Another Falklands conflict?

Brian Sharrock wrote:
"Iain Rae" wrote in message
k...

Alan Dicey wrote:

Jeroen Wenting wrote:


"Jim Watt" wrote in message
m...


On 28 Feb 2006 16:05:30 -0800, wrote:


It looks like tensions between Britain and Argentina are on the rise:

http://news.scotsman.com/politics.cfm?id=296232006

Is there any chance Argentina might try taking the Falklands again?

Would they have a good chance of success if they tried?

The British learnt a lot from the Falklands conflict, if they invaded
again it suggests Argentina did not.


Argentina has since rearmed, Britain no longer has a third of the
capability to wage war compared to the last time.
And they're already engaged in Iraq, an operation taking up most of
their strategic transport capability.

I'm of the opinion that the Argentinians could very well succeed in
taking the islands and keeping them.


We have Tornado's at Port Stanley.

We have a small flight of tornadoes at Mount Pleasant (4 I think, the
RAF website is down at the moment) I doubt they could do much more than
local area defense of the airfield.


FYI; the Tornado aircraft comes in many guises (Modifications) ...
yes I know, I've sat in most of them, always with the wheels firmly on
the ground though.

The F3 variant is an _interceptor_ . 'Local area defense(sic)' would occur
hundreds of miles from the airfield.

With 4 aircraft versus the FAA you're not going to be able to stop
everything. I'm assuming that they'd be targetted on raids attacking the
airfield, lose the airfield and you lose the islands.




Assuming we had tankers at Ascention can anyone guess how long it would
take to fly down additional F3s?


Why restrict a reinforcement to (Tornado)F3's?


I'm not, but without doing the sums I'm guessing they could get there
quickest and there would already be supplies and technicians there to
service them.

I don't know if they have weapons or spares chached for the GR4 or
Jaguar but I'd have thought they'd have based a flight of them there if
there was.