Its not much we haven’t said here many times but have a read anyway, click the image to read more
Think DefenceUK Defence Issues and the odd container or two
Its not much we haven’t said here many times but have a read anyway, click the image to read more
I wonder if Cristina Kirchner has seen this.
Falkland Islands Tourwww.Chimuadventures.co.uk8 day land based tour from £1030 Purchase online and save!
Read more: http://articles.businessinsider.com/2012-03-17/news/31203915_1_f-35-lockheed-vertical-landing#ixzz1pSw2xieT
And if she did?
You do realise F-35 is open for sale to almost everyone, which means Argentina can buy them too, so why would that worry them? If anything, it’ll close the tech gap in aircraft between them and the UK in one fell swoop if they were willing to spend the money.
Defence Intelligence Service?
Minor point, but if you want to put out something that you suggest is from a respected thinktank, then try getting the basics right – its Defence Intelligence (used to be Defence Intelligence Staff), but it has never been a Service.
Utterly basic schoolboy error, and one which implies sloppy drafting.
Observer “…if they were willing to spend the money”
Or if they have any money left by the time any become available. There have been speculative rumblings about a dull future for Argentina’s economy for quite some time now. Probably the last thing they needed was CK for another term – the populist lefty policies that won her the votes could well be doing more harm than good.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/03/14/argentinas_dubious_boom
Jim, I expect Christina would love that Chimu Adventures tour. You should drop her an email; maybe she doesn’t know you can go on holiday to a country without occupying it first.
BB, don’t give her ideas, last time it was steel workers, please, not “tourists” this time.
Jim, great link for the F-35B with the weapon bay doors open.
Apparently it’s carrying 2x dummy 2,000lb JDAM’s, wikipedia says the B version can only carry 2x 1,000 bombs.
Hmm, lies, damn lies and Wikipedia…..
Ace,
Awfully nice if Dave-B can in fact do that, if it’s not a bit of clever advertising with a lighter dummy load. Wiki can cock things up but as its quality control has slowly improved I would, like jim30 above, point out that they’re at the mercy of their sources. When a respected (in the field) source like RUSI commits a howler, it gets repeated through endless footnotes in secondary sources like Wikipedia.
BB,
Populist economics are fine in my book if they actually benefit the majority and the economy, but most of what Little Evita is up to (unlike her husband who did at least stand up to the financial-sector rentiers) looks like good old fashioned cronyism. Hence her need to stay one bit of public acclamation ahead of a falling house of cards. Well, that and her vast ego.
Observer,
It’s a fair point about the current military export market, though I don’t think the FAA (Fuerza Aerea Argentina, not Fleet Air Arm
can afford Dave variants. I’m still most worried about irregular civil disobedience, or a salami-slicing seizure of just West Falkland to splice the EEZ, provoke a disproportionate British response, and slowly convince Whitehall that Falklands defence (it costs *money*? Horrors!) Is in fact too expensive to be getting on with.
Also a general question — what are those strange, grey, pointy-winged things on HMS Invincible’s deck in the photo? They don’t have rotors. And a few of them seem not to have RAF livery. But they look oddly useful.
those? they’re dog food tins now
Topman,
True that. Where’s Wilkinson Sword when we need them? (Right — in Germany because Britain’s cool and “post-industial” and the krauts are not. That.) I could at least be nicking myself with them in the morning rather than feeding strays…
It seems unlikely that Argentina will be able to afford any new aircraft in the near future. Even though their defence budget is increasing each year, you have to remember that inflation is around 25-30%.
The Argentinian government keep saying that inflation is around 10% but then keep agreeing to give civil servants ~25% yearly pay rises. I can’t find if these pay rises are also for the armed forces but you have to think their pay rises are very close to those levels. So in real terms its more likely that the defence budget is decreasing.
Also during the last year they are having a big problem with money being moved out of the country. Most people expect a devaluation of the peso against the dollar so are converting them to dollars and moving the money abroad. To try to stop the peso sliding against the dollar, the government are using their foreign reserves to flood the market. This is starting to cause worries that their reserves won’t be enough. So its very unlikely that in the near future they would spend dollars on buying any big purchases of military equipment.
Also they are trying to cut down on imports and last year introduced a law that said any company importing items had to export items to the same value as those that were imported. So now companies that say import cars are having to export wine or peanuts or other items.
http://www.thecarblogger.net/2011/07/11/argentina-agrees-to-import-hyundai-and-kia-for-peanuts/
they might be able to afford the model f35 the way things are going the main threat is going to be refugess from argentina.
They make are clowns look competant