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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Israel
Index
By far the smallest arm of the IDF, the navy in 1987 consisted
of about 1,000 officers and 8,000 enlisted personnel, including
3,200 conscripts. An additional 1,000 reserve personnel would be
available on mobilization. Long neglected, the navy won acclaim for
its successful engagements with the Syrian and Egyptian navies
during the October 1973 War, when it sank eight Arab missile boats
without the loss of a single Israeli vessel. The Soviet Union
replaced Syria's wartime losses and provided an additional nine
missile boats. The Egyptian fleet also introduced new and more
advanced equipment after the 1973 conflict. With more than 140
units as of 1988, the Egyptian fleet was larger than that of
Israel. Nevertheless, foreign observers believed that the balance
of naval power still rested with Israel because of its
technological and tactical superiority.
During the 1980s, sea infiltration by PLO terrorists presented
the most immediate naval threat. With few exceptions the navy
succeeded in thwarting such attacks, using missile boats to detect
mother ships on the high seas, fast patrol craft for inshore
patrolling, and offshore patrol aircraft for visual or radar
detection of hostile activity. Nevertheless, Israeli defense
planners accorded the navy the lowest priority among the IDF's
three arms and, although it had been expanded, some Israeli defense
experts warned that modernization was lagging behind that of the
navies of the Arab states.
Although reduced in scope from earlier plans, a modernization
program for the navy approved in 1988 included the acquisition of
three Saar 5-class corvettes to be built in the United States and
three Dolphin-class diesel submarines to be built in West Germany,
and the upgrading of existing patrol boats. The 1,000-ton Saar 5s,
which would be the most potent surface vessels in the fleet, would
each be equipped with Harpoon and Gabriel missiles, as well as a
helicopter. They would considerably enhance the navy's range and
offensive capability.
In 1988 the fleet contained approximately seventy combat
vessels, including three submarines, three missile-armed
hydrofoils, twenty-two fast attack craft equipped with
Israeli-built Gabriel missiles, and thirty-two coastal patrol boats
(see
table 13, Appendix A). In assembling its fleet, the navy had
shunned large vessels, preferring small ships with high firepower,
speed, and maneuverability. The Reshef-class fast attack craft, the
heart of the Israeli fleet, had a range of about 2,400 kilometers.
The fleet operated in two unconnected bodies of water--on the
Mediterranean Sea, where major naval ports were located at Haifa
and Ashdod, and on the Gulf of Aqaba, with a naval facility at
Elat. The first Reshefs were stationed in the Red Sea but were
redeployed to the Mediterranean, via the Cape of Good Hope, after
the return of the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt. As of 1988, the naval
units protecting shipping on the Gulf of Aqaba were primarily
Dabur-class coastal patrol boats.
The navy had not established a marine corps, although it had
created an elite unit of about 300 underwater commandos who had
proved to be highly successful in amphibious assault and sabotage
operations. Its naval air arm was limited to maritime
reconnaissance conducted with Israeli-produced Seascan aircraft and
rescue and surveillance missions performed with Bell helicopters.
With a moderate number of landing craft, Israel could deliver small
forces of troops and armored equipment for beach landings in the
eastern Mediterranean. This capability was demonstrated in June
1982, when these amphibious units successfully landed an assault
force of tanks, armored personnel carriers, engineering equipment,
and paratroops behind PLO positions near Sidon on the Lebanese
coast.
Data as of December 1988
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