Its been a while since I read up on it but one of the major reasons the Sheffield was lost is because IIRC it only had 2 or 3 fire-fighting foam systems of which at least one was put out of action and adaquate damage control could not take place. Most of what you hear about Aluminum in the Falklands war comes from the Type 21 Frigates that were lost. They did use mostly (if not completly, I'm not sure) aluminum construction, and both were lost to fire and bomb damage. Of the 2 Oliver Hazzard Perry class frigates that were damaged in the Persian Gulf, only the USS Stark was struck by Exocet SSMs. The other ship, USS Samuel B. Roberts struck an Iranian mine in 1988 which prompted the USN to launch Operation Preying Mantis, which sunk one of the Iranian's British built frigates.
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