How long til the Argies kick off?

[Corsair7]

Fume troll said:

Starfighter said:

s2art said:

Corsair7 said:

The Typoon force is only as good as the current rules of engagement allow them to be. I would suspect that in peace time, you'd have to get permission to open fire in triplicate signed in blood and authorised directly from the prime minister.

No doubt if thirty Argie planes came over the horizon and started launching attacks, then the local commander would be able to make the appropriate decision. But if thats not the scenario, lets say its one transport plane thats declaring an emergency, needs assitance, is someone going to be able to 'take it out' before it gets to the only servicable runway..... I dont now how wide Mount Pleasant runway is, but I bet if you parked a burning transport in the middlle of it you'd have trouble launching Typoons fo ra good few hours - all that would be needed in affect...

(ps, Mount pleasant being re-surfaced currently too....)

http://en.mercopress.com/2010/06/30/falklands-mpa-...

A good few hours wouldnt be enough. In any case how are the troop transport ships from Argentina going to get past the subs?

With ease. UK subs have no anti-air capability short of surfacing and using Stingers from the casing.

You wouldn't need more than a few hours of air superiority to stick a lot more holes in the runways.

I agree, all extremely unlikely, but strategy and tactics are fun to think about.

Cheers,

FT.

The idea was to make the runway unusable for a couple of hours. That gives the Argies just enough time to send a wave of ground attack aircraft in to attack the Typhoons that are based there, where they are sat on the ground unabole to take off because the runways out of action for a short period. If they can dominate the sky for an hour over the falkands, they can destroy any island based air assets. Doesnt matter if you can get the runway reopened in short time, if the planes are already destroyed.

Very far fetched true, but didnt they capture the falklands last time by rocking up in some old fishing boats or similar?


There are other ways of grounding the RAFs planes too - saboutage or SF for instance. How many pilots we got down there at anyone time?


Or they could just invade on Friday night when everyones stfaced......

[s2art]

Corsair7 said:

Fume troll said:

Starfighter said:

s2art said:

Corsair7 said:

The Typoon force is only as good as the current rules of engagement allow them to be. I would suspect that in peace time, you'd have to get permission to open fire in triplicate signed in blood and authorised directly from the prime minister.

No doubt if thirty Argie planes came over the horizon and started launching attacks, then the local commander would be able to make the appropriate decision. But if thats not the scenario, lets say its one transport plane thats declaring an emergency, needs assitance, is someone going to be able to 'take it out' before it gets to the only servicable runway..... I dont now how wide Mount Pleasant runway is, but I bet if you parked a burning transport in the middlle of it you'd have trouble launching Typoons fo ra good few hours - all that would be needed in affect...

(ps, Mount pleasant being re-surfaced currently too....)

http://en.mercopress.com/2010/06/30/falklands-mpa-...

A good few hours wouldnt be enough. In any case how are the troop transport ships from Argentina going to get past the subs?

With ease. UK subs have no anti-air capability short of surfacing and using Stingers from the casing.

You wouldn't need more than a few hours of air superiority to stick a lot more holes in the runways.

I agree, all extremely unlikely, but strategy and tactics are fun to think about.

Cheers,

FT.

The idea was to make the runway unusable for a couple of hours. That gives the Argies just enough time to send a wave of ground attack aircraft in to attack the Typhoons that are based there, where they are sat on the ground unabole to take off because the runways out of action for a short period. If they can dominate the sky for an hour over the falkands, they can destroy any island based air assets. Doesnt matter if you can get the runway reopened in short time, if the planes are already destroyed.

Very far fetched true, but didnt they capture the falklands last time by rocking up in some old fishing boats or similar?


There are other ways of grounding the RAFs planes too - saboutage or SF for instance. How many pilots we got down there at anyone time?


Or they could just invade on Friday night when everyones stfaced......

How do they avoid the radar and ground to air missiles? For that matter, even if the Typhoon force is taken out, how does Agentina invade?

[JVaughan]

My Mate has just returned from 4 weeks in Stanley ... stationed up at the airbase. He says its Well protected, and the Typhoons practically dominate down there. Apparently the Argies still probe the limits of the radar, and the Typhoons scramble to intercept ... then they bugger off !!!....

There are always 2 Typhoons armed and ready ... So im told... and I have pictures too...

[IanMorewood]

Corsair7 said:

but didnt they capture the falklands last time by rocking up in some old fishing boats or similar?

Yep fishing boats with tanks on them........

[Colin 1985]

Corsair7 said:

Very far fetched true, but didnt they capture the falklands last time by rocking up in some old fishing boats or similar?

Amtracs

[Shaolin]

Havoc856 said:

Concorde is surprising small.. Maybe we could employ some sort of catapult held by two people...


In all seriousness.. UAVs.. IIRC we have a few Reaper UAV that can sit up in the sky and wreak havoc.. Imagine them on a shift pattern along with the CAP and the UWCFU (Under Water Country fker Upper) that is surely lurking like some PH member....

Is that sponsored by Blue Oyster Cult?

[davepoth]

Shaolin said:

Is that sponsored by Blue Oyster Cult?

One would hope that it's the squadron song for the guys who drive the thing.

[zakelwe]

Corsair7 said:

Very far fetched true, but didnt they capture the falklands last time by rocking up in some old fishing boats or similar?

A group of "scrap metal dealers" turned up on South Georgia

(lovely this time of year http://www.sgisland.gs/index.php/(h)South_Georgia_...

and ran up the Argentinian flag. That was the start of it. The actual invasion of the Falklands involved an aircraft carrier etc going into Port Stanley so slightly different from old fishing boats.

Two things to say

1) Good old Maggie
2) We almost got rid of HMS Endurance and an aircraft carrier just before so encouraged the Argies .... ring any bells?

Sigh

Andy

[zakelwe]

Here's my old Falklands week by week guide to the war, fantastic bit of memorbilia, I was 14 at the time

http://www.zen141854.zen.co.uk/falk1.jpg

Here's the vastly outnumnbered marines surrenduring to Argentinian special forces, the commander Mike Norman looks really pissed off!

http://www.zen141854.zen.co.uk/falk2.jpg

walking out from the governers place

http://www.zen141854.zen.co.uk/falk3.jpg

thank god the Mini didn't get shot up, though one Argentinian died.

A bit later it is their turn to surrender

http://www.zen141854.zen.co.uk/falk4.jpg

Interestingly, if you blow up the picture on the left

http://www.zen141854.zen.co.uk/falk5.jpg

The 3rd from left is a supposed Col Reid of the SAS, it was actually Col Mike Rose of the SAS who was in charge of the SAS during the Iranian Embassy seige and the Falklands, so a definite PH top bloke. You can see his resume here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Rose_(British...

Andy

[rypt]

I still say that the MOD plan of just bombing mainland Argentina until they surrendered would have been better than retaking the islands

[Talksteer]

Ayahuasca said:

Argie submarine to the Falklands coast, deploys Zodiac rubber dinghy with Argie SF, SF sneak with [insert man packed missile of choice] to Mt Pleasant, Argie airforce mounts diversion, Typhoons scrambled, Argie SF fires missiles, bang bang bang.

You don't think that since you have thought of this that perhaps the Falklands garrison have also thought of this as well. Given that the Argentine team would have to do their preparation for this mission using Google earth and the Falklands garrison live there 24/7 I wouldn't bet on them being undetected.

Were the Typhoons to need to scramble operationally they will probably do so popping fares just in case.

In reality the last time they invaded the UK had several days of warning, at the time there was little they could do. Now there is a runway there reinforcements to make the island impregnable can arrive very quickly. Were the political situation to change I imagine that the force balance on the island could be adjusted quite rapidly.

[Talksteer]

Ross1988 said:

To raise a second point, how many Typhoons are down there? And how many AA missiles can they carry, If for example, the Argies sent all there planes across at once, can we realistically shoot them all down?
What sort of air defence systems do we have in place, I know Rapier is not the best in hilly terrain.

I know the Typhoon has concrete ballast instead of a cannon at the moment.

In the 1982 conflict the Argentines were never able to support sending over large strike packages and even if they did they would be unlikely to continue pressing attacks when their colleges start exploding.

The Rapier system is now a modern digital SAM system, the characteristics of such systems is that they tend to hit a very high proportion of aircraft that fly through their engagement envelope. The methods of combating them are limited to flying outside the envelope (fly at 15,000ft use precision weapons), attack them with your own anti radar missile (though the Rapier radar has mode to try to shoot these down), use a very sophisticated jammer to deceive said missile (difficult against the Rapier using thermal imager).

None of these options are available to an unmodernised 1960's of the type the Argentines have.

[IanMorewood]

Talksteer said:

None of these options are available to an unmodernised 1960's of the type the Argentines have.

IAI modernised the Mirrage 5's that Argentina still had after the Falklands conflict, basically a new avionics and radar system. So to say unmodernised is a little unfair but I still wouldn't rate your chances against a Typhoon as particularly high.

[Talksteer]

IanMorewood said:

Talksteer said:

None of these options are available to an unmodernised 1960's of the type the Argentines have.

IAI modernised the Mirrage 5's that Argentina still had after the Falklands conflict, basically a new avionics and radar system. So to say unmodernised is a little unfair but I still wouldn't rate your chances against a Typhoon as particularly high.

As far as I can tell the Argentines don't have any precision weapons that can be dropped from their aircraft. To make an air strike on airbase they would need to overfly it and attack with guns and dumb bombs.

This would involve flying directly past several Rapier systems and invariably being shot down. If they had LGB/GPS/EO guided bombs they could potentially strike the Typhoons on the ground from outside the Rapier's envelope.

The main problem the Argentines would have is that even if the Typhoons, the Rapiers and the long range radars were simultaneously put out of action there are two companies of infantry on the island (and several hundred other servicemen who could be armed). The Argentines don't have the offensive capability to land enough men and heavy equipment to take and hold the airbase in any time frame that the RAF couldn't ship a substantial force to the islands.

Any force which can get to the islands is going to be unsupported very rapidly and lacking any heavy weapons.

[dudleybloke]

and the falkland civilians are quite a bit better prepared than last time.
most of them have guns and would use them to defend the islands.

[IanMorewood]

dudleybloke said:

and the falkland civilians are quite a bit better prepared than last time.
most of them have guns and would use them to defend the islands.

Your not suggesting for one second that some of those ‘one careful owner, never fired in anger’ FNFAL’s that the Argentine forces round Stanley where using ended up in the hands of civilians are you?

The Horror of it, it’s a wonder theres not a massacre every other day.

[Ayahuasca]

IanMorewood said:

dudleybloke said:

and the falkland civilians are quite a bit better prepared than last time.
most of them have guns and would use them to defend the islands.

Your not suggesting for one second that some of those ‘one careful owner, never fired in anger’ FNFAL’s that the Argentine forces round Stanley where using ended up in the hands of civilians are you?

The Horror of it, it’s a wonder theres not a massacre every other day.

No ammunition, maybe.

[Talksteer]

IanMorewood said:

dudleybloke said:

and the falkland civilians are quite a bit better prepared than last time.
most of them have guns and would use them to defend the islands.

Your not suggesting for one second that some of those ‘one careful owner, never fired in anger’ FNFAL’s that the Argentine forces round Stanley where using ended up in the hands of civilians are you?

No but virtually every adult of military age is in the Falklands defence force, they have AUG's supplied by the MoD.

[Asterix]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southame...

An interesting development?

[Eric Mc]

zakelwe said:

Corsair7 said:

Very far fetched true, but didnt they capture the falklands last time by rocking up in some old fishing boats or similar?

A group of "scrap metal dealers" turned up on South Georgia

(lovely this time of year http://www.sgisland.gs/index.php/(h)South_Georgia_...

and ran up the Argentinian flag. That was the start of it. The actual invasion of the Falklands involved an aircraft carrier etc going into Port Stanley so slightly different from old fishing boats.

Two things to say

1) Good old Maggie
2) We almost got rid of HMS Endurance and an aircraft carrier just before so encouraged the Argies .... ring any bells?

Sigh

Andy

Argentina did not use their one and only carrier during the Falklands War. After the sinking of the Belgrano, they decided that they couldn't risk it.
All air operations conducted by Argentina, including those by the Argentine Navy (Armada) were flown from land bases.