The Argentine Navy (ARA; ). This forms the basis for the navy's ship prefix "ARA". is the navy of Argentina. It is one of the three branches of the Armed Forces of the Argentine Republic, together with the Army and the Air Force.
The Argentine Navy day is celebrated on 17 May, the anniversary of their victory at the Battle of Buceo over the Spanish fleet during the Argentine War of Independence.
History 1810–1909
The Argentine Navy was created in the aftermath of the May Revolution of 25 May 1810, which started the war for independence from Spain. The navy was first created to support Manuel Belgrano in the Paraguay campaign, but those ships were sunk by ships from Montevideo, and did not take part in that conflict. Renewed conflicts with Montevideo led to the creation of a second fleet, which participated in the capture of the city. As Buenos Aires had little maritime history, most men in the navy were from other nations, such as the Irish-born admiral William Brown, who directed the operation. As the cost of maintaining a navy was too high, most of the Argentine naval forces were composed of privateers.
Brown led the Argentine navy in further naval conflicts at the War with Brazil and the Anglo-French blockade of the Río de la Plata.
In the 1870s the Argentine Navy began modernizing itself. At the close of the century, the force included:
5 armoured cruisers 4 coastal defence ironclads 3 second-class, high-speed, British-built cruisers 7 modern small cruisers and gunboats 4 destroyers 22 torpedo boats
The most powerful ships at this time included the Italian-built and her sister ships: , , and , each at over 6,000 tons. Three older ironclads, , , and dated from the 1880s and early 1890s.
The navy's ships were built primarily in Italy, Britain, France, and Spain, and were operated by over 600 officers and 7,760 seamen. These were supported by a battalion of marines and an artillery battery.
1910–1982
A naval arms race between Argentina, Brazil and Chile, the most powerful and wealthy countries in South America, began when the Brazilian government ordered three dreadnoughts. The first, Minas Geraes, was commissioned into the Brazilian Navy in 1910.
For most of both world wars, Argentina was neutral, only declaring war on the Axis in March 1945. In 1940, Argentina's navy was ranked the eighth most powerful in the world (after the European powers, Japan, and the United States) and the largest in Latin America. A ten-year building programme costing $60 million had produced a force of 14,500 sailors and over a thousand officers. The fleet included two First World War-era (but modernized) American-built s, three modern cruisers, a dozen British-built destroyers, and three submarines, plus minelayers, minesweepers, coastal defence ships, and gunboats. A naval air force was also in operation.
In the postwar period, Naval Aviation and Marine units were put under direct Navy command. With Brazil, Argentina is one of two South American countries to have operated two aircraft carriers: the and .
The Argentine Navy has been traditionally heavily involved in fishery protection, helping the Coast Guard: most notably in 1966 a destroyer fired on and holed a Soviet trawler that had refused to be escorted to Mar del Plata, in the 1970s there were four more incidents with Soviet and Bulgarian shipsConway's All the World Fighting Ships 1947–1995 followed by other incidents such as the sinking of the Chian-der 3.
The Navy also took part in all military coups in Argentina through the 20th century. During the 1976 to 1983 dictatorship, Navy personnel were involved in the Dirty War in which thousands of people were kidnapped, tortured and killed by the forces of the military junta, similar to practices which are now known as enforced disappearance. The Navy School of Mechanics, known as ESMA, was a notorious centre for torture. Among their more well-known victims were the Swedish teenager Dagmar Hagelin, and French nuns Alice Domon and Léonie Duquet (In October 2007 the Argentine Navy formally handed possession of the school to human rights groups to turn it into a memorial museum).
During this regime, the Navy was also the main supporter of a military solution for the country's two longest-standing disputes: the Beagle Conflict with Chile and the Falkland Islands () with the United Kingdom.
Falklands War, 1982
During the 1982 Falklands War the main Argentine naval fleet consisted of modernised World War II era ships (one GUPPY-type submarine, one British-built carrier, a cruiser, and four destroyers), and newer vessels including two Type 42 destroyers, three French-built corvettes, and one German-built Type 209 submarine. This fleet was supported by several ELMA tankers and transports, as well as an ice breaker and a polar transport ship.
New German MEKO type destroyers, corvettes, and Thyssen-Nordseewerke (Type TR-1700) submarines were still under construction at the time.
After leading the invasion of the Falkland Islands, the Argentine fleet played only a small part in the later conflict. After nuclear submarine sank cruiser , the Argentine surface fleet did not venture from a 12-mile (22.2 km) coastal limit imposed by the British.
The Argentine Navy's contribution to the war was principally the initial amphibious assaults on 2 and 3 April on Port Stanley and Grytviken; naval aviation Super Étendards armed with Exocet missiles, which sank the destroyer HMS and the container ship ; Skyhawks, which dealt the fatal blow to the frigate , previously disabled by Argentine Air Force aircraft; and the Marines, with the 5th Marine Corps Battalion defending Mount Tumbledown. In addition, the Type 42 destroyer , operating off Isla de los Estados, played an important part in the destruction of the British troopshipSir Galahad on 8 June."Vice-Admiral Lombardo ... states that the Type 42 destroyer Santisima Trinidad was off the Argentine coast that day carrying out radio interference operations on the frequencies used by the British air controllers." The Fight for the Malvinas, pp. 211-212, Martin Middlebrook, Penguin, 1990 An Aermacchi MB-339 armed trainer, based at Port Stanley, was the first Argentine aircraft to spot the British landings at San Carlos Bay on 21 May; the pilot, Lieutenant Owen Crippa, identified HMS Argonaut as a target of opportunity and fired cannon bursts and rockets, causing damage to the frigate. Crippa was awarded the Cross for Heroic Valour in Combat. A land-based Exocet battery outside Port Stanley scored a direct hit on the destroyer on 11 June, inflicting major damage and killing 14 of her crew. A Marine Tigercat SAM put a Royal Air Force Harrier (XW 919) out of action on 12 June."La difesa argentina replicò con prontezza, danneggiando un Harrier con un obsoleto missile Tigercat, che esplose dietro il suo bersaglio." Rivista aeronautica, p. 110, Tomo 18, Ministero dell'aeronautica, 2005 Naval aviation also carried out intensive maritime patrols, searching to locate the British fleet for the strike aircraft and British submarines for the anti-submarine Sea King helicopters, while their Lockheed L-188 Electra and Fokker F-28 Fellowship transports reinforced the Port Stanley garrison and evacuated the wounded.
The submarine also played a strategic role, engaging the frigate on 10 May, According to British sources, the torpedo presumably hit a decoy."A few minutes later, when the frigates were close to the submarine, a 'small metallic explosion' was heard. Neither of the British ships reported any incident during this period but Paul Bootherstone recalls that when the Arrow's towed torpedo decoy was retrieved later it was found to be badly damaged". The Royal Navy and Falklands War, pp. 156-157, David Brown, Pen and Sword, 1987 The submarine landed a group of naval commandos who secured the beachhead at Yorke Bay for the landing of the main Argentine force on 2 April. After a successful resupply mission, she was attacked by helicopters and disabled off South Georgia, where her crew then surrendered along with the Argentine detachment at Grytviken. Santa Fe was later scuttled by the British.
Operating in the waters around the islands, patrol boats from the Argentine Naval Prefecture, naval transports, freighters from the Argentine merchant navy and smaller coasters, more of them confiscated to the Falklands Island Company, struggled to keep the supply lines between the different Argentine garrisons open. Most of these vessels were eventually sunk or disabled by British naval and aerial forces. On 1 May, the armed coaster ARA Forrest and the patrol boat Islas Malvinas were engaged by a Sea Lynx helicopter from HMS Alacrity while on a reconnaissance mission north of Port Stanley; Islas Malvinas was damaged and limped away, but Forrest returned fire and damaged the British helicopter. The same Alacrity sank transport ARA Isla de los Estados on the night of 10 May in the Falklands Sound, while the freighter Rio Carcarañá was disabled by Sea Harrier aircraft on 15 May at Port King, in the western shores of Lafonia, and eventually sank. ARA Bahía Buen Suceso was lost when she grounded off Fox Bay after another air attack. In the early hours of 23 May a Royal Navy attempt to capture the coaster ARA Monsunen west of Lively Island was thwarted when the crew beached the vessel at Seal Cove after repelling the attack of a Sea Lynx helicopter and the frigates HMS Brilliant and HMS Yarmouth. Monsunen was towed to Goose Green by ARA Forrest, which unloaded her cargo and completed Monsunens resupply mission. The small ketch ARA Penelope was one of the last coastal ships to reach Port Stanley with fuel oil drums from Fox Bay on 2 June.
Aftermath of the Falklands War
The core of the fleet was reformed with the retirement of all the World War II-era and s and their replacement with the MEKO 360 and 140 classes designed by the German shipyard Blohm + Voss.
Also, the submarine force greatly reinforced its assets with the introduction of the Thyssen-Nordseewerke (TR-1700) class. Although the original programme called for six units with the last four to be built in Argentina, only the two built in Germany were delivered.
The amphibious force was drastically affected with the retirement of their only LST landing ship and replacement by a modified cargo vessel, the . This situation was expected to improve in 2006 with the delivery by France of the first of the LPD s but the whole operation was placed on hold by the Argentine Government due to asbestos concerns. In 2010 France offered the instead.França oferece "Foudre" à Argentina
France also transferred the , now , multi-product replenishment ship (AOR).
In 1988 the A-4 Skyhawk aircraft were withdrawn, leaving the Super Étendard as the only fighter jets in the navy inventory. The already-paid-for A-4Hs bought in Israel as their replacement could not be delivered due to the embargo imposed by the United States after the war. Instead IAI used the money to refurbish the S-2E Trackers to the S-2T Turbo Tracker variant currently in service.
In the 1990s, the embargo was lifted and the Lockheed L-188 Electras (civilian aircraft converted for maritime patrol) were finally retired and replaced with similar P-3B Orions and civilian Beechcraft King Air Model 200 were locally converted to the MP variant.
In 2000 the aircraft carrier was decommissioned without replacement, although the navy maintains the air group of Super Étendard jets and S-2 Trackers that routinely operated from the Brazilian Navy aircraft carrier or United States Navy carriers when they are in transit in the south Atlantic during Gringo-Gaucho manoeuvers.
Gulf War and nineties