Over the last half century there have been only a handful of occasions when heavyweight torpedoes have been fired in anger. In December 1971, in waters south of Diu, the Pakistani Daphne-class submarine PNS Hangor sank the Indian frigate INS Khukri with a single L 5 torpedo (sister ship INS Kirpan evaded a subsequent attack). Khukri went down in a matter of minutes with a heavy loss of life, becoming the first warship sunk in action by a submarine since the Second World War. Both protagonists in the 1982 SouthAtlantic conflict deployed submarines into the theatre of operations. The most notable action occurred on 2 May when two straight-running Mk 8~** torpedoes fired from the UK Royal Navy (RN) nuclear-powered attack submarine HMS Conqueror struck the Argentine cruiser ARA General Belgrano; the Belgrano sank inside an hour with the loss of 323 lives.
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