Hizballah Brings out Iranian Silkworm to Hit Israel Navy Corvette

DEBKA file ^ | July 15, 2006, 1:37 PM (GMT+02:00) | DEBKAfile Exclusive Military Analysis

[Oeconomicus]

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. Three are still sought by rescue teams.

DEBKAfile’s military sources reveal that the warship was struck from Beirut by an Iran-made 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 is hampering its effectiveness. The war embarked on Wednesday night, July 12, is no local conflict. It is therefore not enough to limit the operation to a duel with Nasrallah, when 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.

[GarySpFc]

We haven't see Arabs this skillful in any of their past wars with Israel. Its clear they can plan ahead and execute surprise operations that have great impact. Its easy to dismiss them as bunch of savages and while Hezbollah knows it cannot defeat Israel, it is more than capable of bloodying Israel's nose.

Maybe the increased skill has to do with the Iranians not being Arabs.

[KyHammer]

"I've got to think the CIWS wasn't activated, "


Does this mean the phalanx system wasn't turned on? Why wouldn't they keep that on all the time?

[Tinian]

Here's a link to a film of the missile strike.

(It's in the bottom window.)

There appears to be two explosions. All you need to see is the first 10 seconds or so.

[proud American in Canada]

We are very, very unprepared for the war that's coming. Psychologically, most of all.

I've been reading these threads, learning--I do not have the knowledge to contribute--but on this point, I agree.

I was nearly in tears yesterday, so concerned about the way this could really get out of control. And then I went to pick up my kids from summer camp and I went to the store, and it just hit me: how oblivious everyone is to the incredibly serious situation. for the most part, people just have no idea.

[proud American in Canada]

Picture of a sociopath and a monster...Bill Clinton

I didn't think I could hate Bill Clinton more than I did until the North Korea test and now this.

I wonder how he sleeps at night.

[epow]

I wonder how he sleeps at night.

Like a baby.

The man has no conscience nor any concern for the welfare of the US. All that matters to him and his reincarnated Jezebel wife is having power over other people's lives.

[Robe]

More on the millile type:

Specifications Contractor CHETA - China Hai Yang [Sea Eagle] Electro-Mechanical Technology - CASC 3rd Academy
Entered Service ??????
Total length 5.81 m
Diameter 0.36 m
Wingspan 1.18 m
Weight 625 kg (not including booster)
Warhead Weight 165 kg HE
Propulsion one solid rocket engine, one solid booster
Maximum Speed ???????
Maximum effective range 8-42 km
Guidance mode automatic control + homing
Single-shot hit probability 75%

Iran may have imported as many as 100 C-801s and eight launchers in 1987-88, and by 1994 it was claimed that Iran had about 200 C-801 missiles as well as the ability to produce the C-801 indigenously [under the designation "Tondar"].
Other reports in 1996 suggest that China was assisting Iran with a new antiship cruise missile -- the "Karus" -- which believed to be based on the C-801 and/or C-802.
In June 1997 Iran tested two Chinese-built C-801 air-launched cruise missiles from an F-4 fighter.
The submarine-launched "Yingji no 8, model 3" anti-submarine missile officially passed the first-phase system acceptance tests early in 1997. Taiwan sources claim that China made the Yingji no. 8 by modifying the French "Exocet" missile.
The hit probability is expected to be higher than the missiles currently used by Chinese forces. The precise application of the YJ-8 designation remains somewhat obscure, as it is used with reference to both C-801 and C-802 missiles, and may be the overall designator for the weapon system that fires both types of missiles.

From Here:

http://fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/missile/row/c-801.htm> .htm

[A. Pole]

One British publication said that it was only a "missile," and another said that it was "four missiles."

Could it be that four missiles were fired and that only one hit the target? If so it could be the sheer luck that hit at all.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

We haven't see Arabs this skillful in any of their past wars with Israel.

Actually, the 1973 Yom Kippur War was masterfully planned, skillfully and courageously executed, took Israel by surprise and came within a hair's breadth of success.

I don't think this is the same thing at all. If the Israelis were unaware of the presence of Silkworms, that's an intelligence failure on their part, but not insuperable. Hezbollah may be tipping their hands.

[Dave Elias]

"Picture of a sociopath and a monster...Bill Clinton."

Disturbing isn't it!

[Strategerist]

Yep, I'm calling BS on DUMBKA as usual here. Silkworm is a simply enormous missle and even if the warhead didn't detonate, at that range the fuel explosion would have vaporized the SAAR.

[Crolis]

FOX reporting that there are about 100 Iranians on the ground assisting Hizbollah...so the know how and expertise is there.

Hmm. Based on the article I read last night on FR entitled "Why Arabs Don't Win Wars", this makes more sense. Iran wouldn't teach Hizbollah how to operate this type of system, since culturally they prefer to be the indispensable partner. That would certainly lend support to the idea that Iranians are on the ground providing support and expertise.

[Constantine XI Palaeologus]

Thanks for the info. That would explain why the damage was minimal.

I dunno about the shock. It was my understanding that even shipboard (as opposed to land based) anti-missile countermeasures were iffy to a degree. I'd think the shock would be that Hezbollah's got a weapon that needs such extensive support and technilogical know-how.

Even so, if the C802 (or whatever its desgnation is)is based on the Styx, I would've thought that the Israelis would have a countermeasure for that. After all, the destroyer Eilat was sunk by a Styx in '67.

[A. Pole]

I don't think this is the same thing at all. If the Israelis were unaware of the presence of Silkworms, that's an intelligence failure on their part, but not insuperable.

Shiites/Iran have relatively good track of having success in intelligence warfare. They are somehow more brainy and clandestine than Sunni.

[Jeff Head]

I would be surprised at the timing if a large regional war broke out now with PRC backing. Not that Iran and Syria might not go it alone, mind you.

I would think that the Chinese, whom I believe are our principle, long-term threat and are establishing relationships and plans to this end (to thwart and end American dominance) around the world, would wait at least until sometime after the Olympics and until their own military power is stronger.

OTOH, if the opportunity arises, and if Syria and Iran go after it and have any measure of success...and if the Chinese and N. Koreans have the contingencies and plans in place, they may well advance such a time table if they think the chance for success against those aims is there.

In which case, if the war in the Mid-East explodes and we are pulled more generally into it with larger mobilizations and more troops and assetts...then watch the Korean penninusla. If that goes off too, and we are scrambling even more to respond to it...then watch for the PRC's move.

THE RISING SEA DRAGON IN ASIA

THE DRAGON'S FURY SERIES

[Dosa26]

Yep, I'm calling BS on DUMBKA as usual here. Silkworm is a simply enormous missile and even if the warhead didn't detonate, at that range the fuel explosion would have vaporized the SAAR.

Would have blown the back half off the ship. The drone with 100# of HE is more believable.

[wny]

this is the same "source" that had the chinese sending troops to afghanistan

[Paperpusher]

DEBKA has been given a bad name by people misunderstanding what it is, and only remembering the times it was totally wrong. It is a RAW info and report site. The closer the story is to the ME, the more accurate it usually is. While it's good to take any new story with a grain of salt, DEBKA is as good as some MSM news sites (I guess thats not saying much)I am willing to bet that many will eat crow on this story, and that silkworms were fired at the warship. China and Iran do not want the sheeple to know how involved they are in this mess and some here have knee-jerk reactions on any DEBKA story. Flame away!

[Sender]

The day al Aqsa falls will be The Day TSHTF.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

In this context I meant "intelligence" to denote "information", or the process of systematically collecting, analyzing and disseminating information, not the more general notion of "cognitive ability".