Non-Subscriber Extract
Maritime threat: tactics and technology of the Sea Tigers
- Article Tools
12 May 2006
Maritime threat: tactics and technology of the Sea Tigers
By Martin Murphy
In terms of the overall success of the LTTE, the Sea Tigers' logistics fleet is the most important part of its armoury. It operates two classes of vessels: a fleet of around 11 ocean-going freighters and fast-moving coastal transit boats. Ships from the ocean-going fleet rendezvous with the fast coastal transit boats about 200 km off the northeast coast of the island.
The Sea Tigers have also adapted a wide range of craft for suicide missions. They have used SBS-type Arrows, torpedo riders of Second World War design and speed racing style boats. For missions further out to sea, they have used logistics craft, modified FGB-type craft and even fishing trawlers. They have also developed a small, fast-attack craft coated with angular panels, which, Jane's sources have suggested, might be a crude attempt at stealth technology. In 2001, some analysts posited that the design for this craft originated in North Korea, but this theory has now been discounted.
The number of crew members and armament types used in a suicide attack varies from mission to mission. Initially, the Sea Tigers' suicide craft had a crew of two to ensure that the mission could not be terminated by killing a single operator. More recently, they have carried a crew of three to reduce this possibility further. The power plants consist of between one and three 200-250 horsepower outboard motors and some craft are equipped with radar. These specially designed craft are generally used only in shallow water, as they are unstable. They can be turned over if caught in a boat's wake, a weakness the SLN can exploit by zig-zagging their boats. Like the attack craft, they normally attack in groups of three under the direction of a command craft. When attacking singly, they depend on deception.
The principal problem for the defenders in both cases is that these specialised suicide craft lie low in the water and are therefore hard to detect. However, once detected they can be destroyed quite easily if the defenders have enough time and maintain their discipline, waiting to strike until they are at close enough range to ensure that the attacking craft's explosive load will be detonated. To defend against this, the Sea Tigers have armoured some of their suicide craft. If the rebels' objective is to ram their target, they fit the craft with five or six impact detonator 'horns' on the bow adapted from truck shock absorbers. In other cases, they have been equipped with self-activating triggers or fitted with improvised claymore mines between the inner and outer hulls and explosively formed projectiles at the bow.
433 of 3,662 words