I was surprised how easily the Argentines sunk a British ship using the Exocet. they also sunk some using dumb bombs.
IIRC, the warhead failed to explode, and it was the rocket motor exhaust that set the aluminum on fire, not to mention that the kinetic impact broke the fire suppression supply main.
These are four orders of magnitude above the Exocet.
They can be launched from land, aircraft, ship or submarine, and can coordinate from all platforms to arrive at target simultaneously, or in waves, from several different directions.
Worse, they can be coordinated with the Chinese land launched, ship killer ballistic missile which has a much larger range.
The Royal Navy didn’t have airborne early warning E-2C aircraft.
An A-4 w/exocets or dumb bombs wouldn’t have made it within a hundred miles of an American CV.