Remember the old German joke.
“If you see a black plane, it’s the RAF, if you see a blue plane, it’s the USAF. If you see no plane, it’s the Luftwaffe.”

Nor would many be happy with certain death if the upside was ‘but they will still get their missiles off, which might make a difference.’

Compared to what? Yes I know that. Depends on the deployment a training package is given. To what level depends on role and risk.

Why do the pilots only do 4 to 6 weeks? I appreciate it is a stressful job and accidents will happen if pilots get fatigued. But RN flight crew don’t swap 6 weeks into a deployment.

And how good a “soldier” then is the average RAF maintainer? Shooting and safe weapon handling is all well and good, but soldiering is much more than that. Even the basics are much more than that.

The pilots do everyone else does 4 or 6 months.

‘Get an RAF Regiment squadron down there on rotation and have them teach the station staff to be soldiers.’

All personal do the several times a year exercise held in the FI. That’s one of their main jobs in the UK to teach that, they teach it to everyone else in the RAF before they deploy anywhere.

‘For airplanes; a couple more ‘phoons wouldn’t go amiss, and the number of C130’s should be increased to 3 (maybe even 4)’

I’m not sure how that ties up with doing it on a shoestring?

That would also be the crux of what I’d do as well; using the Islands as a training base. Get an RAF Regiment squadron down there on rotation and have them teach the station staff to be soldiers. They may be specialist Radar Operators, or engine fitters; but their service personal first and foremost. May not be the most popular posting, but there are other opportunities for adventure training etc to break it up.

Ship a couple of Vikings down there, enough to move the RIC about + a couple of recovery vehicles and have them training to use them. I’d also buy the Thor Starstreak/LMM system and have it mounted on a couple of Vikings for direct fire support / local air defence. If the balloon ever should go up; the Station personal, support by the RAF Reg hold tight, whilst the RIC move out in their Vikings under their own air-defence umbrella. A few of CRV(T)’s as they go out of the main service could be sent south as well.

For airplanes; a couple more ‘phoons wouldn’t go amiss, and the number of C130’s should be increased to 3 (maybe even 4) and have them used for helping to supply the Oil Rigs when they spring up and also conducting flights checking shipping. Keep the Hercs down their till their flying hours are used up.

It would make great sense to hold a joint-littoral/Coastal training exercise down there with the USMC and Scandinavian Countries every few years, but I wouldn’t keep anything based there full time. Cost saving being key.

Overall I think this was a great mental exercise for what we could do cheaply and in the near term as well as if money and time is no issue for protection of the Falklands and getting the most value out of what we have there. Thanks for the opportunity to let other people listen to my daydreaming about such things.

“British and American geopolitical objectives [including]:

Projecting US and UK power over Argentina’s immensely rich and grossly under-populated Patagonia Region facing the Falklands/Malvinas”

Are the British and Americans planning an invasion of Patagonia after Afghanistan?
———
I’m sure the couple of thousand non-British tourists aboard the two cruise ships turned away from Argentina the other day aren’t going to be very pleased by getting tied up in their nuisance behaviour. Exactly the kind of PR blunder the Argentines need to avoid.

He may be a fruitcake but there are lots who believe that stuff. If the rest of the world think they have a case it doesn’t matter about the “facts”.

I have copied some of the more interesting comments. The link is here. http://www.eurasiareview.com/11022012-british-laughter-in-the-falkland-islands-oped/

Argentina had US-brand Money Power “democracy” imposed upon it, as punishment for daring to recover the Falklands in 1982.

Whilst over the past three decades the British have built up a powerful military nuclear base in the Falklands to serve UK-US strategic interests in the region

the UK (and US) against whom we went to war in 1982

In Argentina’s case, England has a bad track record, having repeatedly tried to invade it over the past 300 years.

Yes I do believe he is serious.

Look under the thread “Falklands”

Adun has a point though, if we followed your plan, it might work, but boy will it be expensive before she finally shuts up. Or worse if she figures out your plan and spews provocation to try breaking your piggybank.

I’d just like to second Jackstaff’s proposal at the beginning of the comments, even if maligning the current government is calling me on my own politial persuasion (For the avoidance of doubt, I’m a Liberal (don’t ever add Democrat at the end though!) .

Personally I’d add defnesive elements one at a time. For each ARG bit of willy waving I’d add one “thing”. i.e. Deny cruise ships that have visited the FI a berth? Double the Typhoon contingent. Rant on about “militarisation if the FI?” Get a Sqn of RAF Regt. to defend MPA. ets. Eventually you’ll get a pavlovian feedback loop, and Mrs Whatsherface, will keep quiet for fear of provoking another upgrade in FI defence.

I’m all for practising the reinforcement of FI on a regular basis, it would at least demonstrate our commitment to FI to the ARG, and also practise the reinforcement plan and other underused abilities, such as Air Assault and Beach Assault.

Finally using the FI as a large Firing Range (Arty, Air?) and training base for “Cold and Boggy” warfare (rather than Hot and Sandy, which we have all too much experiance in) is a wonderful idea, I don’t know why we don’t use more of our oversea’s territories like this?

P.S. if TD wants to set up a FI Open Thread, I vote that it be called the TITSNBN Open Thread in true Think Defence stylee!

However, when it comes to Argentine irregular maritime operations (of whatever type) I think the bigger issue is that of cost, especially if we are considering how to improve the defense of the Falkland “on a shoestring.” Whether it is low-level maritime harassment, Gaza-Flotilla-style protest at sea, or more escalatory measures, the primary difficulty for the victim of irregular maritime warfare is that the countermeasures are inevitably many times more expensive than the measures themselves.

Take, for example, low-level maritime harassment (cutting cables, fowling screws, attacking crews with water canons, etc.). These sorts of attacks are usually cost-efficient to the attacker, because they force the defenders to be in a constant state of readiness, while the attacking forces (with a safe haven in Argentine ports) can choose to strike or stand down at their leisure. Even if the attacker’s tools cost the same as those of the defenders, the defenders would already be at a disadvantage cost-for-cost. This disparity is further aggravated by the fact that patrol vessels (while generally not that expensive) cost much more than the simple civilian craft that can be used for harassment. The defender’s difficulties are compounded if one considers the force protection needs – since Argentina could potentially escalate from low-level to high-level conflict whenever it chooses (for example, Argentina could stage a trap and attack one of the patrol vessels with rockets, missiles, or torpedoes), the more patrol vessels that are deployed, the more assets that must be deployed to protect those patrol vessels in the event of escalation. The costs for the defender compound themselves, while the attacker has invested in a few small ocean-going vessels. In the end, if Argentina opted to escalate on a low level, they could force Britain to spend a disproportionate amount trying to ensure maritime security around the Falkland.

I think this cost dynamic is the fundamental difficulty facing the British in the Falkland (much as it is for the US Navy in many other parts of the world), certainly more than the difficulty of trying to defend the Falkland against a major conventional attack (on which I tend to agree with many of the points made in Sir Humphrey’s previous post). Several participants have mentioned inexpensive unmanned systems as one possible way of trying to reverse this cost balance (though given the importance of human intelligence – primarily VBSS – in dealing with a cluttered maritime environment, I’m skeptical of the extent to which unmanned systems, and especially cheap unmanned systems, can actually significantly reverse the attacker’s cost advantages). There may be other technical methods to help alleviate this disadvantage. However, I think the bigger strategic question (perhaps beyond the scope of this discussion) is the extent to which Britain would be willing to double-down on defending the Falkland in the event of a persistent Argentine harassment campaign, and what that doubling-down would mean in terms of drawing further international attention (and perhaps criticism?) to the Falkland.

Sabrine, Carthage, Sparta all still stand as condemnations to the attackers even though they won in the end.

Agreed, i read recently that argentina’s own record show that when they were expelled by the british there were in fact no argentinian settlers on the island.

An argentinian garrision yes, but the settlers were random bolivians, chileans, etc.

But this is the Home Office’s decision. We’ll see how they jump.

Switzerland, soon, RE ” And is anyone selling them 2nd hand?” But USN might snap them up for their “aggressor force”