HMS Dauntless sets sail for the Falklands

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**Do_I_Not_Like_That**

From an article in today's Daily Telegraph. So this is what my taxes get spent on. According to the article it could take out most of South America's airforces and can shoot down jets before they leave the tarmac. Bloody Hell!!

Send it to Washington - get the colonies back

Anyway, here's the article:

The Navy’s most sophisticated warship is being sent to the South Atlantic in a move that will send a powerful message to Argentina.

Dauntless will set sail for the Falkland Islands in the coming weeks armed with a battery of missiles that could "take out all of South America's fighter aircraft let alone Argentina's," according to one Navy source.

Although Mr Hague played down the deployment he said the ship was a "formidable vessel".

The Type 45 destroyer is the most advanced anti-aircraft and anti-ballistic ship in the world equipped with 48 Sea Viper missiles and the Sampson radar, which is more advanced than Heathrow air traffic control

The ship is in a league of its own in air defence able to track dozens of multiple targets.

"It can shoot down Argentine fighters as soon as they take off from they bases," said another Navy source. "This will give Buenos Aires serious pause for thought."

The deployment, expected in late March, comes as Argentina has stepped up its sabre rattling over possession of the islands with a ban on all Falkland registered ships in South American ports.

Tension between Britain and Argentina over the disputed South Atlantic islands has been rising again as the 30th anniversary of the war approaches and British companies drill for oil in waters surrounding the islands.

Jeremy Browne, the British Foreign Office minister responsible for relations with Latin America, is due to visit the islands in June to take part in the commemoration of Britain's recapture of the islands from occupying Argentine troop

Browne said he hoped his week-long visit would not annoy Argentina, which has already accused Britain of acting provocatively by announcing that Prince William, second in line to the British throne, will be deployed to the islands this year as an RAF search-and-rescue helicopter pilot.

"I hope they will see it for what it is, which is a recognition of the valour and sacrifice of British soldiers and the Falkland islanders themselves in the liberation of the islands 30 years ago and also a wider commemoration of the sacrifice made more generally, including by Argentinians," he said.

Browne is the first minister from Britain's 20-month-old coalition government to announce plans to visit the islands and will be the first Foreign Office minister to go there since 2008.

London has controlled the islands, about 300 miles (480 km) off the southern Argentine coast, since 1833. In 1982, Britain sent a naval force and thousands of troops to reclaim the islands after Argentine forces occupied them. About 650 Argentine and 255 British troops died in the 10-week conflict.

David Cameron has responded that the sovereignty of the islands is not for negotiation.

After Argentine President Cristina Fernandez described Britain last year as a "crass colonial power in decline" for refusing to hold talks over the islands, Cameron retorted this month by accusing Argentina of "colonialism".

Browne said there was scope for a "more productive" relationship between Britain and Argentina in areas such as trade, climate change and economic cooperation, including in the G20 group of leading economies to which both countries belong.

"But we are not about to forfeit our belief in the right of self-determination of the Falkland islands' people ... in order to engender that relationship," he said.

Sending the £1 billion Dauntless on her first mission to the area will reinforce Britain’s position although it will cause difficulties for the Foreign Office which is trying to downplay the rhetoric.

Admiral Lord West, the former First Sea Lord and Falklands veteran, said the Type 45 has an “amazing anti-air warfare capability.”

He also sent a warning to the Buenos Aires government. “Should there be any foolish nonsense from Argentina, Dauntless can sit just off the airfield and take down any aircraft coming in. It’s a game-changing capability.”

A Navy Spokesman said: “The Royal Navy has had a continuous presence in the South Atlantic for many years. The deployment of HMS Dauntless to the South Atlantic has been long planned, is entirely routine and replaces another ship on patrol."

Dauntless will replace the ageing Type 23 frigate Montrose.

Earlier this month the Navy sent Daring, the first Type 45, to the Arabian Gulf as tensions with Iran increase.

**AustonT**

And so it begins!
I'm so excited.

**AlmightyWalrus**

No way, more advanced radar than Heathrow Air Traffic Control?! Soon they'll be telling us that water's wet!

**Avatar 720**

I heard it on Sky News, "One of the Royal Navy's most advanced warships."

That's like saying somewhere is 'the warmest place in Scotland'.

**Gorskar.da.Lost**

Avatar 720 wrote:I heard it on Sky News, "One of the Royal Navy's most advanced warships."

That's like saying somewhere is 'the warmest place in Scotland'.

Which, to be fair to the folks across the border, can be quite warm sometimes.
Sometimes.

**Do_I_Not_Like_That**

I still find it hard to believe that Britain is better than America in this area of military hardware, unless the Yanks have got a trick up their sleeves. Assuming on course they're not wearing t-shirts!!

**Frazzled**

Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:I still find it hard to believe that Britain is better than America in this area of military hardware, unless the Yanks have got a trick up their sleeves. Assuming on course they're not wearing t-shirts!!

Who says the UK has something better than Amerika Hurr!!! ?

I mean come, we're years ahead of you in killer attack mine exploding dolphins and our new stealth CALLFs* are frankly unstoppable with modern technology.

*Class Action Lawsuit Legal Firms

**AustonT**

Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:I still find it hard to believe that Britain is better than America in this area of military hardware, unless the Yanks have got a trick up their sleeves. Assuming on course they're not wearing t-shirts!!

I wouldn't fond it hard to believe at all. The US hasn't had reason to fear losing aerial superiority the way the UK had fears in the air war over the Falklands. vis a vis the USN hasn't had any drive to explore the anti aircraft escort, while simotanously sabotaging new hardware development in more established roles, over the last 3 decades.

**Do_I_Not_Like_That**

Frazz, the american military probably spends more on paper clips and toilet paper than the entire UK military budget! Last summer, the Royal Navy destroyers/jets attacking Libya nearly ran out of missles due to budget restraints.

This is nothing new, If you read the Duke of Wellington's letters, you'll see that London has been penny - pinching for years. I could give you examples of such practice going back to the Battle of Hastings, so yeah, I am sceptical that we have the lead on the USA. Except when it comes to music and TV.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
@ Austin
What about the Chinese air force? Are they not the biggest in the world. And even if they weren't the most advanced, couldn't they take out a US task force with swarm tactics if there was a battle of the coast of Taiwan for example. Ditto Iran.

**SilverMK2**

They're coming right for us! Thin out their numbers!

**AustonT**

Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:Frazz, the american military probably spends more on paper clips and toilet paper than the entire UK military budget! Last summer, the Royal Navy destroyers/jets attacking Libya nearly ran out of missles due to budget restraints.

This is nothing new, If you read the Duke of Wellington's letters, you'll see that London has been penny - pinching for years. I could give you examples of such practice going back to the Battle of Hastings, so yeah, I am sceptical that we have the lead on the USA. Except when it comes to music and TV.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
@ Austin
What about the Chinese air force? Are they not the biggest in the world. And even if they weren't the most advanced, couldn't they take out a US task force with swarm tactics if there was a battle of the coast of Taiwan for example. Ditto Iran.

Just because the Arleigh Burkes aren't dedicated air defense destroyers doesn't mean the USN is helpless. At least some (most) of the missiles carried by our destroyers are SAMs they fulfill that role but the aren't dedicated to it like the Type 45s. In a let's pretend way a face off between the land based fighters of mainland china and one US carrier strike group would be disastrous for both sides, disproportionally to the US advantage but a a near total loss of that carrier air wing. Assuming the fight didn't happen in range of the SAMs of the escorts and ROC Navy.
Chinas Air Force isn't the largest BTW it goes USA, Russia, India, China. If a confrontation was eminent though I have little doubt that the Chinese would face more than one carrier strike group, plussed up by the Harriers of the LHDs,extra destroyers and frigates, the ROC Navy, and probably even the Japanese. Bot sides would know it was coming if the Chinese massed enough fighters to completely overcome one strike group let alone 2 or 3. China doesn't have a short coast, or a small land mass to cover with it's 900 some odd fighters (not including any Naval fighters)

**Tyyr**

Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: Send it to Washington - get the colonies back

Aww, what a cute little boat.

We promise we'll be careful if it does come to the US. We wouldn't want one of our carriers to accidentally swamp it as it went by.

**JEB_Stuart**

I find the comment by Argentina's president to be amusing. She accuses Britain of carrying on with colonial goals, but she neglects the fact that Falklanders are overwhelmingly supportive of British rule.

**Frazzled**

This is not a big deal. We've had Aegis ships since before most of the posters on this board were born.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aegis_Combat_System

**olympia**

The u.k. is sending a destroyer?! Not a frigate..no no..a whole destroyer!

**AustonT**

Frazzled wrote:This is not a big deal. We've had Aegis ships since before most of the posters on this board were born.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aegis_Combat_System

Well supposedly the system on the Type 45s is AEGIS baseline 8 or it's direct precursor. AEGIS 7 is the highest level currently deployed.

**Grakmar**

Tyyr wrote:
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: Send it to Washington - get the colonies back

Aww, what a cute little boat.

That is a cute boat.

Those Brits are so funny, sometimes. They act like they're unaware their empire all left years ago and that they're still important to the world.

**Frazzled**

Play nice now. remember they have weaponized haggis warheads.

**Pacific**

Grakmar wrote:
Tyyr wrote:
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: Send it to Washington - get the colonies back

Aww, what a cute little boat.

That is a cute boat.

Those Brits are so funny, sometimes. They act like they're unaware their empire all left years ago and that they're still important to the world.

To be fair, we've been doing that since after the 1st World War.

Sometimes having lots of military stuff flexing it's muscles around people on the other side is a recipe for a mistake to be made, and sometimes that is all that is needed.

As much as I understand the need to make a show of force I hope the military types on both sides are regular with their toilet trips.

Thinking here of the sinking of the South Korean Cheonan last year, and what might happen if a similar situation presented itself here.

**kronk**

Good luck to your crewmen. I truely hope a gak storm doesn't start.

Perhaps it's presence will dial down the rhetoric from Argentina and show that any attempt at force would be a mistake.

**AustonT**

If the Argies attack a UK ship it would be on like Donkey Kong immediately.

**Tyyr**

Grakmar wrote:That is a cute boat.

It's even got it's own clown hat on already!

**daedalus**

Heh. I halfway expected to see Thatcher standing at the bow, wielding a sabre, and screaming "Charge!"

**Grakmar**

Question: Because of the Monroe Doctrine, isn't the US obligated to stop this attempt at a European power interfering with American politics?

Are we now at war with England?

**Tyyr**

If we are can we have a gentleman's agreement to end it after we kill off the Chav's?

**AustonT**

She hates ships and the Navy.

**daedalus**

AustonT wrote:She hates ships and the Navy.

Well, that's why I picture her doing as I imagine she would if she were leading cavalry.

**Ketara**

Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:I still find it hard to believe that Britain is better than America in this area of military hardware, unless the Yanks have got a trick up their sleeves. Assuming on course they're not wearing t-shirts!!

It's difficult to make a direct comparison, simply because the Arleigh Burke class destroyer, America's closest equivalent, is more of a multipurpose craft depending on what its outfitted with (torpedoes, anti-aircraft missiles, anti-submarine missiles, tomahawk strike missiles, and so on).

However, presuming an anti-aircraft loadout (for comparative purposes), the Type 45 Destroyer is a step past the Arleigh Burke class on several grounds. Firstly, it has the advantage of age. The Arleigh Burke class was designed towards the end of the eighties, and the first one ran up its flag officially in 1991. The Type 45, by comparison, has almost twenty years more worth of technological progress loaded into its design, being designed at the turn of the century, and the first one being commissioned in 2009.

Considering the advent of computerisation occurred across that eighteen odd years between the two vessels relative commission dates (1991/2009), the Type 45 is infinitely better equipped in terms of automated systems, radar getup ( a new joint British/French system), and modern targeting technology. It also has had the benefit of the Royal Navys work on stealth hulls applied across the new vessels in development (currently an exclusive feature to up to date British ships), and electronic and torpedo countermeasures that again, dwarf the capacity of the Arleigh Burke class.

That is of course, if we're referring to the Arleigh Burke as it existed back at the turn of the century. The US has started work on upgrading their destroyers with some more modern features, and the newer ones coming off the production table have many of the more upgraded features the Type 45 boasts of in terms of electronic countermeasures, onboard computing, and compuerised targeting.

Even so, one for one, the Type 45 still possesses a number of advantages over even the upgraded Arleigh Burke class. It has a computerised radar system that America has never developed, that's significantly better operationally, and the stealth hull. Being a next generation destroyer, many of the features being automated mean less crew requirement.

But most of these advantages are the result of simply being a next generation destroyer, and the result of more recent British operational destroyer experience to build upon. If America wanted to, she could probably crank out a similar ship within five years. It's just considerably cheaper to uprade the chassis of the Arleigh Burke class as far as it will go, and keep up the mass production along already established lines. The Type 45 may be better, ship for ship, but the capacity to put five Arleighs in the place of one Type 45 renders that slightly moot.

**AustonT**

In that last paragraph DoD you mean cost wise, because I figure you can get 3 maybe 4 ABs for what a Type 45 costs.

I wish I could say I believed the USN could crank out a type 45 like destroyer in 5 years, instead they plan on a fourth flight of ABs instead of either the DDG-1000 or the CG(X) both of which the 4th flight will replace. It's fething ridiculous. The USN is doing it's level best to procure the least capable equipment at the highest possible cost.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
DEAR GOD! how did the cost of the Type 45s go from 270M to 6B?!?!

**ArbeitsSchu**

Its hardly sabre-rattling. Its replacing an older vessel in the same role. What are we supposed to do? Send out something old and crappy just so the Argies don't get upset? Swap the old ship for HMS Belfast? HMS Victory?