After the Argentinian invasion of the Falkland Islands in 1982, New Zealand Prime Minister Robert Muldoon offered to send "Canterbury" to join the Royal Navy's task force sailing south to retake the British territory. This offer was declined by the British government, possibly due to the fact the "Leanders" in RN service were past their prime and HMNZS "Canterbury", had had little updating since its completion in 1971 and in particular had dated, slow processing radar and was not yet fitted with UK or US sourced chaff decoy systems, its crew lacked practice in using them and had little Atlantic experience operating against Soviet naval vessels which might be observing in the South Atlantic and only four "Leanders", HMS "Argonaut" , , HMS "Minerva", and participated in the conflict; "Bacchante" joined the task group in the last week. The British government suggested as a less-controversial alternative that Muldoon send RNZN frigates to relieve the British frigate squadron in the Persian Gulf for Falkland duties. It was a difficult deployment with long stints at sea and infrequent runs ashore in very foreign ports for the crews. However they did feel closer to the Cold War action seeing significant Soviet warships and "Bear" surveillance aircraft.