Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Lots of support - YES, CARRIER or LPH - NO, not hardly.  A CV or LPH without crew or aircraft complement would have been useless and the Brits wouldn't  have been able to crew them up.   Nice idea but total BS.   And even if we supplied it with birds the Brits wouldn't have been able to crew the ship even if they could handle the Helo's. Yeah they got good sailors and a lot of the equipment is very similar on the bridges, CIC's etc, the Engineering plants would need a few weeks to a few months to get a competent  crew in place. The only place we actually made it clear that we would use our forces was to ensure the territorial integrity of Belize when the Brits there were moved to the combat zone. You're right, the Brits wouldn't be able to crew the the systems. But Americans would be doing all this. British pilots would still be using the decks. Well I take issue with the US crewing the systems, although perfectly legal under various treaties (and disappointing the armchair commandoes here that try to claim the US personnel have never served under foreign commanders,) the political liabilities of the appearance of US going to war against the Argies by lending ships and crews to the Brits would be just as bad as the US supplying the ships, crews and planes and pilots.  No difference in the court of public opinion and you can be damned sure that the KGB would take every advantage afforded by this to attack the US and Brits in liberal Europe, and South and Central America.  Remember this was  when the Cold War was hot and heavy.  Also it's questionable whether we could have received congressioanl approval and funding for it.  Remember the Navy was having a pretty nasty retention problem then I  can understand why they were concerned about the Belgrano, 6" guns have more than twice the range and a lot more smacking power than 3" guns and I'm pretty sure that the Brits only had 3" guns.  In other  words unless neutralized before arrival, the Belgrano would have probably decimated the Brits ships.  The defence in that situation is to try to run as fast as you can at the big gun ship and try to get in tothe range where your guns if any left can be brought to bear.  Now the Belgrano whcih might have had a speed advantage (at least it's WWII speed) or even if not much of an advantage  turns and maintains a range that it can fire accurately at  and is still outside the 3" gun range.  Also notice the Belgrano has two stern 6" turrets and 3 forward 6" turrets.  So even in a tail chase she bring 6 guns to bear against the brits one or two ad most that can be brought to bear in a stern chase,  and (since I don't know the configuration of the Brits ships) they might not have been able to fire straight forward. (Not unlike our FFG's that  are unable to fire their only "big" gun straight forward.  And by swerving the Belgrano could also unmask their forward turrets also.

Very true about the Political Fallout … and this is exactly the reason the offer of 'loaned' LPH's was to be a 'post war' offer on the understanding they would not be used in offensive operations in, on or around the Falklands, merely to enable the RN to resume its North Atlantic NATO ASW operations while replacements were being built.

IIRC one of the main reasons we were interested in Arapaho was as a means of getting some organic Air Defence or ASW capability into the Fast Container Convoys that were going to be a large part of REFORGER. Capable at traveling at 25+ knots they were crucial to speedy resupply if the Big One happened in Europe.

Belgrano and her guns…

She was a serious problem, and a very real threat. She had 15 x 6" guns and was escorted by two EX US Destroyers each with 6 x 5" guns and 4 Exocet launchers. Belgrano was Armored and fast and her armor belt was probably going to stop an exocet penetrating. On her own she could put more weight of shells in a single broadside than the entire RN Task Force. The only way she could have been attacked with certainty was by 1000lb bombs from the Harriers, but they were all required as CAP because of the Argentine Carrier expected to launch a co-ordinated strike. This left the only real option being a death charge by the 'expendable' T21 frigates (1 x 4.5" , 4 exocets) backed up by the County Class Destroyers (2 x 4.5", 4 exocets) who would have charged at 30+ knot, salvoed their Exocets and attempted to get in within gun range before being sunk. All the british ships had the guns and missiles mounted forward of the bridge, the standard british gun turret was the Mk8 Auto 4.5" firing @20 rpm (@10 rpm on the older semi automatic Mk 6 turrets on the Destroyers), however it was not going to do much to an armored cruiser whereas a single  6" hit was likely to be fatal to the attacking ship. While this was going on the Carriers and their modern DDG and FFG escorts would have retreated a maximum speed. However the problem was that the Argentine ships had the advantage (small admittidly) of speed and could probably kept the attackers from closing into 4.5" gun range while saturating them with 6" salvos…

ANdy