The Super Etendard was given the capability to fire the AM.39 Exocet to sink ships. The Argies were supplied with five missiles and I believe five (?) SuE’s (at the time). All five missiles were expended, and two ships (one a top of the line warship) were sunk, both a part of one of the most powerful navies in the world. All that from five missiles and a few planes from a much lesser equipped and trained enemy.
Now the Exocet (and the SuE) may not be a perfect weapon, and as with most new weapons it had its fair share of faults, but it still did what it was designed to do and that’s sink a ship. You can make excuses all day long, and if you look at most conflicts, then there is an underlying reason as to why a given nation wins a given battle. It may be due to better training or lack of tactics on the opposing side, or bad weapons or whatever else, but the bottom line is that in this case the Royal Navy lost two ships. End of story.
It doesn’t mean the Exocet (or SuE) is the end all of anti-ship weapons, but the heavily outgunned Argies managed to do something many would have thought to be very unlikely before the conflict started. That alone deserves some respect.
I assure you that after that conflict, the idea of an anti-ship missile equipped fighter or strike aircraft went up a lot higher on the list of priority threats for the Royal Navy (and indeed for all nations with a navy of some sort).
The “heavily outgunned Argies”?! Dont think thats quite right. Argentina had an aircraft carrier with superbly trained pilots (3 escadrilla caza e ataq) a 6in gunned cruiser, 2 type 42s, and 2 type 209 subs. PLUS roughly 100 land based combat aircraft. Brits had, what, 22 Sea Harriers. Thank God they had SSNs. Thats what persuaded the Argentine Navy to go back to port. But outgunned? No…..
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