INS Hanit

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Career

Launched:	March 1994
Commissioned:
Decommissioned:
Fate:
Struck:
General Characteristics
Displacement:	1,227 metric tons
Length:	85.64 metres
Beam:	11.88 metres
Draft:	3.17 metres
Propulsion:	combined diesel and gas 2 MTU 12V 1163 TB82 diesel engines GE LM 2500 gas turbine system
Speed:	Maximum 33 knots
Range:	4,000 nautical miles
Complement:	64, including officers and crew (+10 aircrew)
Armament:	8 RGM-84 Harpoon and 8 Gabriel SSN Missiles 2 Barak launchers 20mm Phalanx CIWS Mk.15 2 x Mk 32 torpedo launchers (6 tubes)

The INS Hanit (translated as Spear) is a Sa'ar 5-class missile boat of the Israeli Navy that was built by Northrop Grumman Ship Systems in 1994. On July 14, 2006, it suffered damage after being attacked by Hezbollah, possibly by a C-802 anti-ship missile.

1 Attack on July 14, 2006
- 1.1 Allegations of Iranian and/or Lebanese Army involvement
- 1.2 IDF report
2 See also
3 References

[edit] Attack on July 14, 2006

During the 2006 Israel-Lebanon crisis, the vessel was patrolling in Lebanese waters ten nautical miles off the coast of Beirut. It was damaged on July 14, 2006 on the waterline, under the aft superstructure ^[1]^[2] by a missile (likely a Chinese-designed C-802 or the smaller C-701 Kosar - initially believed to be the former, but quite likely the latter, given that the damage was less severe than initially reported) fired by Hezbollah. Reportedly, the missile started a fire aboard the ship and critically damaged the vessel's steering capability, requiring it to be towed out of the danger zone. A large explosion caused the landing pad to cave in and be engulfed in flames that threatened the aviation fuel storage below, and flames were not fully extinguished until several hours later. After securing the vessel, it was able to make the rest of the journey back to Ashdod for repairs on its own. There were four fatalities amongst the ship's crew. ^[3].

According to the the Israeli Navy, the ship's sophisticated automatic missile defense system was not deployed, even though the early warning system is usually deployed during peace-time wargames. It was also reported that even a nearby ship had deployed its defense system, thus creating great speculations. ^[4]. Israel said the defense system was not deployed because of Israeli aircraft in the area. There was no known intelligence pointing to the fact that such a sophisticated missile was deployed in Lebanon by Hezbollah.

As a result of the incident, two navy officers, two junior officers and the commander of the ship have been formally reprimanded and repositioned to non-commanding positions on land. One of the junior officers had shut down the central radar and parts of the defence system without notifying the commander, in the belief that the ship was not under threat.^[5]

[edit] Allegations of Iranian and/or Lebanese Army involvement

The missiles suspected to have been used in this attack were not previously known to have been in the Hezbollah's inventory. The missile was a C-802 cruise missile, a Chinese-design that was supplied to Iran and may be made under license there. The number of sources Hezbollah would have to acquire such rather advanced technology is rather limited, and thus, albeit from circumstantial evidence only, Iran seems the only likely supplier (both Chinese missiles are known to be operated by Iran in the coastal defense role).^{[citation needed]}

Less probable are claims of Lebanese armed forces involvement in the attack, cited by Israel as the reason for destroying Lebanon's coastal surveillance radar network. All possible missile types that could have been used in the attack are not dependent on such external targeting information, as they keep on course using an inertial guidance system and find their targets via terminal active radar homing. Thus, they are not only fire-and-forget weapons, but require nothing more than a bearing and a rough distance to be launched and hit, both of which could have possibly been acquired using nothing more complicated than binoculars. The issue remains unresolved at present, because the Hanit's precise location at the time of the attack is unknown. The flight profiles of the two missiles employed in the attack (the other sunk a Cambodian cargo ship) do indeed suggest that they were launched without precise targeting information, homing in with their onboard electronics.^{[citation needed]}

The Israeli military believes that Iranian military advisors from the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) had assisted with the firing.^[6]

[edit] IDF report

An IDF report on the Lebanon war incident in which the Hanit Navy ship was struck by an Iranian missile launched by Hezbollah militants reveals that the crew did not act sufficiently in order to anticipate the threat.

The IDF report, which was submitted to Chief of Staff Dan Halutz, said, "as far as the intelligence picture is concerned, it was found that despite the lack of pinpoint information about the weapon in the hands of Hezbollah, there was information in the Navy in the past that could have lead to some type of an assessment that the enemy holds shore-to-ship missiles." In addition, failures were uncovered in "the way the forces understood the operative reality and implemented it." ^[7]