Destroyer ship HMS Dauntless set for Falklands

[dipsydoodle]

HMS Dauntless is to be deployed off the coast of the Falklands Islands in the South Atlantic, the Royal Navy has confirmed.

The Portsmouth-based ship will be the first of the navy's new Type 45 air defence destroyers to go to the area.

The Ministry of Defence said it was a routine deployment and HMS Dauntless would replace a frigate currently stationed there.

A MoD spokesman said he would not say when the ship was due to set sail.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16810417

[Owlet]

1. I don't suppose this has anything to do with the deployment

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/8953029/Rockhopper-and-Desire-jump-on-Falklands-find.html

[dipsydoodle]

2. Thought that turned out to be duff ?

[Ghost Dog]

4. It seems they don't reckon so:

Oil Grab in Falkland Islands Seen Tripling U.K. Reserves: Energy

Thirty years after Margaret Thatcher fought a 74-day war with Argentina over the Falkland Islands, the prospect of an oil boom is reviving tensions.

Oil explorers are targeting 8.3 billion barrels in the waters around the islands this year, three times the U.K.’s reserves. Borders & Southern Petroleum Plc (BOR) will drill the Stebbing prospect next month, one of three Falkland wells that Morgan Stanley ranks among the world’s top 15 offshore prospects this year. Meanwhile, Rockhopper Exploration Plc (RKH) is seeking $2 billion from a larger oil company to develop the Sea Lion field, the islands’ first economically viable oil find.

“The area is underexplored and highly prospective,” said New York-based Morgan Stanley analyst Evan Calio. “These could be like the high-impact wells in Ghana and Brazil a few years ago that opened up a whole host of basins.”

A major drilling success will further raise the political temperature as Argentina maintains its claim over the U.K’s South Atlantic territory, 300 miles (483 kilometers) from the Latin American coast. President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner said Britain is taking her country’s resources, while Thatcher’s successor David Cameron yesterday accused Argentina of a “colonialist” attitude that didn’t account for islanders’ rights.

/... http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-19/britain-s-oil-grab-in-falkland-islands-seen-tripling-u-k-reserves-energy.html

US firm's £1bn for Falklands oil

AN AMERICAN energy giant with links to the Pentagon is poised to spend at least £1billion on the British oil rush in the FALKLANDS.

A deal would transform the political stand-off between Downing Street and Argentina over the future of the islands.

Four execs from Houston-based Anadarko flew to Port Stanley last week to meet with Rockhopper, a UK explorer that's struck 700 million barrels of "black gold" off the Falklands' north coast...

... The US giant's board of directors include Kevin Chilton - a former commander of US Strategic Command. Another, Preston M "Pete" Geren III, was in the US Department of Defence for much of the last decade.

If the deal goes ahead, American involvement would be a hammer blow to Argentina, a huge coup for David Cameron and change the lives of the Falklands' 3,000 islanders.

/... http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/money/4077559/US-firms-1bn-for-Falklands-oil.html

[Fuddnik]

3. Air defense?

Penguins can't fly.

[jpak]

8. Flying fish (Exocets) can

....

[Lurks Often]

5. Since the Falkland Islands War

the British keep a frigate or destroyer, a reinforced company of infantry and 4 fighters stationed in the Falklands to prevent Argentina from trying to take the islands back again. It wouldn't surprise me if there was a attack submarine nearby as well on a regular basis.

Given that Argentina doesn't have the ability to project power especially well, the forces the British have stationed there would likely be sufficent to prevent another invasion.

[sofa king]

6. The AA ship is the key.

The Falklands are at the extreme range of most land-based Argentinian aircraft. Putting just one air-defense ship in the proximity of the most likely target does many things. It makes the ship itself the primary target, rather than what it is defending. It reduces the time attacking craft can stay in the vicinity of the target from minutes to seconds, because they have to approach at low altitude and very high speeds, which burns fuel. Until the AA ship is taken out, it denies local air superiority, which is essential for any air- or sea-borne invasion. Its mobility allows it to foil any attempt at gaining local air superiority on some other part of the islands within a day.

Protecting such a ship and having a contingency for its loss probably requires more effort than the Brits are letting on, but it is nevertheless a very low-cost approach to island defense. But by its very least-effort nature, the committed forces are almost certain to be entirely lost should they fail....

[T.Miller]

7. well

Oil was not known to be in the Falklands back in 82 yet the British sent a task force to recapture them so I don't think the oil thing is a valid argument. UN law states that people have the right to self determination and the 3,000 inhabitants of the Falklands wish to remain British. With the deployment of HMS Dauntless Argentina would be very foolish to launch any sort of attack on the islands as this destroyer has the ability to shoot down any and all fighter aircraft in South America and definitely Argentina acting alone.