Battle of Latakia

Battle of Latakia
Part of the Yom Kippur War
Diagram outlining the Battle of Latakia
Date 7 October 1973 Location near Latakia, Syria Result Decisive Israeli victory
Belligerents
Israel	Syria
Commanders and leaders
Michael Barkai	unknown
Strength
6 ships	5 ships
Casualties and losses
None	All vessels sunk Unknown killed

The Battle of Latakia (Arabic: معركة اللاذقية; Hebrew: קרב לטקיה) was a small but revolutionary naval battle of the Yom Kippur War, fought on 7 October 1973, between Israel and Syria. It was the first naval battle in history to see combat between surface-to-surface missile-equipped missile boats and the use of electronic deception.

At the outset of hostilities, the Israeli Navy set out to destroy the naval capabilities of the Syrians, who were equipped with 3 modern Soviet Komar and Osa class missile boats. The Syrian missile-boats were equipped with Russian manufactured P-15 Termit (NATO reporting name: SS-N-2 Styx) missiles with twice the range of the Israeli Gabriel missiles. The 6 Israeli Navy Sa'ar 3-class missile boats charged towards the Syrian ships employing electronic countermeasures and chaff rockets to avoid being hit by Syrian missiles until they reached the range of their own missiles. The Israelis then fired Gabriel missiles and sunk their enemies. The Syrian Navy remained bottled up in its home ports for the rest of the war.

While the Battle of Latakia was the first naval battle in history between missile boats, it was not the first incident in which a missile boat sank another ship using missiles. That had happened when one Egyptian Soviet-built Komar class fast attack craft sank the British-built Israeli destroyer Eilat on 20 October 1967, shortly after the Six Day War, using two to four P-15 Termit (NATO reporting name: SS-N-2 Styx) surface-to-surface missiles.

External links

• Jewish Virtual Library battle of Latakia page