Command in a Short War: The Falklands in 1982

As a junior Captain I took command of the new Type 42 Batch 1 DDG Cardiff in November 1980 as her second CO, in the depths of the Cold War. I was a submariner who had commanded two submarines, an SSN and an SSK, my first ship having been the just-post-war destroyer Scorpion, a unit of the 7th Destroyer Squadron, serving in the Home and Mediterranean Fleets. At that time the surface Navy was built around the steam-driven Leander-class frigates. The gas-turbine-powered Type 42s were new and unfamiliar and viewed with some suspicion, partly because of their newness, partly because of their ‘short…