My personal take on the unfortunate HMS Sheffield, and from what I remember reading at the time, are that it was a tragic loss, and a big blow to the task force. Exocet was good, Exocet was very good, the latest and probably the best at the time, leading edge French technology that was well ahead of the game, carried by state of the art and very latest Super Etendard fast jets. As I understood it, at the time, Exocet was almost unstoppable. I think the Argentine Air Force got a bit lucky too, and their airforce guys flew bravely and we have to give them credit for their skills, although Exocet was a fire and forget weapon that they shot in the general direction from over the horizon, and then the missile flew, skimming only feet above the waves, then giving the target ship very few seconds to react with chaff and anti missile systems. Also, in the heat of the battle, things don't always go how they did so well when you were in training.

Incidentally, the British govt and MOD knew that Exocet was one of the best anti ship missiles available in the world at the time, and MI5 was involved in procuring them during the Falklands crisis, in order to outbid or at least deny Argentine forces being further equipped with them. They knew, or had a pretty good idea that Argentina would get lucky with the small amount of Exocets they had, and devoted much energy in order to stop further Exocets reaching the enemy. It's a good job that Argentina didn't have a few more of these, as it could have been disaster for the task force, especially had they got really lucky and took out one of the carriers.

on a tv program it said that a system crashed and there was not time to restart it. Also some systems were turned up to allow messages to be sent home, or something soft.

There was also a second naval vessel sunk by one, and they seemed pretty worried about getting an aircraft carrier hit by one.

The silkworm missile was less sophisticated than the Exocet I think, it was Chinese at a time China was not as advanced as now.

Good question!

They didn't see it coming until it was too late and I think it was masked by another ship

In those days their air defences inc Seacat AA Missiles OR Sea Dart were probably poor and deeply flawed (and also designed to stop Aircraft not missiles).

The Exocet was brand new (French) and launched from Dassault fighters

Whatever they had, there was NO WAY to stop it

The Sheffield was also mostly aluminium inside which burned extremely fast and hot (deadly)

The Exocet was a ship killer

*Only the intervention of the Foreign Office stopped the French selling more Exocets to Argentina (I think they had only 9 Missiles approx)

The Sheffeld was fitted with an older radar system that was due to be upgraded. It was not reliable at picking up sea skimming missiles. Also, the exocet was fired at about six miles away. This gave the crew only a few seconds to react.

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/hms...

Surely the height above water is the greatest problem? The thing is moving at Mach 0.92 and is too low for radar to reliably detect. If it were possible to intercept, the French would not be able to sell any.

I'm a bit of an enthusiast for naval combat, and I understand the type 42 destroyers to have been quite advanced for their time, especially with Sea Dart. I'm aware of the fact that there was no long range air cover available and that the Argentine aircraft somehow got within 30 miles before releasing the missile, the hit was caught on camera and I have see it. Am I missing some key detail? Sea Dart intercepted a Silkworm that was threatening Missouri, so why, could arguably the best trained navy in the world, not fire an intercept missile at the approaching object which is obviously a sea-skimmer?

"A stupid man speaks because he wishes to say something, a wise man speaks because he has something to say."