Now, YEAFT stands for Yet Another Falklands Thread, but WI Argentina decides that buying an aircraft carrier in late 1960's is not the optimal route for naval striking power and something else might be bought instead?
What would be the options? Other used warships - those B and C have to be outmatched! Buccaneers and (say) Atlantiques for naval strike and ASW?
Hmm.
Argentine Aviation. Background:
Armada Argentina - Argentine Navy - Aviation
Naval Aviation, as the fleet's air arm was called, was founded in 1921 when the first flying boats (seaplanes) and seaplane trainers were acquired by the Argentine Navy. By the mid-1980s the air arm consisted of some 3,000 personnel and counted in its inventory over 50 fixed-wing combat aircraft and at least 10 combat helicopters.
The Argentina Navy, from the moment at which the man began to fly, as of 1860 in balloons, and 1903 in airplanes, felt a strong necessity to incorporate them to both to its operative activities. After the activities of the first pioneers, as of 1910 (Lieutenant of Frigate Melchor Escola), the creation of the Park and School of Aeroestación of Barragán Fort was ordered, in neighborhoods of the city of the Silver (1916), and the Division Aviation of organic way within its General Staff. In the decades of years 1930 and 1940 it participated in numerous exploratory flights of new routes (raids), along and to the wide thing of the Patagonia and of great rivers, and flew over all the extension of the Argentine Sea.
As of 1947, the Naval aviation was first in crossing the Antarctic Circle from the American continent, and in landing for the first time in the South Pole (1962). It participated in constant way, and contributing a generous price in lives, the development of the Naval Force with Aircraft carrier (of 1956 to 1968, the A.R.A. Independence, and from 1969 to 1988 the A.R.A. 25 of May), that distinguished to the Argentine Republic like the only South American nation that operated a ship of complexity of integral way.
The Air Naval Command, based at Puerto Belgrano. The following organizations report to this command:
Air Naval Force No. 2, based at the Comandante Espora Air Naval Base. It concentrates combat and anti-submarine aircraft forming the Fleet's Air Naval Group.
Air Naval Force No. 3, based at the Almirante Zar Air Naval Base, provided with Exploration and Sea Surveillance Squadrons, Electronic Surveillance and Mobile Logistical Support.
The Naval Air Training Command and the Naval Aviation School based at the Punta Indio Naval Air Base; the Advanced Training and Attack Squadron and the Aerophotographical Group report to this organization.
Naval air operations were organized into six naval air wings during the early 1980s. The major shore bases from which these wings operated included the Punta del Indio Naval Air Base, the Comandante Espora Naval Air Base, the Almirante Irizar Naval Air Base, and the Ezeiza International Airport in Buenos Aires. Naval air operations were also carried out from facilities located at Puerto Belgrano in Buenos Aires Province; RIo Gallegos in Santa Cruz Province; and Ushuaia and Rio Grande, both in the National Territory of Tierra del Fuego; as well as from the aircraft carrier, the 25 de Mayo.
During the mid-1980s the navy's air fleet was organized into three attack squadrons — two equipped with a total of about 24 McDonnell Douglas A-4Q Skyhawks and the third, with 14 French-manufactured Dassault-Breguet Super Etendards. The Etendard aircraft were configured for firing the AM-39 Exocet air-to-surface antiship missile, the weapon that struck the British naval destroyer the Sheffield during the South Atlantic War.
It was believed that some of the Skyhawks were being fitted in the mid-1980s with the Israeli Gabriel III missiles, which were similar to the French Exocets. The Etendard squadron was hangared at the Comandante Espora Naval Air Base. Close to 30 Exocet missiles were estimated to be in Naval Aviation's inventory in early 1985.
Two squadrons equipped for carrying out maritime reconnaissance missions were based at Comandante Espora. One of the squadrons was composed of three Grumman S-2A and six S-2E Trackers that were often assigned for operations from the aircraft carrier. The second squadron was outfitted with seven to nine Lockheed L-188E Electras. A report published in mid- 1985 noted that at least two of the L-188s were being modified to carry out electronic intelligence missions.
In 1983 the naval air force's two helicopter squadrons were equipped with six Sikorsky SH-3D Sea Kings and were assigned an antisubmarine warfare role, as well as eight or nine Aérospatiale Alouette Ills and at least two of the Westland/ Aérospatiale-manufactured Sea Lynx. Another six Sea Lynx helicopters were on order at that time. The helicopters' shore command was at the Comandante Espora Naval Air Base, although most were permanently assigned to ships of the surface fleet.
Air transports used by the navy included approximately 15 aircraft that made up the general purpose squadrons assigned to various air bases. A special Antarctic squadron, based at Almirante Irizar, was equipped with three Pilatus PC-6 Turbo-Porters and one McDonnell Douglas C-45 transport. In early 1983 the first of some 45 Embraer EMB-325GB Xavante jets were said to have been purchased from Brazil to replace the light attack and training aircraft lost during the South Atlantic War.
In terms of naval-operational capability, a $65 million (peso) budget increase was decided in 2007 to address key material priorities. Also, as regards naval aviation’s tactical capacity, with the results rendered by the external audit, it became necessary to increase the Naval Aviation Command’s budget by $10 million pesos, to enable the organization to implement a repair program for detected failures. Along the same lines, the introduction of 4 helicopters offered by the US Navy was also anticipated.
Operations environment.
ED
What this means for Argentine naval policy?
Argentina for sundry reasons since the mid 1930s has been excited about naval aviation. It gives her a cost effective means to defend her long very vulnerable seacoasts from her traditional rivals, Brazil and Chile and gives her bragging rights.
Now about the idea of operating an aircraft carrier? The United States strains to keep 11 attack carriers in service and another 13 amphibian carriers in addition. Argentina's ARA optimistically thought it could operate 1? As the PLAN has discovered recently (and the UK will), flattops are not an easy thing to do. Air groups, body guard ships, underweigh and underway logistics cost billions for 1 (one) first class establishment. Otherwise the flattop is a museum ship waiting for decommissioning. A fighting navy has to operate at sea in peacetime. Where is that at sea money, manpower, industrial base and material to come? Argentina does not have it.
So what does she buy instead of the ARA Veinticinco de Mayo?
As can be seen from the Falklands/Malvinas inset, Argentina's naval problem has not gone away, nor has that geographical situation with which she is saddled. At one point, she was embarked on a ballistic missile program to cover her southern flank with a pre-cursor of the current PLAN sea denial plan aimed at the United States in the western Pacific, only in the Argentine case, aimed at several other potential hostile naval powers. The US and Brazil used diplomatic efforts to end that effort. Besides it will not work anyway as I hope to Murphy the PRC never finds out, for it will be a mistake of gravest proportions for everyone involved sending and receiving.
For that 150 million pesos, though there are some 1968-1972 options:
1. There are anti-ship cruise missiles that can be launched from shore based aircraft. Sweden created the RB08 and Israel had the Gabriel 1 and 2 missiles in this time frame. This lacks the prestige of an aircraft carrier but these weapon systems can be better supported logistically are more survivable and have a certainty of use.
2. The Russian option. Now it seems counterintuitive politically and militarily, but Russian gear when used by "Western" militaries, works. The Indian Navy has had great success with Russian OSA fast attack craft armed with anti-ship anti-land target missiles in cross ocean operations hundreds of kilometers and far beyond the cruising radius the FACs could reach on their own from their bases during that era.
There are western equivalents and
Israeli (French) ones. Operation Trident and operations during the 1973 war show that these craft can operate in a severe air threat environment with some success.
3. I don't like Swedish military hardware more complex than their missiles and naval guns as a rule. (Prefer Norway because of the USN's traditional heavy post WW II involvement with Norway's own weapons makers...) but... missile boats based on the Spica are possible.
4. LRMP aircraft? Why reinvent the wheel? The P-3 was made for the job. And if it is expensive, then buy second hand Neptunes. Better than the Atlantique or the Nimrod.
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Submarines...
I LOVE the power of a working submarine as a seapower option. It is not cheap, nor is it for the incompetent. But if the Argentine air forces and naval aviation prove anything, if the ARA invests and takes care, it can achieve amazing things with seemingly obsolete gear.
What to buy?
1. An ELF communications system to communicate with the subs at sea.
2. 6 submarines, preferably non-British or non-Swedish from someone who knows how to build them and teach the end-users the proper use of the same. The list of vendors is a very short one, politically and technically. The British of that time period know how to use well, but not how to build well. Their torpedoes are "questionable" in that era. The Russians are in the same boat. Sweden is not my choice (Collins disaster upcoming, ask the Australians about it.). That leaves France, Germany and the United States. The French have good subs with decent weapons which work well for the MN but NO EXPERIENCE as to what works in war and what does not and it shows. They are a vendor risk that for the Arabs at least has been a total failure down to the present. India has had little experience with their gear and is embarked on a huge gamble with them. Germany from the era builds good boats, but their tactical systems are GERMAN (not forgiving) and they continue their WW II learned bad design choices and engineering habits. Their torpedoes are suspect.
That leaves Uncle who has been out of the D/E business since the Barbels. But there is someone who is war qualified, knows submarines and how to use them and can build Barbels to order.
Meet these guys. Best in the world submarine technology inherited with none of the Gringo problems that came with the Barbel source technology.
The torpedoes work too. If it has Raytheon stamped on it...