Originally posted by straffo
yer becoming a one liner or too lazy to answer or more likely short of argument ?
Ok once again I have to write like I am making a thesis to prove a very well know fact. If your argument is the French are not two faced lieing back stabbing cowards who would stab their good neighbors the British in the back then I am afraid it is you that is full of Bull toejam.
From
Air & Space Power Journal - Fall 2002
DISTRIBUTION A:
Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.
Argentine Airpower in the Falklands War
An Operational View
Dr. James S. Corum
Snip
The pilots of the 2d Escuadrilla, trained in France in 1980–81, were fully qualified with the aircraft. However, at the time the conflict in the Falklands began, only five of the Super Etendards and five Exocet missiles had been delivered from France. The Common Market nations and NATO immediately initiated an arms embargo on Argentina, therefore halting the French shipments of planes and missiles. Throughout the conflict, the Argentine government tried desperately but unsuccessfully to obtain more Exocets on the world market. Argentina would have to fight the war with only five Etendards and Exocet missiles. Since spare parts for the Etendards were cut off by the NATO arms embargo, the FAA decided to hold one of the five fighters in reserve and use it for parts to support the remaining four aircraft.
The Argentinians had no previous experience with antiship missiles, and the Exocet was a complicated and cranky weapon. The Argentinians experienced a lot of trouble fitting the Exocet launch system and rails to the Super Etendards. In November 1981, Dassault Aviation, owned by the French government and builder of the Super Etendard, sent a team of nine of its own technicians (and some additional French Aerospatiale specialists) to work with the Argentine navy to supervise the introduction of the Etendards and Exocets. Although France complied with the NATO/ Common Market weapons embargo,
the French technical team remained in Argentina and apparently continued to work on the aircraft and Exocets, successfully repairing the malfunctioning launch systems. Without the technical help and collusion from the government of France—Britain’s NATO “ally”—it is improbable that Argentina would have been able to employ its most devastating weapon.18 18 Christopher Chant, Super Etendard: Super Profile (Somerset, England: Winchmore Publishing, 1983)., 48–49.
