Re: New interceptors for the Argentine Air Force?
I agree. I do not expect it and certainly hope it does not happen.
But just the same, Argentina continues to assert their claim and Brazil and Uruguay backs them...even beyond diplomatically at times. Remember, the Brazilians forced a UK bomber down during the war and imprisoned the crew for a week or ten days during the war.
If the right events took place and Argentina felt goaded, and the opportunity...they might still try. Although they lost, they also fought hard and bloodied the UK pretty well with their air attacks on the Navy.
I just do not think they have the proper air force assets to maintain air supremacy or even superiority over the islands should they be able to take them again. They would need a good fighter and quite a few of them...something better than the Mirage 5s they have.
Let's hope it is all simple conjecture.
The Vulcan Bomber that landed in Rio during the Falklands War was not 'forced down by the Brazillians', rather the aircraft developed a fault whilst inflight refuelling and could not complete it's mission, leaving the crew with the choice of ditching in the South Atlantic or diverting to a civilian airport, in this case Rio. Having chosen the latter (and informed the UK to give sufficient warning to Brazil they were coming) the crew dumped all their sensitive code books and other documentation in a weighted bag into the sea and tried to jettison their missiles (Shrike anti radition missiles, the sortie was against the Argentine Radar installations around Port Stanley. No bombs carried on this mission) but were unable to do so. The aircraft was allowed to land at Rio but was impounded on arrival and the crew 'detained' by customs in a reasonably comfortable hotel for a week whilst the diplomats sorted it all out. The aircraft and it's crew were allowed to leave but had to leave the Shrike Missiles behind, they were officially referred to by both countries as 'Sidewinders' for self defence, to disguise what the aircraft's actual mission was (no doubt Argentina already knew) and the Brazillians got a great gift of the Shrikes for the technical staff to examine.
During the conflict, the RAF's Vulcans flew a total of five sorties to the Falklands (that's five individual aircraft), each sortie requiring the simltaneous launch of 11 Victor Tankers to top each other and the Vulcan up, burning more fuel each time the the entire Sea Harrier force did in the whole operation, only the first three 'Black Buck' missions carried bombs (21x 1,000lb 'dumb bombs, unguided and aimed using techniques developed in WW2!) so of 63 bombs dropped, one hit the runway at Port Stanley causing a large crater... which was filled in and the runway fully operational in just over two hours. Yet to hear the RAF go on about it today you'd think the Vulcan won the war! The final two sorties were armed with the Shrike missile to disable the Argentines air defence radars on the islands, but the Argentines were smart enough to switch off their radars when the detected the planes coming in. Shrike could not keep a lock on a target that had shut down, whereas more modern missiles can.
Looking to the present day, Argentina has something of a quandry. They want to retake the Falklands, but they don't trust their own military and have restricted defence spending for decades. To defeat the RAF's Typhoons at Mount Pleasant, they would either have to aquire an aircraft of equal or superior quality (difficult, expensive and highly unlikely) or buy aircraft in sufficient numbers to overwhelm the Phoons (of the four aircraft based there, two will be on Q at all times, a third at thirty minute notice to reinforce and the fourth in maintenance), so Argentine planning for this scenario would have to be based around this specific threat. The RAF can send more aircraft from the UK, but even using inflight refuelling they could not be expected to arrive and become combat effective for at least twenty four hours after the initial attack, so Argentina has that long to mount an attack, defeat two to three of the world's most capable AD aircraft, land on the islands, defeat the Garrison and capture Mount Pleasant before UK reinforcements arrive. (sarcasm mode on) Good Luck with that! (sarcasm mode off!)
Bottom line: whoever controls Mount Pleasant airbase controls the islands.
