Starc looks scared out there rip <| sep |> believing something will happen does not mean you want that something to happenseek help with your reading comprehension . <| sep |> At the time of her sinking , Coventry had been paired up with the Type 22 frigate HMS Broadsword which was equipped with point air defence in the form of Sea Wolf missiles . The intention initially was to draw air attacks away from the carriers HMSs Invincible and Hermes , but extended to acting as a decoy for elements of the Task Force operating in San Carlos bay . This tactic was adopted after the loss of HMS Sheffield , Coventry ' s sister ship , which had reduced the Task Force ' s air defence capability . To do this Coventry and Broadsword had to adopt a position sufficiently close to San Carlos to be an effective decoy and this put them close to land , but not necessarily at a great disadvantage . During the fateful attack , Coventry ' s radar struggled to pick up the first wave of Skyhawks and Broadsword ' s air defence system suffered a malfunction . Coventry repositioned herself to reduce the threat from the second wave , but in doing so put herself in Broadsword ' s line of fire so although Broadsword had sorted out her air defence system , she couldn ' t open fire . The loss of Coventry was more a matter of unfortunate circumstance than tactical incompetence . The Argentinians understood the Type 42 s very well as they operated two of their own ARAs Hercules and Santisima Trinidad and the 42 s were prime targets as they had to be eliminated to make an attack on the British carriers possible . Their use of terrain masking against Coventry shows a good level of understanding of her weaknesses , but is also a classic attack profile against any radarequipped surface target . The attacks also show little appreciation of the Type 22 ' s capabilities and so I would suggest the Argentinians didn ' t have a full understanding of the situation . The decision to use ships as decoys for air attacks was very risky and of the five Type 42 s deployed to the Falklands , three were hit in air attacks with two lost . The 42 s were designed as medium to long range air defence and the Falklands experience led to improvements being made to the class to improve point air defence and missile defence . The Argentinians did use airlaunched Exocet missiles against British ships , notably sinking HMS Sheffield and MV Atlantic Conveyor and damaging HMS Glamorgan . I don ' t have any direct information on how many airlaunched Exocets the Argentinians had , but British actions to disrupt Argentinian purchasing and Argentinian attempts to adapt airlaunched missiles to surface launchers suggest they didn ' t have very many which would explain why they weren ' t used more often . There is also the possibility that they were reserving Exocets for use on highervalue targets such as the carriers .