When was the last sea battle ?

[Bob_the_lost]

A couple of ships were sunk - 1 British (The Sheffield?) and 1 Argentinian (The Belgrano?)

At least 5 warships and Atlantic Conveyor were sunk on the UK's side. On the Argentine side i think only four were lost, at least one was to gunfire from a British Destroyer. Falklands definitely gets an entry under naval warfare.

 

[Spymaster]

A couple of ships were sunk - 1 British (The Sheffield?)...

Lots more than that.

HMS Coventry, HMS Sheffield, HMS Antelope, the Atlantic Conveyor, and a landing craft from Fearless were all lost during the war, and the Sir Galahad was so badly damaged it was sunk as a war grave soon after.

 

[ShakespearO]

Didn't the Royal Navy have a battle with the Iranian Navy a few years ago, where one of our pluckly lads was made to cry when those rotten Iranians took his Walkman?

 

[Roadkill]

wake-swamping passes and shaken fists. Not proper war

It went a bit further than that tbf. The Icelanders were using trawl-warp cutters - not exactly weapons, but a cut trawl warp whipping back could cut a man in half if he got in the way - and certainly threatened to fire on trawlers with solid shot, although offhand I'm not sure if they ever actually did. There was also plenty of this went on:

^ The trawler from whose bridge that last photo was taken is the Arctic Corsair, now a museum ship in Hull. Well worth a visit, especially as most of the guided tours are done by ex-trawlermen, some of whom were involved in the cod wars and tell some tremendous stories...

 

[Roadkill]

Didn't the Royal Navy have a battle with the Iranian Navy a few years ago, where one of our pluckly lads was made to cry when those rotten Iranians took his Walkman?

That was hardly a sea battle. IIRC it was one small inshore patrol boat that blundered into Iranian waters by mistake and was arrested.

 

[Kaka Tim]

The Falklands war was not ship vs ship though - its was the Argentinian air force - based in Argentinian and on the Falklands - against the Navy. They came pretty close to winning it as well.

 

[kebabking]

one of the Frigates (i forget which) did a night time solo run up Falkland Sound and sank two Argentine supply ships with gunfire before running like a scalded cat in broad daylight back to the fleet - i believe she met up with her 'shotgun', HMS Glamorgan, who had been brassing up Port Stanley Airport, and terse words were exchanged about leaving it all a bit late...