Israeli warship 'badly damaged' by 'explosive drone'

[Hell King]

Yeah, because the damage was more serious than reported.

[Raygun]

really I readed that the entire helo pad cave in plus massive fire probaly destory the engine or drive shaft not to mention the loss 4 sailors and who know how many injured.? in the attack.and the C-802 is not a heavy anti-ships missles it's in the same class as the harpoon and excoet and totally desrution is not granntee rember the strak[perry class] when struack by 2 excoect it's didn't sink by badly damage I seem ship hit by the harpoon and ships wasn't sunk just badly damage. the only heavy ASSM I know of is the sunburn,klub and the kh-31 and kh-51 with 2x the warhead or more.

[radar]

@raygun: the pics, you have posted is not from the c-802. it is c-701. the c-802 has a total length of 6.4m. the c-701 has a total length of only 2.5m. and the main fins of the c-802 are near the middle of the missile wereas the main fins of the c-701 are more on the tail.

imho all the pics around showing the saar 5 are either not showing the shipt after the hit or there was no direct hit of a c-802. even if the pics are showing the wrong side of the ship there must be some significant damage on this side also. maybe the warhead did not explode but the missile has a weight of more than 700kg and a max range of more than 100km. the kinetic energy and the fuel should cause a lot of damage and fire.

[Vaiar]

Originally Posted by Raygun

why can't everyone belived it was the C-802!, is it because it's chinese made that actully work as advertise?. i

No, because it is so big CONTRARY the smaller Iranian made Kowsar missile shown in YOUR pictures (while you erronously mention it is a C-802), which only needs a single small truck as launch platform.

This is a C-802 on its launch platform, which is quite unwieldy:



Compare with the Iranian Kowsar:

[Wanshan]

Originally Posted by FA-18ORDNANCE

When operating a warship in the littorals as this Israeli warship was doing the crew will not have much if any time to react to a missile launch. I do not know how far off the beach the ship was but if it was providing gun fire support I suspect no more than 10 miles off the coast. If that was the case if this was an Iraninan Silkworm missile as I suspect we are talking 60-120 seconds before impact with the ship. I am not familiar with the Israeli CIWS for this class of ship but her crew I am sure was already at GQ (general quarters) but the CIWS opearators would have to be on the ball to engage a missile at such a short range.

Goalkeeper CIWS: The system's reaction time to a Mach 2 sea-skimming missile from automatic detection to kill is reported to be 5.5 seconds with the engagement starting at a range of 1500 m and ending with a kill at 300 m.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goalkeeper_CIWS

Probably not much different for Phalanx.

[big brush]

Kowsar is actually chinese c-701 that iran has been building build under licence.


http://www.sinodefence.com/navy/navalmissile/yj7.asp

and this one is c-802 that iran builds under licence

[big brush]

Originally Posted by radar

imho all the pics around showing the saar 5 are either not showing the shipt after the hit or there was no direct hit of a c-802. even if the pics are showing the wrong side of the ship there must be some significant damage on this side also. maybe the warhead did not explode but the missile has a weight of more than 700kg and a max range of more than 100km. the kinetic energy and the fuel should cause a lot of damage and fire.

there is no any pic about the damaged ship by far. but report says the ship has been burning for several hours.

so it was more likely a dud c-802.

here is c-801 without warhead tested by thai navy. the effect is quite similar with what the reports said this time.
http://myvlog.im.tv/?id=480034&mid=288422

[Erez]

One of the killed men was apparently the pilot of the ship's helicopter.

[big brush]

dude, since you are from israel, are there any more details have been released in your country? pics would be much more welcomed. thanks in advance.

[Erez]

Originally Posted by big brush

dude, since you are from israel, are there any more details have been released in your country? pics would be much more welcomed. thanks in advance.

Some pictures of the ship before the hit and after are here:

http://www.fresh.co.il/vBulletin/sho...9+%E7%F0%E9%FA

http://rotter.net/forum/scoops1/5192.shtml

A related video news item:
http://news.walla.co.il/?w=//940700

That's pretty much all of it, everything alse has already been reported here.

[young]

Re-posted from other Internet source (CMF)

================================================== ===


Off the Lebanon coast, a modern Israeli war-ship (70 crew, 85metre long), has been hit & damaged by anti-ship missiles fired by the
Hisbollah militants.

Israeli military sources confirmed the hit & said the missiles were
supplied to the Hisbollah by Iran. The Israeli source said the
anti-ship missiles were manufactured in Iran but based on Chinese
technology. The Israeli further alleged that there are some 100
Iranians military personels serving in Lebanon & operating the
anti-ship missiles on behalf of Hisbollah (allegation but no proof yet of Iranian presence in Lebanon).

Can someone speculate what this class of anti-ship missiles is??
We know all modern Israeli warships are well-armed & protected
with sea-borne Barak anti-aircraft/ anti-missile missiles (10Km range).
The Israeli are also conversant with RAM missiles technology for
naval vessels protection. Therefore, whatever get through the
Israeli ship defensive protection systems must be damn good &
very modern itself.
Can someone speculate what type of anti-ship missiles China has
that can do this??

[Ja Worsley]

I was just talking with a friend of mine in Israel and she has just lost a friend in the recent actions.

It is clear that someone is supplying very very sophisticated arms to the Hezbollah and also training them in counter insurgency warfare, the use of IED's will come into play soon as the Army move north to secure Lebanon.

I agree with the Arab council that Peace has failed in the Middle East, someone over there wants the whole region to destablise into chaos. Afghanistan has renewed violence, Iraq is a mess and now Israel just as a Palistinian state was about to be set up. Ten years ago under the leadership of Bill Clinton, the US set up peace deals with all Arab members then fighting, to lay down their arms, today George Bush said that he is not going to tell Israel how to defend itself, how ironic, you'll do it for other countries George but not Israel. I loved Putin's little snide comment about democracy in Iraq, it was well put and shows how educated he really is. TBH, the biggest problem in the middle east has been other countries interfering with local politics- France, the US, the UK even Russia. Perhaps what we all should do is let them be, let them sort it out and if they want something, then we can provide, not force our way in.

[Alepou 340MB]

@Vaiar, The three pictures you posted on page one are from Humanitarian assistance exercise "DOLPHIN-2005" which took place between October 30 and the 1st of November 2005 in the sea region south of the island of Crete with the participation of sea, land and airborne forces from all seven countries. Greece together with 6 Mediterranean Dialogue countries (Egypt, Algeria, Jordan, Israel, Morocco and Tunisia)

See more picture here (Greek navy site).
http://www.hellenicnavy.gr/newsphotos.asp?new_id=915#


Cheers,
Alepou 340MB

[Raygun]

Hizballah Brings out Iranian Silkworm to Hit Israel Navy Corvette

DEBKAfile Exclusive Military Analysis

July 15, 2006, 1:37 PM (GMT+02:00)





The disaster that overtook one of the Israeli Navy’s state of the art warships, Ahi-Hanit, was thoroughly planned in advance by an enemy which managed to take Israel’s military commanders by surprise. It has shocked Israel’s military to a degree comparable to the profound effect on US forces of al Qaeda’s 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Aden.

The Saar-5 class corvette, with a crew of 61 seamen and a 10-man helicopter crew, was hit Friday, July 17 at 20:15 hours, while shelling Beirut international airport. Four crewmen were reported missing. One was found dead Saturday aboard the crippled ship. He is First Sgt Tal Amgar, 21, from Ashdod. The search continues for three missing crewmen, Sgt. Yaniv Hershkovitch, 21, from Haifa, Corp. Shai Atias, 19, from Rishon Lezion and Master Sgt. Dov Shternschuss, 37, from Carmiel.

DEBKAfile’s military sources reveal: The Israeli Saar-5 corvette Ahi-Hanita was

DEBKAfile’s military sources reveal that the warship was struck from Beirut by an Iran-made radar-guided C-802 shore-to-sea missile of the Silkworm family. Weighing 715 kilos, with a range of 120km, the missile is armed with a strong anti-jamming capability, which lends it a 98% success rate in escaping interception.

The Israeli ship is armed with an advanced Barak anti-missile system, which may have missed the incoming missile. Israeli military planners must now look at the vulnerability of the navy following the appearance of the first Iranian C-802 missiles

The Israeli chief of staff, Lt.Gen. Dan Halutz, started his news conference Friday night just 15 minutes earlier at 20:00. The campaign was then 60 hours old from the moment Hizballah raiders captured two Israel soldiers in an ambush inside Israel. He was poised, assured and clear, until a reporter asked if the military goals of the Lebanese offensive matched the objectives set out in government decisions. His answer was: “Don’t start looking for cracks.”

But Hizballah found the cracks 15 minutes later. Its secretary general Hassan Nasrallah put in a telephone appearance on Al Manar TV straight after General Halutz to inform his listeners across the Middle East that one of Israel’s warships was ablaze at that very moment. He said the ship had been crippled while it was bombing Beirut and was sinking. Hizballah, he added, had prepared a number of surprises for Israel and its armed forces Despite several Israeli air raids, the station is still broadcasting.

In Israel, the Hizballah chief’s words were taken at first as an implausible threat for the future – until the order of events began to unfold.

DEBKAfile’s military sources reveal:

Shortly before 20:00 hours Friday, Hizballah launched a pair of land-to-sea C-802 missiles against the Israeli ship from the coast of Beirut. The trajectory of the first was adjusted to a landing amidships from above. It missed and exploded in the water. The second was rigged to skim the water like a cruise missile. It achieved a direct hit of the Ahi Hanit’s helicopter deck, starting a fire. The ship began to sink, as Nasrallah said, and would have been lost were it not for the speed and bravery of crewmen who jumped into the flames and doused them before the ship exploded and sank.

It is not known whether the men dead and missing paid with their lives for saving the ship.

This was the second time in 48 hours that the Israeli high command was taken by unawares.

July 12, the day that Hizballah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers, was also the deadline for Iran to deliver its answer to the six-power package of incentives for giving up its nuclear enrichment program. Tehran let the day go by without an answer. Someone should have kept an eye on Iran’s Lebanese surrogate and made the connection with a fresh virulent threat against Israel from Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. However, the high alert declared earlier this month for Israeli units on the Lebanese border was not restored.

The Hizballah guerrillas took advantage of this lack of vigilance to infiltrate Israel near Zarit, penetrate to a distance of 200 meters, fire RPGs and roadside bombs at two Israeli Hammer jeeps on patrol, and make off with Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev. Eight Israeli soldiers lost their lives as a result of this attack.

The IDF ground pursuit for the two men was cut short when an Israeli tank was blown up by a massive 300-kilo bomb in south Lebanon, killing the four-man crew and a fifth soldier who tried to rescue his comrades.

The attack on the Ahi-Hanit was the third surprise.

When General Halutz was asked if Israel does not fear Syrian and Iranian intervention in the hostilities, he replied firmly in the negative. But Iran has been involved from the very first moment.

This localized perception of the Just Reward campaign in Lebanon, contrary to Israeli leaders’ rhetoric, is hampering its effectiveness. The war embarked on Wednesday night, July 12, must be seen in its regional strategic dimensions. It is therefore not enough to bash Nasrallah without taking into account beforehand that his strings are pulled by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Ahmadinejad from Tehran and the Syrian president Bashar Assad, who opened up Damascus military airport for the delivery of Iranian missiles to his militia.

Saturday morning, Hizballah TV broadcast a videotape showed a blurred object looking like a small unmanned aircraft purportedly packed with explosives exploding in the water. This was an attempt to muddy the trail leading to Tehran and present the fatal attack as an extraordinary feat of arms by Hizballah. It was also another move in and intense psychological war to undermine Israeli morale. The inference they are trying to get across is that if the Shiite terrorists have a weapon that can hit a moving target at sea, the will not find it hard to reach any part of Israel including Tel Aviv.

[Wanshan]

"an Iran-made radar-guided C-802 shore-to-sea missile of the Silkworm family"

These guys are not doing their homework. Any idiot googling 'C-802' with 'missile' and 'Silkworm' with 'missile' would have found out these are entirely different AShM (if they didn't know already).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silkworm_missile
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-802

[Neptune]

You know what strikes me the most??? If that Air Defence system was off, then what was she doing there??? Bombing the shore? with what? It's Phalanx???

[Vaiar]

In the various press articles the Sa'ar 5 was said to enforce the blockade of Lebanese ports.

"The Israeli warship, which the army said was a SAAR 5 missile corvette, one of the most modern of its fleet, was enforcing a blockade off the coast of Beirut when it was hit.

According to Israeli media, it was 16 kilometres (10 miles) from the Beirut coast at the time of the attack and was hit in the stern. The army refused to confirm either detail."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060715...p_060715162224

[Austin]

Originally Posted by Neptune

You know what strikes me the most??? If that Air Defence system was off, then what was she doing there??? Bombing the shore? with what? It's Phalanx???

As the report mentioned enforcing a Blockade and gathering Intelligence (COMINT/SIGINT).

The fact that the ADS was off , proves that they didnt expect such AShM attack . Could be contributed to lack of Operational Intelligence and a good Imagination on part of Israel intelligence agency.

What ever it is , This coup by the hizb will be talked for a long time in Naval Circles

[Fedaykin]

Even if the warhead didn't fuse a C-802 should of wrecked a vessel as small as a Sa'ar 5. The only way I concieve that this weapon could of hit this class of ship without gutting and sinking it is maybe it went through one side and came out the other.

Frankly I 'm still quite skeptical about it being a C-802 its a big difficult to conceal weapon system requiring targeting radars etc. Something like the C-701 would be more logical. As far as I can make out the only people saying its a C-802 is the Israelis who seem to want to implicate Iran in this attack.

[Neptune]

So the other Sa'ars were the ones that bombed the shore. Where they in the area of Hanit? Or were they on a seperate place, hence unable to render aid in air defence?

[JonS]

Originally Posted by Ja Worsley

I was just talking with a friend of mine in Israel and she has just lost a friend in the recent actions.

It is clear that someone is supplying very very sophisticated arms to the Hezbollah and also training them in counter insurgency warfare, the use of

Ja should be worth noting there is extensive black market for arms for terrorist groups so its not necassarily they came from Iran or Syria the funding might have (i.e LTTE also posses advanced arms similar to what Hizb. has). Once such source is after the fall of saddam many iraqi weapons went missing god knows where they ended up.

[Wanshan]

Originally Posted by Fedaykin

Frankly I 'm still quite skeptical about it being a C-802 its a big difficult to conceal weapon system requiring targeting radars etc. Something like the C-701 would be more logical. As far as I can make out the only people saying its a C-802 is the Israelis who seem to want to implicate Iran in this attack.

- Does C-802 need a (dedicated) targeting radar, esp. at relatively short range as was the case in Lebanon?
- For the Israeli's, it doesn't make a difference of C-802 or C-701 as either one would implicate Iran/China. Even an hezbolla UAV with some explosives
would implicate Iran.

[JonS]

Originally Posted by Wanshan

- Does C-802 need a (dedicated) targeting radar, esp. at relatively short range as was the case in Lebanon?
- For the Israeli's, it doesn't make a difference of C-802 or C-701 as either one would implicate Iran/China. Even an hezbolla UAV with some explosives
would implicate Iran.

yes it needs radar also most radar guided missiles have minimum range, typically the time it take to turn on the seeker and onboard electronics and detect a target. That range is typically 10km+ for ashm, so if the vessel was a km from the shore the missile platform would have to be relatively well inside lebanon. Which is another reason why i don't think it was radar guided missile.

[Fedaykin]

Originally Posted by JonS

yes it needs radar also most radar guided missiles have minimum range, typically the time it take to turn on the seeker and onboard electronics and detect a target. That range is typically 10km+ for ashm, so if the vessel was a km from the shore the missile platform would have to be relatively well inside lebanon. Which is another reason why i don't think it was radar guided missile.

Now if I remember correctly doesn't the C-701 have an optional optical seeker. That would make a lot more sense in this case, I don't think activating a surface search and tracking radar for an ashm in that part of the world with all the IAF electronic warfare and SEAD assets in the area.

An ashm in the C-802 class usually requires target information to be programed into it usually gained by a quick sweep of a radar. I do remember that the Argentines managed to spoof this information for the Exocet they launched from land during the Falklands campaign but really this type of weapon is highly unsuitable for the needs of Hizbollah as I would be surprised that they would have the know how to pull that off without help from Iran or China, the C-701 could be hidden alot easier and it probably doesn't need to be cued by a targeting radar. C-701 is still quite a surprising system to be operated by Hizbollah when something like the new generation of anti tank missiles that Iran is putting together would be more suitable.

I'm not saying that its not impossible that the C-802 or C-701 has been used in this case but it is surprising. Really need to get a good picture of the Israeli ship and its damage to draw a better conclusion.

[Ja Worsley]

JonS: mate I had forgotten about that, thanks for the reality check! But still my point stands about Iran and their actions recently haven't had any calming effect, they have still yet to come out and deny any involvment. As I said to my dear friend over in Israel: "The Iranian's haven't forgotten the Osirak Affair, and knowing how arab's work, they circle and cirle a problem, let it die down over time and them bam they hit you when you least expect it." this os probably why Iran haven't said anything, they have felt threatened lately what with the world commenting on their Nuke program, this time they are hitting Israel before Israel hits them.

[Neptune]

how about he Iranian version itself, Kowsar? What if that missile was used? Does it have an optical seeker?
As for Iran's involvement, it's a war, who cares about words? It's not like anyone would believe them if they officially denied any involvement... I think they are not really involved openly because they know it would give US a stick to beat them. This is quite a situation no one had expected to happen at this moment!

[J33Nelson]

I was wondering if Kowsar went by another designation like C-102. Most weapons have a name and an offical designation. Everyone calls the AGM-114 the Hellfire missile. Just a thought.

[Wanshan]

Originally Posted by J33Nelson

I was wondering if Kowsar went by another designation like C-102. Most weapons have a name and an offical designation. Everyone calls the AGM-114 the Hellfire missile. Just a thought.

See old thread here

[Lawndart]

Originally Posted by Fedaykin

Now if I remember correctly doesn't the C-701 have an optional optical seeker. That would make a lot more sense in this case, I don't think activating a surface search and tracking radar for an ashm in that part of the world with all the IAF electronic warfare and SEAD assets in the area.

Indeed,the C-701 as built in China comes in 3 distinct and delicious flavours, TV/electro-optical, IR imaging and millimetric band radar. I'd imagine that the Kowsar also comes in the same variety of seekers, with the TV or IR version being the natural choice for a guerilla force like Hezbollah that might not have access to surface search maritime radar.

I'd also find the use of a C-802 hard to swallow as well, I'd have thought that barring any kind of malfunction,that the Hanit would have been blown to pieces if hit with the C-802's 165 kg HE warhead.

[plawolf]

Originally Posted by Raygun

why can't everyone belived it was the C-802!, is it because it's chinese made that actully work as advertise?. it come a shock to most who belived china only produce garbage weapon system but they spend alot years and money on the C-802 and it's install on most of the PLAN ships and sub's!.same goes for the missles liked the PL-8 and SD-10 it's just no good at all maybe not! .well just my's own personal opinon.

Calm down mate and think about this. If it was the C802 that hit the Sa'ar, then it would be a major disappointment as a missle of such size should utterly destroy such a small ship with a direct hit, and most likely sink it even with debris impact if the missile was detonated by defensive fire shortly before impact.

Hitting the target and failing to detonate is plain farcical for even remotely modern missiles, and if that was the case, then there is something seriously wrong with the Chinese defence industry.