Israeli sailors are always overshadowed by their more successful Air Force and Army counterparts. A tiny country smaller than the Moscow region, by definition, cannot have a strong oceanic fleet, and the main event that made the Israeli Navy famous throughout the world - the sinking of the destroyer Eilat - did not add prestige to this type of armed forces. Meanwhile, the specifics of the Arab-Israeli conflicts often required support for land operations from the sea. The Israeli Navy, despite its small number and the absence of large ships, took part in many naval battles, exercised control over sea communications in the entire eastern Mediterranean Sea, participated in the landing of assault forces and in carrying out naval sabotage.
Israeli sailors cannot control the situation in the South Atlantic or track the ships of a "potential enemy" in the Pacific Ocean, but unlike the fleets of major naval powers, the Israeli Navy is an active fleet that regularly participates in military operations. In addition to the death of Eilat, there are other notable events in the history of the Israeli Navy, for example, the destruction of the flagship of the Egyptian Navy, the Emir Farouk, which was blown up by combat swimmers in the Tel Aviv raid. Or the Battle of Latakia (1973) - the world's first naval battle of missile boats.
45-year-long riddle
When talking about the Israeli Navy, it is worth mentioning a special incident that took place off the coast of the State of Israel during the Six Day War. On June 8, 1967, the USS Liberty reconnaissance ship rocked gently on the waves 12 miles offshore, crew members on duty, smeared with sunscreen, sunbathed in the warm Mediterranean sun. It was hard to believe that at this time fierce tank battles were going on on the coast in the desert. But the American sailors felt completely safe: after all, America and Israel are allies - what problems could there be?
The paranormal happened: Mirages with six-rayed stars on their wings suddenly appeared over the Liberty, and fire descended from heaven on the American reconnaissance ship. The planes fired at the Liberty add-ons with 30mm cannons, and then flooded the ship with napalm. At the same moment, torpedo boats of the Israeli Navy went on the attack - a deafening explosion literally threw the Liberty out of the water. Having received a hole in the underwater part, the ship began to tumble onto the starboard side. The nightmare did not end there - the Israelis came closer and began to shoot people, rushing about on the burning deck of the Liberty, point-blank from small arms. Of the 290 crew of the American intelligence officer, Israeli sailors and pilots killed and wounded 205. And an hour later … Israeli torpedo boats again approached the Liberty, this time with a semaphore: "Do you need help?" In response, they shouted from the crippled ship: "Go to hell!"
The next day, all details of the incident were classified on both sides, Israel whispered an apology and secretly paid $ 13 million in compensation (in 1967 prices). It is still not clear what it was. The official version is suitable only for the younger group of kindergarten - you see, the Israeli military confused the "Liberty", richly decorated with stars and stripes and with a huge parabolic antenna (displacement - 10,000 tons), with the Egyptian horse transport "Al-Qusayr" (displacement - 2600 tons).
The circumstances of the tragedy are stubbornly hushed up, but the most probable is the "Golan version": knowing how the American National Security Agency works (Liberty de facto belonged to the NSA), the Israeli General Staff feared that the secret details of the planned operation to seize the Golan Heights would be intercepted by powerful radio equipment "Liberty", and inevitably, through Soviet agents in the NSA, will become known to the Arabs at the same hour. The consequence will be a bloody mess from the advancing Israeli units. In addition, there was a stream of other "unprintable" orders on the radio, for example, about the execution of 1,000 captured Egyptian soldiers in the town of El-Atshsh on the Sinai. The Israelis were extremely reluctant to lend such facts to international publicity and immediately let the Liberty go to the expense. Experienced diplomats will come to an agreement somehow …
"Eilat" -class
But we are not gathered here to remember the dark sides of the twentieth century. The fact is that in the combat composition of the Israeli Navy, in addition to numerous boats and several diesel submarines, there are, in my opinion, very interesting naval assets. These are corvettes of the "Saar 5" type - a series of three multipurpose ships with a total displacement of 1250 tons. Eilat, Lahav and Hanit.
The corvettes were designed by Israeli specialists specifically taking into account the conditions of the Middle East conflict. Built between 1992 and 1995 at the American shipyard Ingalls Shipbuilding.
Having studied the experience of other maritime powers, the Israeli Navy chose for its ships the concept of the development of the USSR Navy. Those. to saturate warships with fire weapons to the limit to the detriment of the cruising range. Ideal for short sea voyages.
The result is really good corvettes, playing the role of leaders in squadrons of missile boats and small artillery ships. Corvettes of the "Eilat" type (in honor of the lead ship of the series), despite their small size (displacement is 2 times less than the Russian corvette pr. 20380 "Guarding"), significantly increase the striking power of their mini-squadron and are able to provide high-quality cover for small ships and boats from air attacks. Further - according to the list.
Eilat's main caliber is 8 Harpoon anti-ship missiles. A familiar thing, the world's most widespread subsonic anti-ship missile. The flight range is 120 … 150 km (of course, in the absence of external target designation, the firing range automatically becomes equal to the radio horizon, ie 30 … 40 km). Warhead "Harpoon" - 225 kilograms, cruising speed - 0, 85 Mach.
The Harpoon, with a fortunate coincidence, is capable of stopping even a large destroyer-class target, but firing a missile costing $ 1.5 million at boats or other small targets is too wasteful. The Israelis have foreseen a special means for such an option - the Gabriel anti-ship missile of their own production, and the corvettes are armed with its outdated version - Gabriel-2, which does not even have an active homing head. This significantly reduces the cost of the missile, and its natural disadvantages: the need to constantly turn on the ship's radar and the short flight range - only 35 kilometers - are absolutely not important when repelling attacks by armed terrorist boats.
Technically, the Gabriel is a subsonic single-stage cruise missile, similar in size to the Harpoon anti-ship missile. The launch weight is 600 kg. The flight speed to the target is Mach 0.75. Semi-armor-piercing warhead weighing 150 kg. Suitable for shelling objects on the coast.
Anti-aircraft weapons:
Israeli engineers take air defense provision very seriously. The Eilat-class corvettes are equipped with the latest Israeli anti-aircraft missile system Barak-1 (translated from Hebrew "Lightning"). 64 vertical launch cells, the anti-aircraft missile of the complex strikes targets within a radius of 12 km from the ship, the maximum interception height is 5 km. The new EL / M-2248 radar with fixed antenna arrays is capable of detecting any aerial threat, including low-flying cruise missiles and guided aerial bombs.
Despite the fact that "Barak-1" is very expensive, it is a popular anti-aircraft missile system in the world market; "Barak-1" was adopted by the navies of India, Singapore, Venezuela, Azerbaijan and other countries. Together with India, Israel is developing a new modification of its naval air defense system, capable of hitting targets at a distance of 70 km.
In addition, on the nose of the corvette, the Falanx anti-aircraft system is installed - a six-barreled automatic cannon of 20 mm caliber, articulated on a single gun carriage with an aiming system and a radar.
Torpedo-mine armament:
To counter possible submarine attacks, Eilat-class corvettes are armed with two standard torpedo tubes for launching Mark-32 anti-submarine torpedoes, standard for the fleets of NATO countries.
Aircraft weapons:
On the small ship, there was even a place for the permanent basing of a helicopter; there is a helipad and a hangar for storing equipment. The multipurpose helicopter Eurocopter Panther has been chosen to be based on the deck of Israeli corvettes.
Electronic weapons:
Considering the experience of the Yom Kippur War, when, thanks to the use of the latest electronic warfare systems, none of the 54 P-15 Termit missiles fired from the ships of the Syrian and Egyptian navies reached their goal, Israeli sailors attach particular importance to electronic countermeasures systems. The ship's armament complex includes:
- three launchers for shooting Elbit Deseaver dipoles
- anti-radar jammer Rafael Wizard (wideband zapping anti-radar decoy) with passive corner reflectors
- Radar warning system "Elisra NS-9003/9005"
- AN / SLQ-25 Nixie anti-torpedo protection system, consisting of an onboard signal generator and a towed hydroacoustic jammer.
Powerful, but … On July 14, 2006, during the Lebanese war, the corvette of the Israeli Navy "Hanit" came under a missile attack from the coast. No advanced anti-aircraft systems and jamming systems saved the Hanit: a 700-kilogram Chinese-made YJ-82 anti-ship missile pierced the side of the ship, killing 4 Israeli sailors. This time, the Israeli Navy was relatively lucky: despite the detonation of 165 kg of the missile warhead, the corvette remained afloat and did not receive serious damage. Six months later, "Hanit" was able to return to combat missions off the coast of Lebanon.
The cause of the incident was the usual human negligence - at the time of the missile attack, the tracking systems of the corvette were inoperative. The crew did not expect the enemy to have powerful anti-ship missiles and were solving some of their problems at that moment. By the way, a quarter of a century before these events, the disabled radar caused the death of the British destroyer Sheffield. History teaches no one.
General characteristics of the Eilat-type corvette:
Length at design waterline - 85.6 meters, width -11.88 meters, draft - 3 meters. The body is made taking into account the requirements of the "stealth" technology. The standard displacement is 1000 tons. Full displacement - 1250 tons. Crew - 74 people.
The ship is propelled by a combined unit consisting of two V12 diesels and a General Electric LM2500 gas turbine for full speed.
Full speed - 33 knots
The cruising range on the economic course is 3500 nautical miles (the distance by sea from St. Petersburg to Murmansk).
Don't be surprised. how the Israeli engineers managed to place so many weapons systems on such a miniature corvette and provide the ship with high seaworthiness. Back in 1967, in the Soviet Union, a small rocket ship project was created according to a project with an easy-to-remember cipher 1234. In the MKR hull with a total displacement of 730 tons (!) 6 launchers were placed to launch heavy anti-ship missiles P-120 "Malachite", a two-boom launcher the installation of the Osa air defense system (20 missiles), as well as a 76 mm universal gun and a 30 mm AK-630 anti-aircraft gun. There was, of course, no aircraft on board, but look at the year the ship was created. In those days, a helicopter seemed like an overkill. Small missile ships of the project 1234 were built in the USSR in batches and still remain in service in many countries of the world. It was MRK "Mirage" that distinguished itself in a missile battle in the Black Sea in August 2008.
As for the corvettes of the "Saar-5" ("Eilat") type, until a new project of a warship with the "Aegis" system is created, corvettes of this type remain the flagship ships of the Israeli Navy.
