According to The Portsmouth News, HMS Dauntless (8.000 tons displacement) will deploy to the South Atlantic in late March – almost 30 years to the day that a naval Task Force left Portsmouth to reclaim the Falklands after Argentina invaded in 1982.
The South Atlantic patrol is one of the RN global commitments and a warship is sent there twice a year on six-month duty. But Portsmouth-based Dauntless will be the first of the navy’s new £1bn Type 45 destroyers to go to the area.
The London media speculates the deployment comes after a period of increased rhetoric between London and Buenos Aires about who has the sovereignty dispute over the Islands.
The Falklands patrol will be HMS Dauntless’s first operational deployment.
It comes after her sister ship HMS Daring left for her first mission to the Gulf at a time of worsening relations with Iran over its nuclear ambitions.
However it must also be taken into consideration that the UK is very much interested in a share of a Brazilian program to revamp its surface fleet, demanding an investment of over 3.6 billion dollars. (mercosur)