Missile boats: Making waves, causing shock and awe

Russia & India Report ^ | 3 November 2015 | RAKESH KRISHNAN SIMHA

[sukhoi-30mki]

Admiral Sergei Gorshkov was arguably the greatest naval strategist of the 20th century. In his book, ‘The Sea Power of the State’, the man who transformed the Russian Navy into a global force, wrote: “Naval warfare aimed directly against land targets will play an ever greater part in any future major conflict.”

On the night of October 5, four Russian missile boats with a displacement of a mere 1000 tons each started raining down cruise missiles down the throats of ISIS and US-backed terror groups. Flying at treetop level over a distance of 2600 km through Iran and Iraq, and avoiding populated areas, the missiles slammed into terrorist hideouts without warning.

The precision strikes left the US and its allies shocked, rattled and envious. Many observers couldn’t begin to fathom how these tiny ships could be so devastating.

Some showed grudging respect. According to Bryan Clark, a naval analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington, the Russian corvettes armed with the accurate Kalibr provide much more effective land-attack lethality than what the US Navy is pursuing.

He was referring to the US Navy’s 3,000 ton Littoral Combat Ships that carry small, short-range missiles. “We have a new class of ships that we’re not equipping with anything that’s like this missile,” Clark told Defense News. “The Navy should feel embarrassed that they let this happen.”

Small wonder

The success in the Syrian war is nothing new for Russian missile boats. These vessels were star performers during the 1967 Arab Israeli War and the 1971 India Pakistan War. In the official history of the Indian Navy, Transition to Triumph, Vice Admiral G.M. Hiranandani writes:

“In June 1967, during the six-day Arab Israeli War, an Egyptian missile boat sank an Israeli frigate, the Eilath, at a range well beyond the frigate’s own guns. Navies all over the world woke up with a start to the effectiveness of this new Russian weapon – the surface to surface, anti ship, homing missile – which enabled a small boat to sink a ship several times its size within a matter of minutes. At one stroke, this new weapon altered the centuries old concept of prolonged gun battles between opposing warships.”

With a displacement of 200 tons, the missile boats were tiny and extremely thin skinned, but they had powerful engines that could propel them to a blistering 34 knots. Plus, the boat was hard to spot because of its small radar cross section.

Hirandani explains: “Its sophisticated radar was more advanced than any other known radar – it enabled the missile boat, with its low radar reflectivity, to detect a larger ship well before the latter was even aware of its presence, to fire its missiles and to speed away faster than any other ship. The Russian naval architects had deliberately designed these characteristics so as to give the small boats this advantage against much larger American naval ships attempting to attack the Russian coast.”

From UK to Russia

The Indian Navy, which had until then relied on Britain for its ships and weaponry, now started looking at Russian naval equipment. The Egyptian strike had clearly got the naval brass’ attention. But there was another reason for India wanting these small vessels.

In the 1965 India Pakistan War, the tiny Pakistan Navy had conducted a sneak attack on the city of Dwarka on the Gujarat coast. Although there were no casualties and only a solitary cow was killed, it left the Indian Navy seething because it couldn’t respond with a fitting counter attack.

India’s political leadership had ordered the navy not to launch offensive operations north of Porbandar because of Indonesia’s aggressive postures against India. Jakarta had not only declared support for fellow Muslim nation Pakistan, but more worryingly it was vocal about its intentions to annex the Andaman & Nicobar Islands which lie close to South East Asian waters.

The shells lobbed at Dwarka got the navy brass thinking of a possible Pakistani attack on Mumbai in a future conflict. In his book ‘We Dared: Maritime Operations in the 1971 Indo-Pak War’, Vice-Admiral S.N. Kohli writes: “Intelligence had suggested the Pakistan Navy was considering the acquisition of missile fitted frigates. In order to forestall the dangers of a missile attack by Pakistan on Mumbai, I had, on one of my visits to Russia, enquired from Admiral Sergei Gorshkov whether they had a mobile missile battery which could be deployed for the defence of Mumbai. He replied in the negative. He was later able to persuade the Indian Navy that for the defence of Mumbai and other major ports, the small Osa class of missile boats would be ideal. Their mere presence would prove a great deterrent to the enemy embarking on an attack.”

Admiral Gorshkov’s advice was simple and effective. In January 1969, an Indian delegation visited Moscow and the Russian naval base in the Caspian Sea, where they went out to sea in a missile boat. Vice-Admiral Nilakanta Krishnan writes in his book ‘No Way But Surrender’ that the acquisition of attack missile boats had become a “personal obsession” for him. The delegation signed an agreement for the acquisition of a squadron of eight boats armed with Styx missiles.

The Osa boats arrived under complete secrecy in 1970. They were based in Mumbai while crew training and ship overhaul facilities were to be located in Visakhapatnam. Admiral Hiranandani writes: “By this time, the Russian Navy had come to realise the Indians were diligent learners and professionally far more confident than the navies they had earlier helped to train. The crews...were deputed to Russia for just six weeks to take over the ships and sail them back to India. The Russians were impressed with their efficiency and professional knowledge, considering that they had neither received any training in Vladivostok nor had adequate training facilities been set up in Visakhapatnam.”

Russian boats, Indian ingenuity

Like Admirals Kohli and Krishnan, Admiral Sardarilal Mathradas Nanda, India’s navy chief in 1971, had been smarting under the step motherly treatment shown towards the navy by the political leadership. He was determined the Indian Navy wouldn’t sit out the next war.

A few weeks before the war started, he called his directors of naval operations and naval intelligence, and said he had obtained clearance for an attack on Karachi. In his autobiography, ‘The Man Who Bombed Karachi’, Nanda writes: “Everybody looked at me and said Karachi is a very heavily defended port. They've got six inch guns, while our guns are only four inch. We will be well within their range before they come into our range. So I said we have these Russian-made Osa class missile boats with Styx missiles.”

The commanders weren’t very keen. They said the boats did not have the range to reach Karachi and return. Secondly, though the Styx was highly accurate, they were anti-ship missiles and not designed to attack shore targets. Some naval officers – probably of the Gandhian mould – objected on the grounds that if Indian missiles hit Karachi, then there would be an international uproar over civilian casualties.

Admiral Nanda threw all such objections into the sea. Like all great ideas, his was simple too. To overcome their short range, he towed the boats from their base in Mumbai to Diu in Gujarat, which was a short distance from the target.

On the night of December 4, 1971, the missile boats carried out their first attack on Karachi. However, one of the vessels reported seeing a Pakistani aircraft and radioed this wrong information to the Indian flotilla. Worse, the captain of this missile boat withdrew from the designated area without the permission of the flotilla commander, thereby causing considerable confusion.

Only a couple of missiles were launched towards Karachi. Despite their hasty withdrawal the boats sank two Pakistani warships and crippled a third. They also destroyed a Pakistani merchant vessel bringing ammunition from an American depot in Saigon. Had the missile boats released all their missiles, the destruction could have been massive.

The Indian Navy launched a second attack on Karachi on the night of December 8. This time, it lost one ship but the rest rained hell on Karachi, setting fire to the tanker farms and lighting up the entire night sky.

Admiral Nanda made good on his promise that he would make the “world’s biggest bonfire” – Karachi burned for a week.

Small is big now

Small missile boats, which had until now not figured in the calculations of most militaries, are likely to be a game changer. A number of countries possess such vessels in good numbers, and the Russian Navy’s clinical strikes will make them a highly sought after weapons delivery platform. For, besides being potent, they offer great bang for your rials, pesos, dinars, yuans or rupees.

Swarm attacks by Iranian and Chinese vessels, for instance, could be a nightmare for thin-skinned US Navy warships forward deployed near the Persian Gulf or the South China Sea. They also dramatically increase the vulnerability of America’s floating cities – its nuclear powered aircraft carriers with more than 100 aircraft and 6000 sailors aboard.

Russia has supplied anti-ship and land attack missiles to a number of countries including India, Vietnam, Algeria and more ominously Iran and China. The success of the Kalibr (export version Klub) will result in the export of even more potent versions of the missile.

There are few known defences against this class of missile. The Kalibr, for instance, makes a supersonic sprint towards its target during the last few kilometres, making interception a waste of effort and bullets.

Again, the Oniks missile (export version Yakhont) is fired in groups that act like a wolf pack. When launched, the missiles wait until the last one is out of the launch tubes and then line up, just like a wolf pack, and begin to home in on their prey. Swapping information, the pack decides which missile attacks which target and how.

Although US carriers are heavily defended, the beauty of a Kalibr or an Oniks is that even if they don’t completely destroy a large vessel, a single hit will ensure enough damage to put the ship out of commission for months.

The success of Russia’s Caspian Flotilla will undoubtedly cause changes in military doctrine worldwide and in the way warships are built, armed and deployed. Clearly, small is the new buzzword.

[sukhoi-30mki]

[A Navy Vet]

Well, I feel good knowing our CiC is on top of this stuff between rounds of golf.

[exnavy]

In the 1967 war the USS was on the losing side, some shock and awe.

[exnavy]

USSR.

[nathanbedford]

Here we have yet another article which over the years have come dribbling in which cumulatively raise the question whether the romantic age of the aircraft carrier, with whom the man in my tagline below is so intimately associated, is drawing to a close. Is the age in which the United States can resort as will to super carriers to project power around the world coming to a close, forcing us to other platforms, other tactics and other strategies?

We have previously been reading that the Chinese are developing missiles intended to strike carriers from a distance while the American Navy has been transitioning to planes with shorter range creating an obvious vulnerability to the skin of the carrier despite undoubted multiplicity of defensive weapons. It is the old problem of cost vs. gain and it will take an intrepid president indeed to send the carrier into harm's way where it can be taken out by the odd missile. It would be politically disastrous to lose a carrier and it would be disastrous to America's image as a superpower to do so.

One then begins to think that the application of carriers will resemble 19th century British gunboats patrolling colonial waters showing the flag and offering a whiff of grape if required to intimidate the native populations. It is one thing to send a super carrier against the Third World country and quite another to risk it against the missiles soon to be produced in staggering quantities by the world's second (or perhaps even first) economy.

So the first question is whether we need 13 carriers if within a reasonable timeframe they cannot be deployed except with extreme risk? Should we not be diverting precious defense funds to other platforms such as submarines or satellites? In any event, how do we maintain American power in places like the South China Sea if our carriers are in fact exposed?

The questions get worse: with the advent of this gunboat missile technology are we not in the foreseeable future facing an imbalance or asymmetrical naval battlescape in which we will be risking multibillion-dollar carriers against cheap but lethal and, more importantly, multiple missile capable gunboats?

A retired naval captain once described the war in Korea to me as follows: we loaded a very expensive bomb onto a very expensive airplane whereupon a very expensively trained pilot flies it off the deck of an extremely expensive aircraft carrier and seeks a target in North Korea. They find an oxcart, fire the missile, consume expensive fuel and return to the carrier having a successfully completed mission. Two North Koreans climb out of the ditch observe their dead ox, gather the splinter wood from the cart with which to build a fire and eat the ox. Who won?

We have to run a cost-benefit analyses and we have to decide whether we have the right tools for the theater. We have to know this 30 years in advance. And we have to do it with defense in mind and not politics, with a concern only for the security of the nation and not the pork at home, with a scrupulous regard for the precious nature of our Armed Forces and a rigid indifference to the temptations of social engineering such a top-down organization as the American military represents to God playing leftists.

[ken5050]

Did you note this line from the second paragraph:

"....started raining down cruise missiles down the throats of ISIS and US-backed terror groups..."

You raise many good points in your comments. The carrier age may well be nearing an end. One comment...13 carriers are needed in order to have 4 available to patrol the seas. It's a BIG planet.

Back in the 80's the USN was developing rocket boosted shells for the BBs..giving them a range of 200+ miles, which would have put some 80% of the world's cities within range. The program was dropped because the Navy was determined to mothball the BB's.because they supposedly cost too much to operate ( crew size)

[meatloaf]

We would do well to reactivate the three BBs and convert them to missile ships. I’ve wondered what effect a cruise missile would have on the armor. My guess is to have the range, the missile payload would be reduced. Anyone have an idea?

[Wildbill22]

Add me to the ping list.

The Russians/Soviets always made beautiful and heavily armed ships.

The article is correct, the U.S. Littoral Combat Ship is a joke.

[nathanbedford]

Yes I did read that allegation to the effect that America has been supplying missiles to groups but did not respond in the absence of supporting evidence. Yet, as I was turning to your reply I noted another post which suggests the possibility that the Russian airliner was shot down by an American-made missile.

A suspicious mind immediately turns to the fiasco in Benghazi and wonders if the Obama administration has been supplying arms into dubious hands since sending arms the drug Lords in Mexico. Whether Obama has been operating with an empty head or a dark heart I am in no position to say, but one can observe that a leftist with malevolent intentions can also be incompetent.

One is reminded of the line delivered by the late Fred Thompson in The Hunt For Red October to the effect that the situation will get out of control and people will be hurt. Clearly, not only is our foreign policy out of control but are defense posture is no doubt crippled.

[nathanbedford]

Yes I did read that allegation to the effect that America has been supplying missiles to terrorist groups but did not respond in the absence of supporting evidence. Yet, as I was turning to your reply I noted another post which suggests the possibility that the Russian airliner was shot down by an American-made missile.

A suspicious mind immediately turns to the fiasco in Benghazi and wonders if the Obama administration has been supplying arms into dubious hands since sending arms the drug Lords in Mexico. Whether Obama has been operating with an empty head or a dark heart I am in no position to say, but one can observe that a leftist with malevolent intentions can also be incompetent.

One is reminded of the line delivered by the late Fred Thompson in The Hunt For Red October to the effect that the situation will get out of control and people will be hurt. Clearly, not only is our foreign policy out of control but our defense posture is no doubt crippled.

[NonValueAdded]

All this known since the 70's. And how have we adapted?

[DaveA37]

“We would do well to reactivate the three BBs and convert them to missile ships.”.......

IMO, those once wonderful ships a way too slow to be effective in today’s world. Speed and effective missiles are the answer, the Russians have that figured out. With odumbo and his ilk in control (be it today or in the future should the demodummies maintain control) I doubt the U.S. military would be up to the task.

[AppyPappy]

“The Russians/Soviets always made beautiful and heavily armed ships.”

However they always needed a tug in the flotilla because the ships beak down.

[winodog]

I somewhat believe the USA has many “secret weapons” especially in space. We seem to be the main driving force in the battle for a NWO and whoever the top dog is he needs a big stick to keep everyone else in line.
All this other stuff is just lies mixed with a little truth to make us sheep think like sheep.
Of course I have no concrete evidence

[meatloaf]

One of the BBs did better than 35 knots for six hours.

http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/fastest-speed-recorded-for-a-battleship/

[Mister Da]

I am reminded of the Battle of Okinawa:

At sea, 368 Allied ships—including 120 amphibious craft—were damaged while another 28—including 15 amphibious ships and 12 destroyers—were sunk during the Okinawa campaign. The U.S. Navy’s dead exceeded its wounded with 4,907 killed and 4,874 wounded, primarily from kamikaze attacks. - Wiki

A WWII kamikaze was basically a manned missile - a very smart missile. The Japanese nearly drove the US navy away from Okinawa, which would have doomed the troops on shore.

Today, missiles are smarter, faster, intercontinental, & more lethal. Ballistic missiles can hit any spot on Earth within an hour of launch with deadly precision. Their costs are a fraction of manned aircraft & vessels.

Smart missiles, drones, & torpedoes will be the weapons of choice in the foreseeable future. Satellite surveillance will leave ships of any size with no where to hide. Carrier groups will be easy targets for swarms of land based missiles long before they can deploy their offensive aircraft. Add in the possibility that a formidable enemy might use tactical nuclear weapons to attack a carrier group & carrier operations against that enemy is suicidal.

[SampleMan]

Admiral Sergei Gorshkov was arguably the greatest naval strategist of the 20th century.

Never lead off an article with that much BS hyperbole.

[SampleMan]

A retired naval captain once described the war in Korea to me as follows: we loaded a very expensive bomb onto a very expensive airplane whereupon a very expensively trained pilot flies it off the deck of an extremely expensive aircraft carrier and seeks a target in North Korea. They find an oxcart, fire the missile, consume expensive fuel and return to the carrier having a successfully completed mission. Two North Koreans climb out of the ditch observe their dead ox, gather the splinter wood from the cart with which to build a fire and eat the ox. Who won?

Air power in Korea effectively stopped 400,000 Chinese and turned them into 250,000 Chinese.

You can't control ground without boots on it, and you can't project force over hostile territory with a submarine.

I do see the possibility that rail guns will lead to the reintroduction of the Battleship. Firing guided warheads 300-600 miles inland or at other ships would be key.

CVs may get smaller and carrier aircraft may need to return to longer range capability.

[pa_dweller]

Is the age in which the United States can resort as will to super carriers to project power around the world coming to a close, forcing us to other platforms, other tactics and other strategies?

It brings to mind the old saw about always fighting the last war.

[Don W]

I don’t know, 33 knots seems pretty bloody fast to me. As fast or faster than the majority of naval craft out there, anyways.