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Israel
Navy
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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