Anti-ship missile
Further products were to follow, and they were soon loaded onto the Soviet Air Force's Tu-95 Bear and Tu-22 Blinder bombers, in the case of the air-launched KS-1 Komet.
In the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 the Indian Navy conducted two raids using Osa-class missile boats employing the Styx on the Pakistani naval base at Karachi.
In this battle, the Israeli Navy destroyed Syrian warships without suffering any damage, using electronic countermeasures and ruses for defense.
After defeating the Syrian Navy the Israeli missile boats also sank a number of Egyptian warships, again without suffering any damage in return, thus achieving total naval supremacy for the rest of the war.
The British warship HMS Sheffield, a Type 42 destroyer, was struck by a single air-launched Exocet and later sank as a result of the damage.
In 1987, a US Navy guided-missile frigate, USS Stark, was hit by an Exocet anti-ship missile fired by an Iraqi Mirage F-1 fighter plane.
During this naval battle, several Iranian warships were hit by American AShMs (and by the US Navy's Standard missiles—surface-to-air missiles which were doing double-duty in the anti-ship role).
On 13 April 2022, the Ukrainian government claimed to have hit the Russian cruiser Moskva with two R-360 Neptune missiles, resulting in its sinking.
[6] If Ukrainian claims are true, Moskva might be the largest warship ever disabled or destroyed by a missile, according to Carl Schuster, a retired US Navy captain and former director of operations at the US Pacific Command's Joint Intelligence Center.
[7] Anti-ship missiles are a significant threat to surface ships, which have large radar, radio, and thermal signatures that are difficult to suppress.
Modern navies have spent much time and effort developing counters to the threat of anti-ship missiles since the Second World War.
Anti-ship missiles have been the driving force behind many aspects of modern ship design, especially in navies that operate aircraft carriers.
In addition, many modern warships operate independently of carrier-based air protection and they must provide their own defenses against missiles and aircraft.
To counter these defense systems, countries such as Russia are developing or deploying missiles that slowly cruise at a very low level (about five meters above sea level) to within a short range of their target and then, at the point when radar detection becomes inevitable, initiate a supersonic, high-agility sprint (potentially with anti-aircraft missile detection and evasion) to close the terminal distance.
[8] Recent years have seen a growing amount of attention being paid to the possibility of ballistic missiles being re-purposed or designed for an anti-ship role.
Countermeasures against anti-ship missiles include Ships that employ some stealth technology can reduce the risk of detection and make themselves a harder target for the missile through the use of passive countermeasures including: On February 25, 1991, during the first Gulf War, the Phalanx-equipped USS Jarrett was a few miles from USS Missouri and the destroyer HMS Gloucester.
The Phalanx system on Jarrett, operating in the automatic target-acquisition mode, fixed upon Missouri's chaff, releasing a burst of rounds.
[22][23] On Jan. 9, at approximately 9:15 p.m. (Sanaa time), Iranian-backed Houthis launched a complex attack of Iranian designed one-way attack UAVs (OWA UAVs), anti-ship cruise missiles, and an anti-ship ballistic missile from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen into the Southern Red Sea, towards international shipping lanes where dozens of merchant vessels were transiting.
[26] On 30 January 2024, USS Gravely used its Phalanx CIWS to shoot down an incoming anti-ship cruise missile fired by the Houthis.
[28] On February 6, 2024 at 4:30 p.m., while patrolling in the Gulf of Aden, USS Laboon (DDG 58), operating near M/V Star Nasia, intercepted and shot down an anti-ship ballistic missile fired by the Iranian-backed Houthis.
