Tourist, Harry et al,
May I suggest you take a look at the 3rd edition of 100 Days by Adm Woodward. He has published his diary of the time in very full detail and it is most informative.
My recollections of the time are:
1. Yes we knew what Exocet could do, but it was just the shipboard version. We were well trained in its use.
2. We had made no preparation for airborne AM39 attacks, even though the Argentine version had an "export" seeker which was a less sensitive centroid homing version of the ones we had in our ships. The only possible answer was Chaff Charlie and Chaff Delta.
3. Radar range at 9 feet above sea level is about 10 miles for something moving at mach 0.9
4. The Corvus chaff launchers we had could barely respond at that time even in the right conditions.
5. Sea Dart at that time had NO capability at low flying targets, this only came much later with the addition of an IR fuse which also took years to perfect. The trials with Bristol in the 70s were against two foil covered met balloons both released at the same time. Both engaged, one at lowish level one at medium level and hit. Hardly representative of even a 1st gen attack jet.
6. Trials of Sea Dart by HMS Newcastle against Sea Slug 1 targets fired by HMS Kent at Aberporth not all that reasurring!
7. Sea Cat. Totally useless. Even the Bofors on the T22 had been converted from manual to electrical operation did not work properly.
8. Atlantic Conveyor and most of the RFA was Chaff Sierra and lots of folks paid dearly for this.
It was a complete buggers muddle but we managed to get through, more by luck than judgement.
All this is in the public domain before anyone says anything.