What British missiles failed to do in the Falklands War, our own navy has now done: the "Alférez Sobral" is sunk.

What the Royal Navy failed to achieve in the Falklands War with a missile strike, artillery hits during an Argentine navy exercise at the end of May have now achieved: The final sinking of the guard ship "Alférez Sobral".

At the beginning of May 1982, the former US Navy ship was travelling north of the Falklands Sound to search for the pilots of a downed Argentine Canberra (a British-built light bomber). It was attacked by a British helicopter with short-range missiles. Eight crew members, including the commander, were killed. The ship's destroyed bridge tower is now a memorial piece in the Tigre Naval Museum near Buenos Aires.

Despite severe damage, the "Sobral" was repaired and served for another 36 years until it was decommissioned in 2018 due to its desolate condition. Scrapping was no longer feasible for cost reasons - even the transit there would have been too expensive. The decision was therefore made to sink the ship as part of an artillery exercise off the Mar del Plata naval base.

The Argentinian navy did not publish pictures of the sinking - out of consideration for veterans of the Falklands War ("Malvinas" veterans), who had been campaigning for years to preserve the ship as a memorial or museum exhibit.