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Inexplicably, the Saar 5 has only one Phalanx CIWS........and it is mounted on the bow leaving the stern totally unprotected by Phalanx. The missile struck the stern. .........Depending on how close to shore the ship was when it was hit, the vertically launched Barak system may not have had enough lead time to engage. .................In any war, all services want a piece of the action. Be that as it may, sending a high value naval squadron to shell land targets that could be hit by air power is not a wise use of high value resources. Naval surface warfare does best against other surface warfare forces in a blue water environment and does poorly against land based air power and land based missiles that operate from what is, in effect, a giant, unsinkable carrier..............Polybius

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This vessel cannot bombard the shore...it was there precisely to protect the ships that were bombarding the shore from this very threat.

Which is why I worded my reply "sending a high value naval squadron to shell land targets..."

One of the Israeli Navy's most high value assets was put at high risk in order to have gunboats lob 76 mm shells at land targets that could easily be targeted by the IAF at very little risk.

The entire squadron was in the wrong place, performing the wrong mission in a threat environment that the Saar 5 was ill-equipped to handle. As a result, the benefit to risk ratio was heavily lopsided against Israel.

The one CIWS is similar to our FFGs, which also only have one.

Our FFG's, however, are not called upon to provide the role of sole air defense against land based threats that U.S. Navy battle doctrine even keeps carrier battle groups well away from when at all possible.

The idea is for the missiles to engage first and give time for the vessel to position itself to use the CIWS.

However, if you are close enough to shore to be lobbing 76 mm spitballs and hitting your land targets, you are way too close to the land-based missile threat to expect such a maneuver to be effective.

If the missile is fired form too close...or if it comes in too low without adequate warning from other assets (AEW, AWACS, other vessels, etc.) then they do not have time to do either. That looks to be what happened here.

It certainly does.

Given the short range of the IDF gunboats batteries, the vessel had to be fairly close in to protect them...it appears it was too close. This is a huge naval event with far reaching ramifications. Both sides will be studying and learning from it.

The lessons were learned long ago when the HMS Prince of Wales and the HMS Repulse became artificial reefs in 1941 courtesy of Japanese land based air power and during the Okinawa invasion in 1945 when the U.S. fleet suffered thirty-six ships lost and 368 ships damaged to Japanese land-based air power.

The lesson is that you do not put high value surface warfare assets within the range of land based air power or land based missile offensive capabilities unless you have no other choice and are willing to suffer significant damage.

Forcing the Straights of Hormuz or defending an invasion beachhead are valid reasons for putting your high value surface warfare assets at such risk.

Lobbing 76mm spitballs at ground targets that could easily be pulverized by a few IAF sorties is not a valid reason for putting your high value surface warfare assets at such risk.