Exocet AM 39

The Exocet is a French-built anti-ship missile whose various versions can be launched from surface vessels, submarines, helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft. In 1982, during the Falklands War, Argentine Navy Dassault-Breguet Super Étendard warplanes carrying the AM39 Air Launched version of the Exocet caused damage which sank the Royal Navy destroyer HMS Sheffield on 4 May 1982. Two Exocets then struck the 15,000-ton merchant ship Atlantic Conveyor on 25 May. Two MM38 ship-to-ship Exocet missiles were removed from the old destroyer ARA Seguí, a retired US Navy Allen M. Sumner-class vessel and transferred to an improvised launcher for land use, a technically challenging task which also required reprogramming. One of these was fired at, and caused damage to, the destroyer HMS Glamorgan on 12 June.