In 1982, Britain found itself at war with Argentina, and the lessons learned from the conflict would greatly impact the future of worldwide naval warfare. On the surface, the Argentine naval air forces appeared limited—having only four operational French-built Super Etendard attack aircraft, several venerable A4 Skyhawks, and a handful of lite Aermacchi MB-339s. However, they also possessed five AM39 Exocet antiship missiles, which they employed with devastating effect.
On 4 May the destroyer HMS Sheffield was on picket duty protecting the British fleet when she came under attack by two Super Etendards that each fired one Exocet at a range of approximately 12 miles.1 The 1,500-pound missiles traveled at sea-skimming altitude with a speed of nearly 10 miles per minute. Due to a variety of reasons the vessel was unaware of their approach and did not initiate any self-defense efforts. One of the missiles struck amidships, its 364-pound warhead igniting a fire that soon became out of control and eventually led to the Sheffield’s sinking. Twenty sailors were killed and 26 were injured—nearly 17 percent of the entire crew.
The Royal Navy suddenly found itself dealing with a major threat—and limited defensive capability to counter it. Only its two aircraft carriers were armed with the Sea Wolf missile system, designed to defeat fast-moving low-altitude targets. Without radar-guided close-in weapon systems (CIWS) the British would have to rely on the valiant efforts of their young sailors manning machine guns in exposed positions on deck to defend their ships. Ironically, by war’s end naval guns and small arms fire would be credited with shooting down more aircraft than Sea Wolf.2
Three weeks later, another Exocet would strike the cargo ship SS Atlantic Conveyor. Her loss literally changed the course of the war because she was carrying an inordinate amount of matériel. She sank with three Chinook and six Wessex heavy-lift transport helicopters on board. This would greatly stretch efforts to provide resupply to British ground forces and would lead them to have to walk into battle across the Falklands rather than be airlifted—all of this in difficult weather conditions. Along with the death of 12 crew members, huge amounts of kerosene, tenting, generators, desalinization equipment, cluster bombs, and ammunition were also lost.3 The Atlantic Conveyor also had been carrying 14 vertical/short-takeoff and -landing Harrier jump jets, which comprised a substantial portion of the total fixed-wing aircraft available for combat, but fortunately, these had been flown off to the carriers a few days earlier.
As the British tried to develop tactics to minimize the missile threat by air attack, the Argentines proved resourceful and were able to remove an Exocet launcher from one of their naval vessels (the Seguí) and retrofit it onto a mobile land-based platform. On 12 June, the destroyer HMS Glamorgan was struck by it, resulting in 14 deaths and the destruction of her Wessex helicopter.4
The threat posed to the Royal Navy by the Exocet was immense. By most accounts, if one of its two carriers were lost, then it was not likely that the Falklands could be regained. The British military’s Special Air and Special Boat Services were tasked with missions to assault mainland Argentine airbases in order to destroy the missiles and the aircraft carrying them.5 Three audacious operations (Plum Duff, Mikado, and Kettledrum) were planned. However, by 30 May the supply of Exocets had been expended, and the war would end two weeks later. Additionally, the British intelligence service MI6 had its agents attempt to hamper the sale of these missiles on the global market to Argentina during the war.6
The world took note of the Argentine military successes. A declassified report by the Central Intelligence Agency noted that many developing nations began to view high-tech weapons as a means to offset military advantages of potential adversaries as well as a means to increase their own prestige.7 The Falklands War fueled a proliferation of arms in South America, and France extensively sold its weaponry to multiple buyers in the region.8 An official within the company that produced the Exocet noted in June 1982 that the manufacturer was fielding many inquiries from around the globe about acquiring it.9 By 1985, the company’s missile division sales had quadrupled over the prior ten years, and Exocet was earning nearly as much money as the company’s entire line of Airbus passenger aircraft.10
It could be said that the French Exocet created a cottage industry for antiship missiles throughout the decade after the Falklands War, with 182 sold to Argentina, 40 to Egypt, 24 to Peru, and 24 to the United Arab Emirates, just to name a few.11 However, the largest purchaser was Iraq. A RAND report notes that between 1983 and 1988, approximately 734 Exocets were delivered to Iraq, with another 18 in 1989—along with 60 others that had been purchased in 1979.12 In total, Iraq had acquired 812 Exocets over a ten-year period. France also leased five Super Etendard aircraft to the Iraqis and trained their pilots as part of the deal.13
Throughout the 1980s, Iran and Iraq were at war, which included strikes against 451 of each other’s oil tankers and other shipping in an effort to economically cripple one another.14 The decade-long conflict would become a veritable heyday for the Exocet. Its first successful use was in October 1981 against the tanker Al Tajdar, and the last would come in July of 1988 against the Star Ray. The use of this weapon became so ubiquitous that the shipping lanes of the Persian Gulf gained the moniker “Exocet Alley.” During the peak years of 1986–87, Iraq would expend 126 of them, which equates to an average of one every six days.15 During some years the Exocets accounted for nearly all Iraqi strikes against shipping (91 percent in 1984 and 97 percent in 1985). They also would account for nearly 75 percent of all ships sunk by Iraq (approximately 23) and an additional 75 that were considered a functional total loss. More than 400 merchant sailors were killed, with many more wounded.
In May 1987, the frigate USS Stark (FFG-31) was on patrol in the Persian Gulf when she came under attack by two Exocets fired by an Iraqi aircraft. The resulting impacts and conflagration caused the deaths of 37 sailors along with the wounding of 21 others. The U.S. Navy’s official report noted that one of the missiles failed to detonate but still caused extensive damage because it injected hundreds of pounds of burning unspent fuel deep inside the ship.16
The Exocet’s success during the 1980s not only led to a proliferation of missile procurement and development, it also spurred the extensive growth of ship defenses to counter the threat. Radar-guided guns (CIWS) with high rates of fire are now ubiquitous in modern naval fleets. Raytheon Corporation has built more than 1,000 Phalanx guns which now arm ships belonging to 22 nations.17 A full range of electronic countermeasures, chaff dispensers, infrared signature suppressors, surface-to-air missiles, lasers, and extensive radar systems have been created to protect ships from various types of threats. This has created a true arms race in that missiles have become faster and smarter, thus defensive systems constantly have had to adapt and improve.
The Exocet has been in service nearly 50 years and has been modified numerous times. There are now air-launched, ship-based, ground-launched, and submarine variants. It has been purchased by at least 38 countries and is still in production.18 The Exocets’ capacity to sink or damage multimillion-dollar vessels makes them a potent equalizer in warfare—proverbial giant slayers. A statistical analysis completed decades ago at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School demonstrated the lethal effectiveness of antiship missiles against vessels under 7,000 tons. The report evaluated the outcomes of strikes on military ships during worldwide combat operations over a 25-year period. It concluded that, on average, 1.2 hits on a vessel were enough to incapacitate her and that 1.8 would sink her.19
The impact of the Exocet in its historical context cannot be overstated. No other modern missile has been so extensively used against military and commercial vessels. Its demonstrated utility in the Falklands and Persian Gulf led many nations to take notice in both a desire to possess antiship technology and in developing methods to defend against it. Even after nearly a half-century of service, the Exocet is still relevant. In June 2022, the French Minister of the Armed Forces noted that it was being considered as part of an assistance package to Ukraine in its ongoing war with Russia.20 Today, dozens of countries possess the Exocet, and its presence continues to be felt in strategically important regions including the South China Sea and the Persian Gulf.
1. David Brown, The Royal Navy and the Falklands War (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1987).
2. The Falklands Campaign: The Lessons (London: British Ministry of Defence, 1982).
3. Steven Iacono, “A Failure in the Falklands,” Naval History 36, no. 2 (April 2022), 20–27.
4. Brown, The Royal Navy and the Falklands War.
5. Ewen Southby-Tailyour, Exocet Falklands: The Untold Story of Special Forces Operations (Barnsley, UK: Pen & Sword Books, 2017).
6. Nigel West, The Secret War for the Falklands: SAS, MI6 and the War Whitehall Nearly Lost (London: Time Warner Books UK, 1998).
7. Central Intelligence Agency, “The Changing High-Technology Arms Market in the Aftermath of the Falklands and Lebanon Conflicts.,” https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp85t00176r000900070001-0.
8. Jozef Goldblat and Victor Millán, “In the Wake of the Falklands/Malvinas War: A New Cycle of the Arms Race,” Bulletin of Peace Proposals 14, no. 3(1983): 253–61.
9. David R. Francis, “French Company Sees Sales Boost for Exocet Missiles, The Christian Science Monitor, 25 June 1982, www.csmonitor.com/1982/0625/062545.html.
10. Richard Evans, “Arms Sales Mean Big Business for France,” The Christian Science Monitor, 15 July 1985, www.csmonitor.com/1985/0715/ffren-f1.html.
11. William M. Despain, “The French Navy: Friend or Rival?” Naval War College Review 44, no. 1 (Winter 1991): 62–75.
12. Rachel Schmidt, Global Arms Exports to Iraq, 1960–1990 (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1991).
13. Bernard Gwertzman, “French Agree to Lend Iraq Planes to Use in Firing its Exocet Missiles,” The New York Times, 28 June 1983.
14. Ronald O’Rourke, “The Tanker War,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 114, no. 5 (May 1988): www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/1988/may/tanker-war.
15. Martin Navias and E. R. Hooton, Tanker Wars: The Assault on Merchant Shipping During the Iran-Iran Conflict, 1980–1988 (London: I. B. Tauris & Co., 1996).
16. U.S. Department of the Navy, “Formal Investigation into the Circumstances Surrounding the Attack on the USS Stark (FFG-31) on 17 May 1987,” https://stjececmsdusgva001.blob.core.usgovcloudapi.net/public/documents/USS_STARK_BASIC.pdf.
17. “Phalanx Weapon System,” Raytheon, www.rtx.com/raytheon/what-we-do/sea/phalanx-close-in-weapon-system.
18. “Exocet Missile Threat,” Center for Strategic & International Studies Missile Defense Project, https://missilethreat.csis.org/missile/exocet/
19. John Schulte, “An Analysis of the Historical Effectiveness of Anti-ship Cruise Missiles in Littoral Warfare,” Naval Postgraduate School thesis, 1994.
20. “Russia-Ukraine News,” CNN, 28 June 2022, https://edition.cnn.com/europe/live-news/russia-ukraine-war-news-06-28-22/h_7ea43ee9673957a79390ce311f31861b.