Word: exocets
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...military experts, who had not foreseen such possibilities. None of them could have been quite as astonished as the captain of the General Belgrano, however, at the devastating power and accuracy of the British Tigerfish torpedo; or as the captain of the Sheffield when the Argentines let fly their Exocet missile from an aircraft he could not even see. Before the Falklands crisis these weapons were untried toys, and war was target practice. Now there is mixed amazement that they actually work. Some horror. Some delight...
...this was merely a prelude. Some 42 hours after the attack on the Belgrano, the Argentines gained spectacular revenge. British Defense Secretary John Nott appeared before a dismayed House of Commons to report that a British destroyer, the 4,100-ton Sheffield, had been demolished by a French-built Exocet antiship missile fired from an Argentine fighter-bomber. The toll of dead, wounded and missing among the 270-member crew was 44; the death count was later announced to be about...
...Britain has at least temporarily stopped Argentina from shopping the world's best markets for more weaponry. At the urging of Britain, West Germany is holding up the sale of four frigates, six corvettes and six submarines, and France has halted shipment of Crotale surface-to-air and Exocet surface-to-surface missiles. Britain itself has withheld sale of Sea Dart missiles, the same kind that were on the fleet last week heading to-Carrier Veinticinco de Mayo ward the Falkland Islands...