1810–1909 of May 25, 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 ships 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. , the
Exocet platform. 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. 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 Marine Tigercat SAM put a Royal Air Force Harrier (XW 919) out of action on 12 June. 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. 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. and an Argentine
maritime patrol aircraft during joint operations in
Panama. 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 Argentina was the only Latin American country to participate in the 1991
Gulf War, sending a destroyer and a corvette in a first deployment and a supply ship and another corvette later to participate in the United Nations blockade and sea control effort in the Persian Gulf.
Operación Alfil (""), as it was known, carried out more than 700 interceptions and sailed 25,000 miles in the operations theatre. From 1990 to 1992, the s were deployed under UN mandate
ONUCA to the
Gulf of Fonseca in Central America. In 1994, the three s participated in
Operation Uphold Democracy in Haiti.
21st century In 2003, for the first time, the Argentine Navy (classified as
major non-NATO ally) interoperated with a
United States Navy battle group when the destroyer joined the Carrier Strike Group and Destroyer Squadron 18 as a part of Exercise
Solid Step during their tour in the
Mediterranean Sea. In 2010 the construction of four 1,800 ton
offshore patrol ships was announced, but never started. Instead, Argentina ultimately opted to acquire four
Gowind-class offshore patrol vessels from France. The decision was motivated by the meeting between Argentine President
Mauricio Macri and French President
Emmanuel Macron at the annual
World Economic Forum summit in
Davos, Switzerland in 2018. In November 2018, Argentina confirmed the purchase of the patrol vessels. The purchase included the already-built , which in 2016 visited the region on a marketing trip, as well as three new-build vessels. Following their construction in France, all four ships had been delivered to Argentina by 2022. In October 2012 the Navy's
sail training ship was seized under court order in Ghana by creditors of Argentina's debt default in 2002. On 15 December 2012 the UN
International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea ruled unanimously that the ship had immunity as a military vessel, and ordered that "Ghana should forthwith and unconditionally release the frigate ARA
Libertad" Four days later
Libertad was released from
Tema and arrived to the port of Mar del Plata on 9 January 2013. The Argentine Navy is under-funded and struggling to meet maintenance and training requirements; as a result, only 15 of its 42 vessels are in a condition to sail. The 2013 defence budget allowed for the 15 operational vessels to each spend less than 11 days at sea, while the submarines averaged just over 6 hours submerged in the whole of 2012. spent 73 days in late 2012 stranded in South Africa for lack of
spares. The s are short of spares and their ordnance has expired, while the Antarctic patrol ship had been under repair for 10 years because of a fire. The Argentine Navy participates in joint exercises with other friendly navies including Brazil, United States, Spain, France, Canada, South Africa, Italy, Uruguay, and, since the 1990s, Chile. The exercises are routinely held to develop a common operational doctrine. Every year the Argentine and
Chilean Navies participate in the
Patrulla Antártica Naval Combinada () to guarantee safety to all tourist and scientific ships in transit within the
Antarctic Peninsula, where the Navy is also directly responsible for maintaining the
Argentine bases there.
San Juan Disaster and Submarine Fleet Renewal Problem On 15 November 2017, submarine
ARA San Juan (S-42) stopped communicating during a routine transit to port following a military exercise. A search was launched by
ISMERLO, however after 15 days of searching the Argentine Navy declared the end of the rescue operation, and solely focused on the recovery of the submarine—not the crew. 44 personnel were on the submarine when it disappeared. The final report made by Argentine congressmen stated that president Mauricio Macri and his defence minister had political responsibilities for the loss of ARA
San Juan. Lack of funding for maintenance and personnel training had been identified as a chronic problem for the submarine service. After the
San Juan disaster, the submarine service no longer maintained any active vessels. In 2019, the governments of Brazil and Argentina were working on a transfer deal of the four Tupi IKL209/1400 submarines currently operated by the Brazilian Navy. Two of the Brazilian submarines are currently non operational pending repairs, the other two are still active pending their replacement by the 4 Scorpene type submarines currently under construction. However, in the early 2000s they had been upgraded with new combat systems by Lockheed Martin Maritime Systems and Sensors. This gave the submarines the ability to carry and fire the MK 48 MOD 6AT ADCAP Torpedo. Although there are some reservations about the deal, the defense ministers and admirals of the Argentine Navy were enthusiastic about moving forward with it. The submarines were to be repaired and serviced in the Tandanor drydock facility. If the deal moves forward it would allow Argentina to restore its submarine capability which is currently defunct. As an alternative, in 2021 a Russian delegation visited the TANDANOR shipyard and other defence facilities, reportedly also making an offer to supply either the
Improved Kilo-class submarine or the export variant of the
Lada-class submarine to the Argentine Navy. In July 2022, in the context of Argentina's desire to replace its submarine fleet, defence minister
Jorge Taiana paid a visit to the Naval Group shipyard in Cherbourg to examine the construction process for the
Scorpène-class submarine. Minister Taiana also visited Germany for a meeting with his ministerial counterpart, in order to explore the possibility of acquiring German-built submarines, either independently or in tandem with an interim acquisition of the Brazilian Navy's
Tupi-class boats. However, it still remained unclear whether Argentina had either the financial resources or the political will to pursue any submarine replacement.
Maritime Patrol Aircraft Replacement In 2019, Argentina was also pursuing the procurement of four P-3C Orion aircraft from US Navy surplus stocks since Argentina's fleet of P-3B's were no longer operational since 2019. The package deal was approved in September 2019. The US State Department has cleared the transaction of $78.03m to be carried out as part of a foreign military sale. It includes the delivery of related equipment and services. Argentina will receive four turboprop engines for the aircraft and an additional four turboprop engines. It will also receive communications and radar equipment, Infrared/Electro-optic equipment, and aviation life support systems. The US will provide spares plus repairs, aircraft depot maintenance, and logistical support. Contractors for the deal include Logistic Services International, Lockheed Martin, Rockwell Collins and Eagle Systems. These newer Orions will be up to the latest Orion standard, and provide Argentina with a much needed boost in anti-submarine and maritime surveillance missions. However, in the aftermath of the inauguration of Alberto Fernández as president in December 2019, the deal appeared to be in limbo with the Navy now apparently considering completing the refurbishment of its older P-3B fleet pending the outcome of further discussions around the P-3C acquisition. As of early 2021, it was planned that, after upgrades, the P-3B would be returned to service starting in 2022. In December 2022, it was reported that the refurbishment of the P-3B was proceeding slower than anticipated and while a revised delivery date of the first upgraded P-3B had been projected for September 2023, that schedule might now face delays. In February 2023 it was reported that Argentina was negotiating with Norway to purchase three or four of its surplus P-3Cs. The agreement to purchase four aircraft was signed in October 2023. It had been hoped that the aircraft would be delivered in late 2023. However, by years end the aircraft had not been delivered due to an Argentine failure to make the required payment. In March 2024, it was reported that initial payments had been made. Delivery of the first aircraft took place in September 2024, with the remaining aircraft to follow in 2025.
Future of the Fleet In 2020, the Argentine national government created an interministerial committee with the objective of reassuring national oceans' sovereignty. In 2020, the Ministry of Defence informed Congress of a desire to acquire a
Landing Platform Dock (LPD) as well as two naval transport vessels to increase logistical capacity, including in relation to the country's claims and presence in the Antarctic. In March 2023, an agreement was signed by Defence Minister Jorge Taiana for the Tandanor and Río Santiago shipyards to develop a multipurpose landing ship for the Argentine Navy. A polar ship and floating dock were also planned. As of early 2024, the prospective projects remained under evaluation. Foreign overfishing is a serious concern and, in 2020, the Argentine Navy captured at least two foreign ships allegedly illegally fishing in the South Atlantic. Foreign, mostly Chinese, illegal fishing in Argentine territorial waters has been estimated to cost Argentina between US$1 billion and $2.6 billion per year. In 2016, the
Argentine Coast Guard chased and sank a Chinese fishing boat that was reported to have been fishing illegally in Argentine waters. Partially to address this, a project for the re-focus of two
Espora-class corvettes on patrol duties was reportedly under development. One of the corvettes subsequently selected for conversion to the offshore patrol role was
ARA Parker. Subsequently in June 2024, the chief of the Argentine Navy, Admiral Carlos María Allievi, suggested that the idea of converting any additional Espora-class vessels to the offshore patrol role had been abandoned. It remained to be determined how the several envisaged new-acquisition projects would be funded. For instance, the proposed submarine acquisition from Brazil would require extensive refurbishment of the vessels prior to being ready for renewed operational service with the Argentine Navy. As of the end of 2022, the mooted submarine deal with Brazil had not yet been finalised and the process of refurbishment not yet begun. In 2021, one analyst noted that over the past thirty years the Argentine navy has lost many core capabilities, including its aircraft carrier (along with most of its fixed-wing combat aviation), submarines and area air defence vessels. Most of these seemed unlikely to be reconstituted. == Structure ==