Oil found in the Falkland Islands

[TheMightyFavog]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/03/09/wfalk109.xml

The inhabitants of the Falkland Islands are preparing for a South Atlantic oil rush which they hope will make them among the richest people in the world.

After 10 years of frustrating delays since oil fields containing up to 60 billion barrels of "black gold" were discovered off the islands, oil companies are planning to start drilling within the next 12 months.

(snip)

Meanwhile the Argentine government, which still claims the "Malvinas", as it calls the islands, and their oil fields as its own, is also looking jealously at the situation.

(snip)

Buenos Aires has accused London and the Falklands of reneging on an agreement in 1995 to co-operate over exploring offshore reserves, and of resisting its attempts to open talks on the issue.


Coming this decade to a theater of war near you...

(Fade up dramatic music form Requiem for a Dream and the deep voiced movie trailer announcer guy...

Two nations...

One oil deposit...


FALKLANDS II:
This time, It's personal.

This potentail war is rated BS for scenes of needles bloodshed.

[Indenturedebtor]

1. Great

Just great :(

[SoCalDem]

3. Those poor little penguins..more trouble ahead for them

and for Great Britain, who will of course, pillage at will..:(

[ThomWV]

4. Do you recall what happened the last time the two went to war?

The nature of naval warfare changed forever over it.

[SoCalDem]

5. Truthfully, I was not paying all that much attention to it..

:) I just know that Margaret Thatcher was idolized by warmongers everywhere:(

[ThomWV]

6. It was interesting

I am by no means a military historian, or any other kind of historian for that matter, but here is what I recall. Argentina had bought a dozen or so missiles from France (I think it was) that I believe were intended to be ground to air sorts of things. The British had sent naval battle group of some sort and it included a number of large ships, I believe several of them were Battleships. Argentina sent the missiles out on small boats and in a couple of hours shank half the British navy. I recall the news of the day as being total shock. Apparently it made commanders of Navies all over the world rethink their fleets and caused a real shakeup in how naval warfare is to be conducted.

[Thothmes]

7. Actually

The Argentinian forces consisted primarily of French aircraft and French exocet missiles. The Royal Navy lost two destroyers to exocet missile hits.
The Argentinean Navy lost the heavy cruiser Belgrano to a submarine launched torpedo. The main lesson for the U.S.Navy was to stop the use of aluminum
is ship construction. Withing a year of the Falklands wars, we were tearing out aluminum ladders and replacing them with steel. Classes of warships built after the Falklands, did not have aluminum superstructures.

[MaryCeleste]

9. We also changed fabrics for working uniforms...polyesters are bad in a fire

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Sheffield_(D80)


The sinking of the Sheffield is sometimes blamed on a superstructure made wholly or partially from aluminium, the melting point and ignition temperature of which are significantly lower than those of steel. However, this is incorrect as the Sheffield's superstructure was made entirely of steel.<6> The confusion is related to the US and British Navies abandoning aluminium after several fires in the 1970s involving ships that had aluminium superstructures. The sinking of the Type 21 frigates HMS Antelope and Ardent, both of which had aluminium superstructures, probably also had an effect on this belief though these cases are again incorrect and the presence of aluminium had nothing to do with their loss. In both cases, it is likely the ships would have been lost in any event, due to amount of explosives involved in such small ships, though aluminium fires did break out. Ardent in particular took a severe pounding, suffering eleven bomb hits, five of which exploded; no ship of her type of any era would have been able to survive such an attack. The fires on these ships did result in one clear change, which was the shift away from the nylon and synthetic fabrics then worn by British sailors. The synthetics had a tendency to melt on to the skin causing more severe burns than if the crew had been wearing non-synthetic clothing. The official report into the sinking of Sheffield, recently disclosed under UK Freedom of Information laws after an extensive campaign by ex-RN personnel,<7> severely criticised the ship's fire-fighting equipment, training and procedures and certain members of the crew.<8>

[MaryCeleste]

8. I suggest you read the Wikipedia on the Falklands War

Its typical Wiki lightweight stuff, but its fundamentally correct.

The damage was done by air launched Excocet Anti Ship Missiles. Destroyer, frigate and transport ship were damaged/lost. No major changes occurred because of it except changes to uniform fabric.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falklands_War

[Thothmes]

12. No Major Changes? within a year of the Falklands, the U.S. Navy

started a program to pull aluminum deck plates, grating and ladders out of all engineering spaces on all Naval Vessels. No class of warship in the U.S. Navy designed after the Falklands had any significant structural components of aluminum. These changes came about because of the loss of those British Warships in the Falklands.

[JCMach1]

2. There was a cool indy film called "Fucklands"

I recommend it if you can find it.

[meow2u3]

11. That sounds more like a porn title

an x-rated parody of the Falkland War.

[Mister Ed]

10. That's what the war was about to begin with

I recall that most newspaper accounts of the diplomatic wrangling between the UK and Argentina prior to the war mentioned that the islands were objects of contention because they were believed to be oil-rich. Once the war started, all mention of oil in the newspapers ended.