At noon on 25 December 2007, the Tamil Tigers Navy (hereinafter referred to as the "Sea Tigers") broke out in the waters near delft Island (then controlled by the Tigers) in the indian Ocean island nation of Delft (then controlled by the Tigers) in the indian Ocean island nation, in order to tear up the sea blockade of government forces and open the route for a convoy smuggling arms and materiel from India to Sri Lanka.
Since the outbreak of the Sri Lankan civil war in August 2006, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (hereinafter referred to as the "LTTE") have suffered successive military defeats. Although the total number of the organization increased from 25,000 to about 30,000 through mobilization in the occupied territories, the number of armed personnel at the core fell from 11,000 in 2005 to 7,000 in 2007.
In January 2007, lt lt. Tigers lost the eastern stronghold of Vakaray, and by July of that year, the entire eastern region had fallen into the hands of government forces. Successive defeats not only shrunk the territory, but also caused the LTTE materials to begin to fall into a dilemma. In order to get out of the predicament, the "LTTE" increased its fundraising efforts abroad and purchased a large number of arms, food and necessary materials through various channels (some sources say that the "LTTE" only hoarded thousands of tons of materials in the Tamil areas of India), but because the Slovak government forces have tightly sealed the coastline of the "TIGER" control area, these materials have not been able to reach the territory of the "TIGER". By the end of 2007, the grim situation had forced the LTTE to take the plunge, and it was strictly ordered that its sea power, the "Sea Tiger" (hereinafter referred to as the "Sea Tiger"), must break through the blockade of the Sri Lankan Navy and transport these materials to its own control area as soon as possible.
It is no exaggeration to say that this transport mission is of paramount importance to the ALTE.
The Sea Tiger assault boat fleet in the later stages of the war
The "Sea Tiger" suffered a lot of losses in the previous naval battles, not only losing a lot of "human bombs" with excellent technology and will, but also greatly affecting the morale and morale of the entire unit.
Here is a little introduction, and most people think that the "Sea Tiger" to supplement the "human bomb" to operate the self-detonation boat is not as easy as the Japanese "kamikaze" during World War II. First of all, this is a bit of a difficult technical job, not to find a "cannon fodder" on the street, and then brainwash to get into battle. At least a considerable cultural background is required, after brainwashing, and then training in driving a speedboat, but also to conduct exercises on the undulating sea, manipulating a speed of more than thirty or forty knots to simulate avoiding the dense firepower of the other side, and then crashing into the enemy's key points and ending up with the target, the entire training process of this "human bomb" takes several months or even a year.
Early Sea Tiger self-detonating boats
Little Japan was a modernized country that had completed industrialization, and it was relatively easy to strengthen the training of a large number of "human bombs" in a short period of time, while for an agricultural country like Sri Lanka, it was very difficult to cultivate such technical talents with certain manipulation techniques, firm will, and good psychological qualities, while the control area of the "Tiger" organization was smaller and had fewer resources, and it was not an ordinary difficulty to train "human bombs."
In order to improve the efficiency of the "human bomb", the "Sea Tiger" adopts the "elite route", first selecting a group of candidates from among the candidates to serve on the attack boat, and then selecting the daredevils from them to serve as "human bombs". This method ensured a high exchange ratio between the "Sea Tiger" self-detonation boat and the Sri Lankan warship in the early stage of the war, but as the Slovak Navy learned lessons, the attack efficiency of the self-detonation boat continued to decline, and after the re-outbreak of the civil war, there was no victory worth mentioning.
Under the double huge pressure of the gradual deterioration of the war situation and the leadership, the "Sea Tiger" could only accelerate the speed of selecting "human bombs" to supplement the previous losses, and at the same time, the "Sea Tiger" also increased the armor plate in the key parts in view of the shortcomings of the previous self-detonating boats that were easier to explode in battle, and at the same time increased the tail hang-up of the speedboat, so that the maneuverability did not drop too much in the case of increased protection.
The "Sea Tiger" fire boat, its tail has a number of high-power engines, its speed is quite amazing
The Sea Tiger uses a high-speed self-detonating speedboat with a fuse under the bow that detonates the ship's explosives, and a small radar and a 12.7 mm machine gun on board
For the choice of battlefield, the "Sea Tiger" also made a careful selection, selected in the northern Baoke Strait in the delft island. Surrounded by white sand and coral, this beautiful island is about 8 km long, has a maximum width of about 6 km, an area of 47.17 km², and a coastline of 29.9 km in an irregular oval shape. The island's terrain is flat, with about 4,000 inhabitants mostly Tamils, dense vegetation for concealment, and coral reefs on all sides, making it easy for ships unfamiliar with the local conditions to enter the sea.
The red arrow refers to the island of Delft
But the weakness of the island is also obvious, because it is too far away from the Jafna Peninsula, the old nest of the "tigers", and the small area, once a large force is stationed on the island, it is easy to be blockaded and cut off into a desperate situation. Therefore, for a long time, the "Sea Tiger" has only used the island as a transit point for a small number of personnel and materials on the main islands of India and Sri Lanka for most of the time, and has not set up heavy troops here. The Slovak Navy also carried out general surveillance of the island and did not keep a tight seal. The Sea Tiger was determined to be unusual this time, taking advantage of the island's easy concealment and lack of attention to secretly assemble the fleet here. Then wait for the opportunity to attack the unsuspecting Slovak naval ships.
First of all, after doing so much preparation, the Sea Tigers and even the Ltteco Tigers were full of confidence in this battle, looking forward to turning things around in one fell swoop as before. In December 2007, through the means of ant moving and other means, the "Tiger" painstakingly cobbled together a batch of ships to prepare to transport the supplies to the "Tiger" control area of Si Island.
Naturally, this kind of large-scale operation is difficult to hide, and the Sri Lankan government has repeatedly lodged representations with the Indian side, demanding that it immediately seize the batch of materials, and at the same time stepped up patrols in the Palk Strait. Forced by the strong protests of the Sri Lankan side and the pressure of the international community (at that time, the "LTTE" organization was already recognized as a terrorist organization internationally, and India was no longer able to shield the organization as before), it had to step up the search and arrest operation in the Tamil settlement, resulting in many "LTTE" personnel being arrested or fleeing, and some supplies and even ships were seized.
The situation was pressing, and the Tiger finally decided to go to sea on Christmas Day to transport supplies to Jaffna. So on the morning of 25 December 2007, the "Tiger" fleet full of supplies left the port of the Tamil settlement in pairs and then gradually converged in the open sea into a fleet of 140 fishing boats and various types of motorized boats.
The massive fleet of ships quickly attracted the attention of the Sri Lankan military, which remained vigilant although it was a holiday. Upon discovering that a large number of vessels were moving from the Indian coastline towards the island, the Slovak Navy immediately mobilized a fleet of boats patrolling the Palk Strait to check the situation and intercept ships trying to enter Slovak territorial waters.
The fleet consisted of 12 gunboats and patrol boats, the flagship of which was a domestically produced Type 62 gunboat known as the "Sea Tiger" (actually collided with the nickname of the "Sea Tiger"), surrounded by six "Poison Bee" class speedboats made of (color column) and 5 armed speedboats equipped with 12.7 mm heavy machine guns.
The Type 62 gunboats of the Sri Lankan Navy, the superstructure and the Type 062 gunboats used by China are significantly different
The Type 62 frigate was the capital ship of the Sri Lankan Navy at that time, a total of six were imported from China, and the difference between the Chinese self-use type was that the Type 62 purchased by the Sri Lankan Navy increased the superstructure, improved the living performance, and replaced the Type 61 twin 37 mm machine gun that could only be manually controlled with two Type 76 twin 37 mm machine guns that could be operated by optical fire control remote control. The secondary gun replaced the twin 25 mm machine gun with a twin 14.5 mm heavy machine gun, because the former was lighter, more convenient to operate and more stocked than the latter, making it more suitable for continuous combat.
Six Type 62 frigates were active in the Sri Lankan Navy, but during the Sea Tigers' suicide raid on the Trincomalee Naval Base on April 19, 1995, the Type 62 frigates "Suraya" and "Lana Sulu" were sunk on the spot, and the "Lahsaka" was severely damaged (after repairs, it was barely held out for another year, and finally had to be scrapped the following year), which directly led to the temporary scrapping of the Sri Lankan Navy by half, but even so, The remaining three Type 62 frigates remain the absolute workhorse of the Sri Lankan Navy.
However, when the fleet sailed at high speed to the waters near Delft Island, that is, at 12:45 noon that day, the 14 attack speedboats and self-detonating boats hidden here by the Sea Tiger immediately attacked and pounced on the government naval formation at high speed.
It should be said that this raid was indeed unexpected by the Navy, when the attack boat of the "Sea Tiger" poured into the 2 "Poisonous Bee" speedboats behind the palace of the government fleet with fierce fire, the Slovak army found that the "Sea Tiger" had hidden such a large force on delft Island! The government speedboats rushed to battle, and before they could form a defensive formation, the attack boats of the "Sea Tiger" had already broken through the fire net, separating the 2 "poisonous bee" speedboats from the main force, and then the self-detonating boats moved at high speed to the 2 speedboats, and the attack boats isolated the 2 speedboats on the one hand, and on the other hand, they blocked and shot at the main force of the Si ships with firepower, creating fighters for the self-detonating boats.
The Sri Lankan Navy's Israeli-made Poison Bee-class patrol boat
The two "Poisonous Bee" speedboats returned fire on the "Sea Tiger" group with fierce machine gun and machine gun fire, and for a time the sea was raining down. The "Sea Tigers" came prepared, and the strong noon sun greatly reduced the operational effectiveness of the optical sights of the ship's firearms. At the same time, the key parts of the armored speedboats that strengthened the defense had a strong resistance to small-caliber firearms of 20 mm and below, although the 20 mm machine guns of the "poisonous bee" repeatedly hit the opponent's self-detonating boats and attack boats in the battle, but none of them were destroyed.
In the fierce battle, a "poison bee" boat was quickly surrounded by 2 self-detonating boats, although the speedboat did not rely on high-speed maneuvering to be hit by the self-detonation boat, but the "Sea Tiger" personnel on the 2 self-detonating boats detonated the explosives on the boat at close range, accompanied by strong light and violent explosions, the speedboat with the hull number "P-413" was immediately severely damaged by the powerful shock wave of the explosion, the superstructure of the deck was almost swept away, all 12 crew members were killed, and the whole boat also floated on the sea like a dead fish.
After the loss of combat effectiveness of this "poisonous bee", the situation of another "poisonous bee" was even more isolated, and when the "sea tigers" rushed up and were about to destroy another "poisonous bee" speedboat, the Type 62 escort boat, which was the flagship of the formation, had turned to lead other speedboats to reinforce. Its 37 mm main gun began to shoot at a distance of more than 1,000 meters, although it failed to hit the target on the undulating sea, but the powerful fire forced the "sea tigers" to operate their boats to avoid the gunfire, and their formation was chaotic, and the "poisonous bee", which had almost been completely surrounded, took this opportunity to take advantage of a gap in the opponent's encirclement circle to escape. Although he was beaten and bullet-scarred, he finally retreated.
After covering the breakthrough of their own speedboats, the Type 62 escort boat immediately crossed over and fired fiercely at the "Sea Tiger" with full-side fire. The attack boats and self-detonating boats of the "Sea Tiger" saw that they had an opportunity to take advantage of the situation, and immediately rushed to the 62 boats in an attempt to expand the results of the battle.
The 62nd boat maintained a safe distance from the enemy boat with high-speed maneuvering, and on the other hand concentrated its firepower on attacking the opposing command boat, destroying the chain of command of the "Sea Tiger", and at the same time directing the remaining speedboats to attack the "Sea Tiger" group from the flank. The Type 62 gunboat formed a dense network of fire with a 37 mm main gun and a 14.5 mm machine gun, and soon hit a "Sea Tiger" attack boat rushing to the front continuously.
However, this attack boat is a government speedboat captured in the battle before the "Sea Tiger", its power is relatively large, the protection performance is better, its cockpit, engine compartment and other key parts are installed with 50 mm steel plates, and a number of Japanese "Yamaha" hanging machines are installed behind the boat to maintain its mobility. Actual combat has shown that 20 mm machine shells are helpless against this protection.
But this time it was unfortunate that it encountered 62 boats, and the power of the 37 mm machine shell was comparable to that of the 20 mm shell? Shells continued through the armor plate of the Sea Tiger, and then a twin 23 mm machine gun in the bow gun position flew along with the gunner's gun on it; Then another shell viciously penetrated the cockpit protected by armor plates, beating everyone inside into a bloody mess. The "Sea Tiger" boat lost control on the spot and was paralyzed on the surface of the sea. The 62 boats concentrated their fire on the waterline continuously, and finally sank the "Sea Tiger", and none of the personnel on it survived.
Twin-mounted 23 mm machine gun
This "Sea Tiger" was obviously the command boat of other "Sea Tiger", and after its sinking, the other "Sea Tiger" suddenly fell into chaos, and a group of speedboats turned around and retreated to the waters controlled by the LTTE in the Nachikuda area south of Delft, and the rest were still hesitant to continue to attack the Slovak warship formation. At this time, the 62 boats immediately issued a signal, demanding that the "poisonous bee" fleet immediately cut off the "sea tiger" to escape back to Delft Island or Jaffna. Immediately, the "Poisonous Bee" boat group quickly used a pincer attack to capture the three attack boats that tried to cover the retreat of the "Sea Tiger" brigade, and concentrated their fire to sink them one by one.
Towards the end of the battle, the Sri Lankan Air Force's Israeli-made "Cub" fighter-bomber and Russian-made Mi-35 attack helicopter also joined the battle, and the aviation forced and strafed the remnants of the "Sea Tiger" that fled to the Jaffna Peninsula, forcing the panicked "Sea Tiger" to flee to Delft Island, although relying on the anti-aircraft fire on the island to avoid a disaster, but due to the lack of conditions on the island to repair and maintain the speedboats, these wounded attack boats and self-detonating boats can no longer be put into battle. And the boat's operators are also trapped on the island, which makes the Already stretched manpower of the Sea Tiger even more strained.
Sri Lanka Air Force "Cub" fighter
Sri Lanka Air Force Mi-35 helicopter
The unfinished Sea Tiger speedboat
At 14:30, the battle was over, and the Slovak army sank 4 attack boats of the Sea Tiger at the cost of losing 1 Poison Bee class speedboat, slightly wounding 1 and killing 12 people, killing about 40 Sea Tiger members and thwarting the sea tiger's transport operation. The Tigers admitted to losing only 2 self-detonating boats and 4 members.
But no matter how much the "tigers" denied their losses, there was no doubt that the Slovak navy won the naval battle, which not only severely damaged the "sea tigers", but also made the "tiger" organization's carefully planned material transportation operation completely fail, and hundreds of ships had to throw all the supplies into the sea and retreat back to India.
This failure severely injured the Tigers and Sea Tigers, who were no longer able to organize large-scale naval battles and relied on frogmen carrying suicide bombers to sneak attacks on Sri Lankan naval ships.
It was the victory in this naval battle that greatly strengthened the determination of the Slovak government to annihilate the "tigers". Just about a week after the end of the naval battle, on January 2, 2008, the Sri Lankan government cabinet unanimously voted to abrogate the ceasefire agreement with the LTTE, and the 24-year-long Sri Lankan civil war finally reached its final showdown. Under the tutelage of the military advisory groups of the eastern powers, the Sri Lankan government army became more and more courageous in the Vietnam War, winning successive battles, and finally the "LTTE" was on the road to extinction.