MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Construction of first Argentine-built Argentine Navy ship in almost 40 years commences
The ageing sloop ARA King is soon to be replaced by an Argentine-built LICA for training purposes The Rio Santiago shipyard (ARS) Tuesday began building the first ship for the Argentine Navy in 38 years, it was announced.
The Cadets Instruction Boat (in Spanish, Lancha de Instrucción de Cadetes or LICA) began to take shape Tuesday with the laying of the first block of about 20 tons of weight. Block DF1C was cut and shaped at the ARS structures' workshop with a weight of 20.3 tons for the instruction ship, the first model designed by the Buenos Aires state company for the Argentine Navy in almost forty years. Delivery is scheduled for early 2018.
The boat will have 36 meters of length and 8 of sleeve, two 500 hp engines that will allow them to reach the speed of 12 knots, and capacity for 7 crew and 33 cadets.
“It is very important that the Argentine Navy, after 38 years, has placed an order for a new construction at the shipyard, they are our main customer, who support us in the daily work and recognize the capacity and quality of our labor.” ARS president Ernesto Gáspari said.
For his part, Rear Admiral Francisco Medrano, Navy Budget General Director, stressed the importance of having the new training ships that “would replace the ageing ARA Murature and ARA King sloops” and allow cadets to be instructed aboard modern times ships.
These vessels were developed by the Navy and Shipyard Río Santiago since 2013 at the request of the Naval School and designed by shipyard personnel, based on their experience gathered from other naval forces that use this type of units for coastal navigation, rivers, or near-shore seas.
The new units have been required to have dual command so that in case of emergency the instructing officer can take control of the boat from the cadet, as well as an autonomy that allows to sail from Buenos Aires to Ushuaia and back without refueling and engines that can be repaired or get their spare parts at any port along their routes.
Construction will be supervised by the Nippon Kaiji Kyokai Classification Society (NKK) who approved the first structural plans with which the sheet cutting began.
The primary task of the LICAs is the training of cadets in coastal navigation. They can also assist in the event of natural disasters, since they can also perform basic, intermediate and advanced marine maneuvers.
ARS sources explained that “these types of ships have been used by the US Navy since the 1920s at their Annapolis school, which has its own fleet, and where they are known as 'Y Boats' to all his cadets,” they said.
The LICAs are the first ships built by ARS for the Argentine Navy since the Meko 140 corvette series. There are plans to also sell LICAs to other navies in the reigion and elsewhere.
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Dec 23rd, 2016 - 01:37 pm +5Another provocative move by this aggressive nation,
another excuse to militarise the south Atlantic, were the Falkland's informed or asked , were the British informed or asked,
no I thought not, or is it just an argentine thing ?
When we do anything, we are aggressive and militarising the south Atlantic, but its ok for this aggressive threatening country to do so.?
Well, that's my moan for today, ,,,Feel free.
@DT “ do you think the sinking was effective, ie it helped Britain to win the war?”
Dec 24th, 2016 - 10:57 pm +4Of course it was an effective sinking. That ship went straight to the bottom.
It is difficult to say how much the sinking helped or hindered the British effort. It could be argued that the sinking also sunk any of the tiny remaining potential for a peaceful settlement, in that the event tended to steel the Argentines somewhat, which could be viewed as hampering the task force efforts. Likewise it gave the silk panties crowd in the UK something to more loudly whinge about, and may have helped to keep up Peru's material assistance to Argentina's war effort while pretending to broker a peace effort. Obviously the sinking removed considerable capability from the Argentine side, not just from the armament on the old cruiser but also the considerable reduction in supply shipping from the continent.The importance of keeping the Argentine aircraft carrier out of blue water can't be overstated, although the sinking of the carrier itself would have probably made more strategic sense. Once the majority of the Argentine surface fleet went to port, this freed up the UK submarines for other tasks that contributed to the task force's success. So on the whole it seems that the sinking of the Belgrano was appropriate and beneficial for the UK forces.
Naturally, a great deal has been written on this topic and I don't pretend to cover any of the bases. One thing often forgotten is that the loss of life from the sinking was made worse by the Argentine navy's many errors, including the Belgrano's failure to perform disciplined damage control, and the failure of its destroyers to provide timely assistance (remember that they had no idea what was going on and inadvertently abandoned the Belgrano for quite some time. )
If you invade the territory of another and then send your fleet all locked and loaded to make it worse, don't be surprised when your boats get holed.
“......accompanying Argentine ships were told that they would be not attacked, yet they did not stop to pick up survivors.....”
Dec 25th, 2016 - 03:37 pm +4That's a point that has been brought up repeatedly in the Argentine media and it appears to be accurate, though I've only read the Spanish-language versions so can't point to an English text.
On 02 May 1982 the Argentine fleet was indeed engaged in offensive operations against the UK task force. The Royal Navy had intel that the Belgrano was serving as the command and control platform for the Argentine fleet. Thus no matter where their ships were, they were subject to engagement. Especially the cruiser. No C2, fleet goes headless.
Argentine government and media have confirmed that on that day, 8 Skyhawks from the Argentine aircraft carrier (25 de mayo) were to have attacked the British fleet but wind conditions were unfavourable. Contrary to popular belief, a do-over due to wind does not grant immunity to a hostile fleet.
Once the Belgrano was hit by the torpedoes, the escorting Argentine destroyers in theory should have either (1) taken hostile action against the submarine, or (2) followed the international protocols for effecting a protected-status rescue which involved, among other things, clear-channel communication between the parties. What the Argentine investigations have revealed is that their two destroyers took option 3, which was to run away from the scene of the sinking and thereby allow the Belgrano's crew a much-diminished chance of survival. Apparently, at about 10 pm on the night of the sinking, the destroyers were ordered to return to the site of the sinking, but it took them a lot longer to get back than it had taken them to reach to area from which they had fled. So they didn't get back there until the next afternoon at almost dark, by which time some of the pibes in the rafts were already dead from hypothermia while some rafts had overturned or were otherwise lost. Essentially self-inflicted losses.
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