In April 1978, "Tiger" was withdrawn from service, followed by "Blake" in 1979; both ships were laid up in reserve at Chatham Dockyard. When "Blake" was decommissioned in 1979, she was the last cruiser to serve in the Royal Navy and her passing was marked on 6 December 1979 when she ceremonially fired her 6-inch guns for the last time in the English Channel. Just a few days after the Falklands War started, both "Blake" and "Tiger" were rapidly surveyed to determine their condition for possible reactivation. The survey determined both ships to be in very good condition; they were put into dry-dock ("Blake" at Chatham, and "Tiger" at Portsmouth) and round-the-clock work on reactivation was immediately begun. By mid-May it was determined that the ships would not be completed in time to take part in the war and the work was stopped. Ships such as the "Tiger"s required large crews, their Seacat missile was useless and the 6-inch guns were too unreliable for useful GFS. The cruisers needed heavy repairs to machinery and rewiring. Attempts to maintain more modern hulls for emergency reactivation, such as the amphibious assault ships and , proved useful, and retaining County-class destroyers HMS "Devonshire" and HMS "Kent" with a cheap extended flight deck for Sea Kings replacing the Sea Slug launcher at Chatham dockyard, similarly half-manned and permanently maintained might have allowed a heavier GFS capability to actually fight in the Falklands War.