2017.Missile boats were invented and first manufactured by the
Soviet Union in the 1950s, beginning with "Project 183R" which developed into the
Komar-class missile boat, mounting two
P-15 Termit (Styx) anti-ship missiles in box launchers and a twin 25mm
autocannon on a wooden
hull displacing Four
diesel engines gave the Komars and a top speed of around . Endurance was limited to at and the vessels had fuel and supplies for only five days at sea. 112 Komar-class vessels were produced, while over 400 examples were built of the following
Osa-class missile boat, with a significant number of both types being sold to pro-Soviet nations. Being relatively small and constructed of wood, the Komar-class boats had a very small
radar cross-section. Its sophisticated
radar enabled the missile boat, with its low radar reflectivity, to detect a larger enemy ship before the latter was aware of its presence, fire its missiles and speed away. Soviet naval architects had designed them with these characteristics to give the small boats this advantage against much larger American naval ships should they attempt to attack the Russian coast. The boats were designed for coastal operations, with limited
endurance. The first combat use of missile boats was by the
Egyptian Navy operating Komar-class craft, which fired four Styx missiles (hitting with three) at the
Israeli destroyer
Eilat on October 21, 1967, shortly after the
Six-Day War, sinking the
Eilat with 47 dead and over a hundred wounded out of a crew of 199. The Soviet-built boats prompted a
NATO response, which became more intense after the sinking of
Eilat. The Germans and French worked together to produce their own missile boat, resulting in the
La Combattante class. These were built on a hull with of MTU diesel engines driving four shafts; a common weapon loadout would have four MM-38
Exocet missiles in two sets of two box launchers, in line and offset to the right and left with a 76 mm gun forward and 40 mm twin guns aft. Built until 1974, a total of 68 Combattante IIs were launched. The design was immediately followed by the Combattante III (1975 - 1990) which added to hull length but kept the same armament (plus two twin 30mm autocannon), 43 of this type were produced. Several other countries produced their own versions of the
Combattante, notably Israel with the
''Sa'ar 3 and the
Sa'ar'' 4 variants. During the
Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, the Indian Navy's 25th Missile Boat Squadron, operating
Vidyut-class missile boats, played a crucial role in the devastating Indian attacks on
Karachi in December 1971. The two key operations in which these vessels played an active role were
Operation Trident and
Operation Python. Indian attacks destroyed half of the
Pakistani Navy and most of Pakistan's naval fuel reserves in the port's fuel storage tanks which cleared the way for the decisive victory of the
Indian Armed Forces. The world's first naval battles between missile-armed warships occurred between Israeli ''Sa'ar
3-class and Sa'ar
4-class missile boats (using indigenously-developed Gabriel missiles), and Syrian Komar- and Osa-class missile boats during the October 1973 Yom Kippur War. The first of these engagements became known as the Battle of Latakia. During this and later battles, some fifty Gabriels
and a similar number of Styx'' missiles were fired; seven Syrian ships were sunk, with zero Israeli losses. At the
Battle of Bubiyan in 1991 Iraqi missile boats were destroyed by British
air-to-surface missiles. Later designs, such as the German and Finnish are equipped with
surface-to-air missiles and
countermeasures. The size of missile boats has increased, with some designs now at
corvette size, 800 tonnes including a
helicopter, giving them extended modes of operation. In April 1996 during Israel's
Operation Grapes of Wrath, IDF naval forces used Sa'ar 4 and boats to shell the Lebanese coast with 76 mm fire, in conjunction with artillery and air attacks. ==Current operations ==