-packing-in-the-Falklands.html

I’ve sent a letter to CCHQ asking if they still feel we should support the US in afghanistan given they have no intention of supporting us in the Falklands.

This could easily turn into a much more serious dent in relations between the United Kingdom and the United States for instance it would probably be necessary to withdraw out forces from Afghanistan. If this happened the US troop surge would essentially be filling in a hole left from the UK and Netherlands withdrawing there would also be a question of political support for the war if relations turned frosty. Basically who knows where this could go if the US was seen to be abandoning us to our fate as politicians here would be under pressure to react due to the impending election.

Rant or unpalatable opinion incoming>>>> Personally I hope the Labour Government makes an absolute arse of trying to solve this dispute so it mutates and blows up in their face adding to the reasons to exterminate Labour in the elections. Hopefully all their chickens come home to roost to expose how idiotic, incompetent and dangerous labour have been in the last 12-13 years or how little they value or care about human life. Sadly however all the chickens coming home to roost will inevitably result in far more deaths if there is a war than if we were well equipped to fight a war that is something that might just register in the public mind. However we never learned the lesson before in 1982 or after any other war big or small even after 2 World Wars and I doubt that will ever really change for any length of time. Also if we were well enough equipped and sized to fight and win various forms of war some including me would argue that it in itself would even act to deter escalation during disputes. A “Speak softly and carry and big stick” idea or a “If You Want Peace, Prepare for War” idea, the world is unpredictable and I believe it is better to prepared for something to happen than let it sneak up and bite you in the rear.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article7040245.ece

The Storm Shadow supposedly has the ability or some ability to attack ships as it does have an infrared imaging sensor in the nose of the missile which should be able to detect and target ships within an area. I have no idea what testing has been done to see how well the missile performs against ships I personally have not come across any reports of testing in the anti-shipping role however I have not spent time looking. It could just be unfounded speculation based on the idea that it has a camera so should be able to see a ship or it could be possible but just something that is not talked about. One thing to keep in mind though is that MBDA also makes the air launched Exocet missile so the Storm Shadow could be capable but not mentioned for obvious reasons or it might not be capable for the same reasons. A major problem if it could would be the fact that the Typhoons crews or Tornado crews have not trained for this mission and I don’t think it would be wise to have a go at an Argentine ship to see if it works. Mind you I think the RAF would love to use the old Type 42’s as targets to practise this and work out the problems before deploying trained crews or telling the people down there how to do it. However this would cost money, upset fishermen and all the assorted hippies so it would need to be done relatively quietly not least because it would also be seen as provocation.

I wonder if it could be developed into an effective anti ship missile though, if they can modify a sidewinder to be an anti surface missile then I suppose anything is possible.

The Eurofighter can carry the Harpoon however the missile is not integrated with the aircraft at this time and is unlikely to be done for a while as it’s not something that is seen to be in much demand. I would imagine it should be integrated at some point in the current Tranche 2 blocks and should be hopefully standard on Tranche 3 aircraft.

I thought the Harpoon was cleared for Eurofighter use or is it just the RAF Typhoon that hasn’t got it?