The Project 205 Moskit[1] (mosquito) more commonly known by their NATO reporting name Osa, are a class of missile boats developed for the Soviet Navy in the late 1950s.

Among their other weak points were the wooden hull, the radar set lacking a fire control unit, and an inadequate defensive armament consisting of two manually operated 25 mm guns with only a simple optical sight in a single turret.

The Komars' offensive weapons were a pair of P-15 Termit (NATO: SS-N-2 "Styx") missiles, and there was insufficient capacity to hold the more modern longer-ranged P-15Ms.

In order to remedy all these shortcomings, it was felt that bigger boats were needed to mount the necessary equipment and to provide more space for a larger crew.

The edges of the deck were rounded and smooth to ease washing off radioactive contamination in case of nuclear war.

The problem related to the weak anti-aircraft weaponry of the earlier Project 183R was partially solved with the use of two AK-230 turrets, in the fore and aft deck.

An MR-104 Rys (NATO: "Drum Tilt") fire-control radar was placed in a high platform, and controlled the whole horizon, despite the superstructures that were quite wide but low.

The offensive armament consisted of four P-15 Termit (NATO: SS-N-2 "Styx") missiles, each protected from bad weather conditions inside an enclosing box-shaped launcher.

were equipped with the 9K32 Strela-2 (NATO: SA-N-5 "Grail") surface-to-air missiles in MTU-4 quadruple launchers in an attempt to improve air defence.

[citation needed] The Project 205's hull proved to be very versatile and were used as the basis for a whole series of Soviet fast attack craft and patrol boats.

[7][full citation needed] During the Gulf War, most of the Iraqi Navy was sunk or disabled by Coalition airstrikes, while one Osa-class boat managed to escape to Iran.

The shortcomings that the export Osas had were mainly the low efficiency of their missiles against small and ECM-equipped targets, as seen in the Battle of Latakia.

They finally had a better electronic suite and a 76 mm gun with high rate of fire, along with newer P-270 Moskit and Kh-35 supersonic missiles, AK-630 CIWS, and 'Bass Tilt' radars.