Missile speedboat

German Gepard- class missile speedboat

A missile speedboat is a speedboat with a primary armament of anti-ship missiles to fight enemy ships. The ship type emerged from the speedboats of the Second World War . The first missile speedboats were the Komar class boats of the Soviet Navy , a modified version of the P6 speedboats , which were put into service from 1959 .

Operational basics

Missile speedboats perform the same tasks as speedboats and torpedo boats of the Second World War. They are intended for rapid attack operations against larger targets such as cruisers or aircraft carriers as well as for rapid attacks against convoy and relatively close to the coast patrol tasks. They are often part of larger associations and are responsible for the reconnaissance and initial combat of hostile targets around the association.

Armament

Instead of the conventional cannon and torpedo armament, high-speed rocket boats are primarily armed with missiles. To a small extent, they have light cannon armament for anti-aircraft defense and often, to a limited extent, abilities to combat submarines.

In action

The first use of missile speedboats is the sinking of the Israeli destroyer "Eilat" by Egyptian missile boats of the Komar class on October 20, 1967. The first encounter of modern missile speedboats occurred in the Battle of Latakia during the Yom Kippur War in October 1973, in the course of which two Syrian Komar-class missile boats, one Osa-class boat, a minesweeper and a motor torpedo boat were destroyed by four Israeli Sa'ar-class boats and one Reshef-class .

In the present, however, missile speedboats have gone out of fashion. Basically, the original operational concept for this type of ship was designed for coastal waters; Low acquisition and maintenance costs due to its small size were bought at the price of poor sea properties, cramped conditions on board, difficult maintenance and, as a result, a comparatively short service life . From a tactical point of view, however, the inadequate air defense , which in most ship classes of this type consisted only of light to medium anti-aircraft guns , was particularly problematic . Operation Attain Document , in which Libyan missile speedboats and corvettes of the La Combattante IIa class and the Nanuchka class were unable to defend themselves against air attacks by aircraft of the United States Navy, is an example of this deficiency .

As a continuation of the missile speedboat concept, larger corvettes such as the German K130 corvette or the Israeli Sa'ar-5 class , whose offensive armament is still based on anti-ship missiles, but whose air defense capabilities are significantly expanded. The term “corvette” does not only refer to such ships.

Examples

Soviet high-speed rocket boat of the Osa I-class on a cruise

six American Pegasus- class missile speedboats during an exercise

Osa class I / II, Soviet Union
Nanuchka class 1-4, Soviet Union / Russia
Huangfeng class , China
Houbei class , China
Pegasus class , USA
Cheetah class , Germany
Tiger class , Germany
Sa'ar-2 or 3-class , Israel
Sassnitz class , GDR / Poland
Norrkoping class , Sweden
Helsinki class , Finland
Albatros class , Germany

literature

Gino Galuppini: Encyclopedia of Warships , Weltbild Verlag, Augsburg 1995, ISBN 3-89350-828-7
Hans Mehl: Torpedo boats and destroyers , VEB Publishing House for Transport, Berlin 1983
Antony Preston: The World's Worst Warships . Conway Maritime Press, London 2002, ISBN 0-85177-754-6 .