Falklands War Exocet strikes (1982)
Argentina used just six French-made Exocet anti-ship missiles against the Royal Navy during the Falklands War, sinking the destroyer HMS Sheffield and the container ship Atlantic Conveyor, and damaging the destroyer HMS Glamorgan. The British fleet was forced to keep its two aircraft carriers further from shore, constraining air operations for the rest of the campaign.
Britain won the war but the Exocet threat reshaped its naval tactics in real time, forcing carriers to operate at reduced effectiveness.
Navies worldwide invested heavily in anti-missile defense systems. The Exocet became a bestseller. The war demonstrated that a small number of precision anti-ship weapons could threaten naval operations disproportionate to their cost.
Ukraine has taken this asymmetry much further — using domestically built drones costing tens of thousands of dollars to disable or destroy warships worth tens of millions, at a scale and duration far beyond what Argentina achieved in 1982.