Israeli Navy capability against coastal targets

[Lucasnz]

Was the ship stern to the threat? Remember, she took the hit in the flight deck according to reports. If so, she would have to maneuver to unmask the CIWS. What mode was it in I wonder?

The CIWS is located at the extreme front of the ship, which would give it a wider firing arc, reducing the need for exterme maneuvour. I guess photos of the damage will tell the true tale.

 

[contedicavour]

Was the ship stern to the threat? Remember, she took the hit in the flight deck according to reports. If so, she would have to maneuver to unmask the CIWS. What mode was it in I wonder?

The ship's main artillery is in "A" position and it normally would have been pointed against the shore... so receiving a hit in the flight deck normally means the ship was parallel to the shore...

I'm editing the post since I just realized the ship has either Phalanx or 76mm gun... which one did it have mounted ???

 

[contedicavour]

To summarize, the Saar V got hit aft while the Phalanx, if indeed there was one mounted, is in front.
We don't know if 76mm or Phalanx was installed. The ship was leading forces bombarding the coast after all, not protecting ships from SSMs !!
The ship was lucky the 2x32cell VLS are amidships and in front (just behind the Phalanx), otherwise it would have exploded

 

[.pt]

missile atack

Whatever the mode the vessel was, or wich way were the guns directed, they were in a very bad position, as stated earlier, a coastal ambush is deadly, and ill bet that the crew probably wasnt at a high state of readiness, since they were blockading the harbours for some 2-3 days, and no one challenged them, not even one of those small missile boats the lebanese have, and if the calculations made earlier are correct 18 seconds from launch to hit is a very small time, so i wonder if the crew even engaged those missiles. we´ll probaly never know, because the israelis wont disclose it. But in anycase, and as someone said, the fact that hizbollah (or Iranians) disabled one of the more modern vessels of the Israeli navy is a huge victory,whatever way you look at it. Also the weapon that presumably was used and its origin, gives serious concern that perhaps this war will not stop at Lebanon, and that is a very frightning development, because Sirya and Iran are not just paperweights...
.pt

 

[contedicavour]

Whatever the mode the vessel was, or wich way were the guns directed, they were in a very bad position, as stated earlier, a coastal ambush is deadly, and ill bet that the crew probably wasnt at a high state of readiness, since they were blockading the harbours for some 2-3 days, and no one challenged them, not even one of those small missile boats the lebanese have, and if the calculations made earlier are correct 18 seconds from launch to hit is a very small time, so i wonder if the crew even engaged those missiles. we´ll probaly never know, because the israelis wont disclose it. But in anycase, and as someone said, the fact that hizbollah (or Iranians) disabled one of the more modern vessels of the Israeli navy is a huge victory,whatever way you look at it. Also the weapon that presumably was used and its origin, gives serious concern that perhaps this war will not stop at Lebanon, and that is a very frightning development, because Sirya and Iran are not just paperweights...
.pt

Most likely. Israel never recoils from retaliation. Over in Latakia (Syria's naval base) and in Bandar Abbas (Iran's) they must be shivering !

 

[sidishus]

To summarize, the Saar V got hit aft while the Phalanx, if indeed there was one mounted, is in front.
We don't know if 76mm or Phalanx was installed. The ship was leading forces bombarding the coast after all, not protecting ships from SSMs !!
The ship was lucky the 2x32cell VLS are amidships and in front (just behind the Phalanx), otherwise it would have exploded

A SAAR 5 can be seen here:
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/060715/ids_photos_wl/r2907883091.jpg

Bet a paycheck its the Hanit. And you can see the CIWS forward.

The SAAR 4.5s were doing the shelling...and turning their stern into the beach to do so. (You can see the southern environs of Beirut in this photo):

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/060714/481/48411ff39f5f4fe0898930c70f0baecf

 

[kams]

Inquiry: Navy was unaware of missile threat

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3276221,00.html

Initial probe into attack on missile boat Friday reveals Navy had no intelligence of possible missile threat in area where boat was operating; missile, aircraft interception system was turned off due to presence of IDF planes in sector

This statement does not make much sense...whatever happend to IFF systems??And don't you prepare for the worst when you go on war? Does one need an inteligence input about missile threat to switch on the defence systems when going to war? This does not sound right to me.

 

[sidishus]

This statement does not make much sense...whatever happend to IFF systems??And don't you prepare for the worst when you go on war?

Devil in the details...Devil indeed.

The CIWS was not in "full automatic" due to the ROE and airspace deconfliction. Not good to shoot down one of your own, and for the Israelis, even worse to blow away someone neutral.
Proof positive "NetCentric Warfare" has some intractable issues in the Littorals.

LCS fans...Take Heed.

Its the same problem I was facing at the very time this picture was taken :

http://www.fdevault.net/images/Mil/Ships/Med01h.JPG

(Thats not me in front of the missile launcher which is roped off for a reason BTW. Those folks aft would have been fried. Given the time of day I was hard at work on watch).

Note the LST broad off the port bow just off the Beirut airport...Faced with a similar threat from that bearing we would have been equally f*@ked.

 

[sidishus]

The C-802 as a 165kg warhead according to Global Security. The SAAR 5 has a displacement of 1227 metric tonnes. If the damage was in the region of the Flight deck, a direct hit would have sunk the SAAR 5, due to flooding. The freeboard on these ships in rather small, so that what I basing my assessment on - I've estimated between 9-12 feet.

I'm of the veiw that the ship suffered damage from the missile been destroyed by CIWS at close range.

I guess Israeli TV had some footage of the Hanit standing into Haifa but I can't find any of it on the web. Until we can see some close ups your speculation is just that...

Was she able to maneuver and took a near hit?

Was she conducting flight ops at the time of attack and constrained in her ability to maneuver or to use her weapons (best not to have R2D2 in junkyard-dawg mode when conducting flight ops)?

At this point all we know is two apparent guided missiles were launched by persons of dubious nationality from somewhere near Ras Beirut. A merchant(Egyptian? Cambodian with Egyptian passengers?) is sunk, and a Saar 5, presumably the Hanit had to be towed from the area with 4 casualties.

 

[alpha2]

Them Saar 5's are nice looking boats....:

Link:

http://www.israeli-weapons.com/weapons/naval/saar5/Saar5.html

Even has a Phalanx anti-antiship missile system......but somebody mentioned
this already.....

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ship/weaps/mk-15.htm

Would have been nice if this thing shot down the missile....

 

[tphuang]

I guess Israeli TV had some footage of the Hanit standing into Haifa but I can't find any of it on the web. Until we can see some close ups your speculation is just that...

Was she able to maneuver and took a near hit?

Was she conducting flight ops at the time of attack and constrained in her ability to maneuver or to use her weapons (best not to have R2D2 in junkyard-dawg mode when conducting flight ops)?

At this point all we know is two apparent guided missiles were launched by persons of dubious nationality from somewhere near Ras Beirut. A merchant(Egyptian? Cambodian with Egyptian passengers?) is sunk, and a Saar 5, presumably the Hanit had to be towed from the area with 4 casualties.

Egyptians are saying that the merchant ship was damaged by Israel.

As for those TV photos, nobody even knows whether they were taken after or before the missile hit. Several people have mentionned that the supposed "holes" from the missile strike are found in every SAAR 5.

 

[contedicavour]

Devil in the details...Devil indeed.

The CIWS was not in "full automatic" due to the ROE and airspace deconfliction. Not good to shoot down one of your own, and for the Israelis, even worse to blow away someone neutral.
Proof positive "NetCentric Warfare" has some intractable issues in the Littorals.

LCS fans...Take Heed.

Its the same problem I was facing at the very time this picture was taken :

http://www.fdevault.net/images/Mil/Ships/Med01h.JPG

(Thats not me in front of the missile launcher which is roped off for a reason BTW. Those folks aft would have been fried. Given the time of day I was hard at work on watch).

Note the LST broad off the port bow just off the Beirut airport...Faced with a similar threat from that bearing we would have been equally f*@ked.

I don't understand what the Saar V was doing in the area if the Saar 4.5s were doing all of the shelling, and if the Saar V had its SAMs and CIWS off by fear of hitting friendly planes... but then just keep the boat at home, it's completely useless !!

 

[Red aRRow]

First of all there is no civilian or neutral air traffic in and out of Beirut since the last couple of days. The civilian airport was the first target to be bombed and at the time of this engagement the ships were agains busy bombing the civilian airport. So this excuse of turning off the ship's defencive system is basically a coverup for the failure of the ship to pick up the incoming threat. The ship is supposed to have two anti missile defencive systems (Phalanx + Barak) and basically this strike shows the failure of the ship to defend itself.

Secondly the ship has IFF systems and while on full manouvers against shore targets the people are supposed to be on alert.

Any excuses being presented now are just the IDF's efforts to cover up their shortcomings, be it human or technological.

 

[Waylander]

Ah, I see you know exactly what happened.

What if there have been flight ops like said before? With round about 18 sec. to react (Mach 0,8, 5km) and the CIWS at the wrong side you could be in trouble real fast.

I don't want to say that there haveb't been human or technical failures. But we are just not able to know by now.

You should not try to use every single chance to get something bad about the western military complex. We shall not do this with russian, chinese, pakistani, etc. equipment but it should be the same vice versa.

 

[sidishus]

First of all there is no civilian or neutral air traffic in and out of Beirut since the last couple of days.

There is-in fact-a fair amount of "white" air traffic still flying overhead in the vicinity. The FIRs are not shut down. Check the NOTAMS...

So this excuse of turning off the ship's defencive system is basically a coverup for the failure of the ship to pick up the incoming threat.

It is reasonable to take the Israelis' at their word that they had no prior indication of a SSM threat.

It is entirely unclear if ECM would have been effective in this attack. How was the Hanit acquired? She was obviously in visual range:
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/060715/ids_photos_wl/r2907883091.jpg
What guidance did the missiles employ? Chances are if you know, you can't say...

And, again, with ongoing airstrikes in the vicinity, you don't want to be blowing out a bunch of RF on spurious alerts. It blinds you in many respects. It could screw things up for others...And it could make you the recipient of a Blue on Blue engagement. Not fun.

With airstrikes ongoing there is also the real problem of deconfliction. That greatly constricts the use of automatic modes on systems such as the Barak and CIWS.

There is apparently still a fair amount of merchant traffic in the area which further aggravates the tactical picture and also negates the use of a CIWS in full automatic. Bad press to pump several hundred rounds into an unsuspecting merchant when close to a billion people think you are a no good Zionist anyways...

 

[swerve]

...
http://www.fdevault.net/images/Mil/Ships/Med01h.JPG
...

Note the LST broad off the port bow just off the Beirut airport...Faced with a similar threat from that bearing we would have been equally f*@ked.

IIRC (I could be wrong - I'll have to look this up), that's what did for one of our ships in 1982. A ship crossing between it & the threat (because it was attempting to evade an attack), so the operators stopped Seawolf from engaging automatically, for fear of it blatting our own ship, & an Argentinean Skyhawk popped up over it . . . not enough time for manual engagement.

 

[kams]

There is apparently still a fair amount of merchant traffic in the area which further aggravates the tactical picture and also negates the use of a CIWS in full automatic.

I agree.. this makes sense. In any case this incident has dramatically pushed the conflict to a much higher level. Whats to prevent Hezbollah launching these missiles on commercial shipping (read - OIL) and hold the world economy a hostage? Its high time USA/EU/Russia and China get their act together and tame Iran/Syria.

 

[webmaster]

Kams, actually confirmed by recent reports Israel has attacked merchant ships from egypt. There have been no reports on Hizbullah attacking merchant ships or any reason why it should?

Eyewitnesses: IAF struck Syrian targets near Lebanon border
According to the report, the Air Force hit targets belonging to the Syrian army and located on Syrian territory.

It seems someone wants this conflict to go full scale war or even WW3.

 

[fylr71]

Regarding the incident with the Saar 5, wasn't it a radar guided missile that was fired? If so I'm surprised that the missile was able to aquire the target given the Saar 5 stealth capabilities. Maybe a lucky shot

 

[sidishus]

Kams, actually confirmed by recent reports Israel has attacked merchant ships from egypt. There have been no reports on Hizbullah attacking merchant ships or any reason why it should

It appears that news source you cited is related to the same merchant sunk when the Hanit was struck.

From what I can see in the news reports the Israelis are following a very narrow ROE.
What benefit would there be to cause more trouble by attacking an Egyptian flag ship?