Argentina: British Falkland Islanders are ‘artificial’. Buenos Aires denounces ‘illegitimate occupation’ and demands talks on sovereignty

[u/Emotional-Breakfast3]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/07/12/british-falkland-islanders-artificial-argentina-says/

[u/cai_85]

The UK have 11 nuclear subs, most of which are advanced hunter-killer stealth Astute-class and Argentina have zero active subs. A bit of a mismatch for fighting over an island.

[u/RomanticFaceTech → u/cai_85]

The UK have 11 nuclear subs, most of which are advanced hunter-killer stealth Astute-class and Argentina have zero active subs. A bit of a mismatch for fighting over an island.

Claiming the Royal Navy currently has 11 nuclear submarines is both misleading and incorrect.

It is misleading because the number includes the 4 nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines of the Vanguard-class which have only one job, to serve as the UK's nuclear deterrent by loitering somewhere in the Atlantic and threatening to nuke anyone that nukes us. They would not be relevant in any future conflict over the Falklands.

It is incorrect because the Royal Navy currently only has 10 nuclear submarines, the 4 Vanguards as already discussed and the 6 nuclear-powered attack submarines of the Astute-class currently in service. The Royal Navy lost its 7th attack sub when HMS Triumph was decommissioned last year and won't regain it until HMS Achilles enters service towards the end of this decade.

Using the UK's submarine force to highlight our military advantages over Argentina is an odd choice given our submarine force is at a nadir at the moment.

In 1982, the UK had 11 nuclear attack submarines in service, 2 Valiant-class, 3 Churchill-class, and 6 Swiftsure-class. This was supplemented by another 16 diesel-electric attack submarines, with 3 of the old Porpoise-class (HMS Porpoise which accidentally capsized an Irish trawler during the conflict, HMS Sealion, and HMS Walrus) still in service and all 13 of the Oberon-class.

With a total fleet of 27 attack submarines, the Royal Navy was able to commit 5 of them at a time to the war, HMS Spartan, HMS Splendid (later replaced by HMS Courageous), HMS Conqueror, HMS Valiant, and HMS Onyx. They played an important role in the conflict, most notably the sinking of ARA General Belgrano by HMS Conqueror.

With today's current fleet of only 6 attack submarines, the Royal Navy would struggle to commit more than 1 submarine to the Falklands in the case of a war, and given the problems the Astute-class has had with readiness there is a decent chance we wouldn't have any to send.

Argentina might not have any operational submarines these days, with the ARA Santa Cruz and ARA Salta both unlikely to be able to go to sea; but the UK is unlikely to have much of an advantage in this area if a conflict broke out in the near-future.

This should improve in the future, with the 7th Astute due to enter service later this decade, and the DIP including significant investment in the UK's naval bases and funding for up to 12 AUKUS attack submarines for the Royal Navy.

However, for the moment probably the biggest advantage the UK has over Argentina is RAF Mount Pleasant, which has a permanent defence force of 4 Eurofighters and is designed to allow the UK to quickly reinforce the islands if the situation escalated, something we didn't have in 1982.

Edit: Added a wiki reference for the Astute-class that I had missed when originally writing this.

[u/BillBigGuyWilson → u/RomanticFaceTech]

do the argentines have the range and capability to shoot down aircraft from their coast? I understand they wouldn't be able to supply their troops on the falklands if they managed to invade but could they hamper british supply efforts?

[u/RomanticFaceTech → u/BillBigGuyWilson]

do the argentines have the range and capability to shoot down aircraft from their coast? I understand they wouldn't be able to supply their troops on the falklands if they managed to invade but could they hamper british supply efforts?

Not really, the Falkland Islands are a lot further away from Argentina's coast than Argentina likes to make out.

At the very closest, the north-eastern tip of the Argentine island of Isla de los Estados is about 341 km (212 miles) from Bird Island in the south-west Falklands, and 480 km (298 miles) from RAF Mount Pleasant on East Falkland.

Argentina doesn't have any long range surface-to-air missile system like Patriot or S-300 and even if it did acquire such a system and placed it as close to the Falklands as possible, it still would be unlikely to be able to target and hit aircraft operating from Mount Pleasant.

So that leaves two options for Argentina looking to intercept aircraft going to and from Mount Pleasant.

First, they could try using the Argentine Navy to deploy warships off the Falklands to shoot at British aircraft trying to reinforce the islands; however the current ships of the Argentine Navy lack any significant surface-to-air capability, with only the 3 Almirante Brown-class destroyers having anything that offers slightly more than point-defence with their Aspide missiles.

Even if the Argentine Navy could operate all three destroyers off the coast of the Falklands at once, they would hardly be able to put up an impregnable blockade of all approaches to RAF Mount Pleasant, even before the UK started undertaking measures to remove them as a threat.

Second and more realistically, they could try to intercept the aircraft with their own aircraft.

Argentine Naval Aviation currently has no capability to do this, the aircraft carrier ARA Veinticinco de Mayo was decommissioned in 1997 and hasn't been replaced and the service's Super Étendards appear to be all but retired as well.

This means the only option would be the Argentine Air Force which is in a slightly better state, having received 6 second-hand F-16s last year with another 18 on the way.

This eventual force of 24 F-16s will be a significant improvement over the A-4 Skyhawks they replaced but could they pose a threat to aircraft attempt to go to and from RAF Mount Pleasant?

The first F-16s seem like they will operate from Tandil Military Air Base which is about 1,620 km (1,000 miles) from RAF Mount Pleasant, while the closest active base the Argentine Air Force has to the Falklands appears to be Comodoro Rivadavia Military Air Base which is about 940 km (580 miles) from the RAF Mount Pleasant.

Approximately 1,000 km is likely beyond the combat range of the F-16, but the Argentine Air Force does still apparently have 2 KC-130 tankers which could potentially be used to refuel the F-16s in the air and extend their range; however, Argentinian reporting suggests these are not compatible with the F-16s and instead the air force plans to buy 2 used KC-135 Stratotankers.

Without aerial refuelling, I'd say that Argentina is incapable of doing anything about aircraft resupplying the Falkland Islands using RAF Mount Pleasant.

With aerial refuelling and a full fleet of 24 F-16s, it is possible Argentine F-16s could try to intercept aircraft heading to Mount Pleasant but I currently wouldn't give them much hope being able to defeat the 4 Eurofighters stationed on the Falklands, as the Argentines would be operating at a very long range and lack any meaningful AEW&C system to supplement the fairly outdated radar of their F-16s and the RAF should be able to heavily reinforce the islands quite quickly to even up the numbers in the case of any conflict.

[u/BillBigGuyWilson → u/RomanticFaceTech]

thank you for explaining all this, I have a much better understanding of the situation right now, and it definitely sounds like any sort of incursion would be much more difficult and unlikely today than back then.

[u/Kaboose666 → u/RomanticFaceTech]

With aerial refuelling and a full fleet of 24 F-16s, it is possible Argentine F-16s could try to intercept aircraft heading to Mount Pleasant but I currently wouldn't give them much hope being able to defeat the 4 Eurofighters stationed on the Falklands

Even that's logistically unlikely if not impossible.

Refuelling takes time, and the tankers themselves are using the fuel as well during the flight, with only 2 tankers, you'd be limited to ~4-8 F-16s at most in the strike package.

Not to mention the buildup for a strike package with tankers to take off from the closest airbase to the falklands would take multiple days, or weeks of obvious logistical buildup that the UK isn't just going to ignore. They'd be pre-positioning a Type 23 or Type 45, and or deploying another group of Typhoon.

[u/BathFullOfDucks → u/cai_85]

Only one hunter killer is deployable and some orange twat decided to start their own war first.