by Nathan Ronen
“I’m sorry, I can’t read English,” he apologized.
“This says that the Israelis will take part in the anti-submarine maneuver right here in our back yard, in the Strait of Hormuz,” Alawi replied. “I want you to send all your forces there in order to seek and destroy their new submarine, the Neptune. If you can’t get it done in the Strait of Hormuz, follow that submarine. They’ll have to surface at some point in order to reload with fresh oxygen, right?”
Admiral Sayyari’s lips curved in a smile. He knew the Israelis were a wily enemy, and therefore extreme caution would be required. If he couldn’t get his hands on the submarine in the Strait of Hormuz, he would wait for it in the Red Sea, where his spy vessel Saviz lay in wait, camouflaged as a merchant ship. On board were miniature submarines equipped with a cutting-edge torpedo made by North Korea, as well as anti-ship cruise missiles modeled after the Yakhont (P-800 Oniks) Russian missiles, developed by Iran.
* * *
34The Mostazafan Foundation of Islamic Revolution, or Foundation of the Oppressed and Disabled, is a charitable Iranian foundation that controls manufacturing and industrial companies, whose profits are used—according to the foundation—to promote “the living standards of the disabled and poor individuals” of Iran. It is closely associated with the Revolutionary Guard.
35Taqiya, meaning ‘prudence’ or ‘fear,’ is one of the concepts of Shiite Islam, which permits a Muslim to dissemble or mislead the enemy. Deception and concealing the truth are allowed in order to protect Islam and Muslim believers from ‘infidels’ who are hostile to Muslims.
36Islamic law.
37Based on authentic statements, as posted on the website of the Middle East Media Research Institute, memri.com.
38Based on authentic statements, as posted on the website of the Middle East Media Research Institute, memri.com.
39The Polisario Front is a rebel national liberation movement aiming to end Moroccan presence in the Western Sahara.
40The Tuareg, meaning ‘those who know the desert,’ are a large Berber ethnic confederation inhabiting the Sahara in a vast area stretching from far southwestern Libya to southern Algeria, Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso. They have been called the “blue people” for the indigo-colored clothes they traditionally wear, and which stain their skin.
41The 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict, also known as Operation Protective Edge, was a military operation launched by Israel in July 2014 in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.
Chapter 30
Naval Drill in the Strait of Hormuz, Gulf of Oman
The naval forces of the United States, Australia, and France were in the midst of their annual routine anti-submarine warfare drill, SHAREM 195,42 in the Persian Gulf. The outline of the exercise consisted of simulating, locating, and tracking enemy submarines in the waters of the Strait of Hormuz, at the entrance to the Persian Gulf. The intent was to unequivocally signal to Iran that the Western superpowers would not allow anyone to block the Strait of Hormuz to international sea travel.
The Iranian threat to cut off access to the strait to the United States’ allies in the gulf was a significant strategic threat. More than ninety percent of oil production and its refined products from Saudi Arabia, the Persian Gulf countries, and Iraq passed through this vital sea lane. The Iranians had threatened to fill the entire strait with naval mines. They planned to make use of hundreds of cruise missiles to target ships stationed in the islands and along their coastlines, as well as oil barges, hoping the United States would first have to handle the threat of missiles targeting ships throughout the Persian Gulf before it could deploy ships to locate and neutralize mines in the Strait of Hormuz. This might take time. The Iranians were clearly striving to raise the price of oil as much as possible, destabilizing all Western economies by sabotaging oil and gas tankers and ultimately breaking the West’s spirit.
It was obvious that Revolutionary Guard vessels would be monitoring the exercise from up close and would even send swift guard ships in order to try and disrupt the exercise and conduct surveillance on the foreign navies that were unwanted there; as far as the Iranians were concerned, they were entering the Persian Gulf, which was entirely an Iranian area of influence.
The American nuclear submarine USS Louisville (SSN-724) was taking part in the exercise; however, the thrilling part for the drill’s participants was the incognito involvement of Israeli Navy Ship (INS) Neptune, the most cutting-edge Israeli submarine recently launched, which was conducting its premiere operational cruise.
The navies of the Western alliance countries preferred to perform a live drill against a diesel-electric submarine, whose conduct resembled those of the new Sina 7-class Iranian attack submarines, which were moored in Bandar Abbas naval base, on the northern Iranian side of the Strait of Hormuz, at the entrance to the Persian Gulf.
The commanders of the American Fifth Fleet stationed in Manama, the capital of the Kingdom of Bahrain, were concerned by the fact that the Iranians were presenting new, sophisticated submarines, capable of firing missiles at other vessels; this came on top of the revelation of additional means of naval warfare, such as a new kind of hovercraft and the Ghadir-class submarines, capable of simultaneously launching sea-to-sea anti-ship missiles and torpedoes.
In a confidential agreement between Sub-Admiral John McCain, commander of American Navy Fifth Fleet Task Force 54, and Colonel Pini (Prosper) Ben-Haroush, commander of Shayetet 7, the Israeli Navy’s submarine fleet, it had been agreed that the Israeli Navy would discreetly join the secret exercise in which American forces would practice pursuing a diesel-electric submarine simulating an enemy submarine.
In addition to the submarine, the naval drill force also included an aircraft carrier and two American destroyers, a French destroyer and an Australian frigate. On the day in which the exercise was scheduled to begin, they were all waiting at the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz, whose width was twenty nautical miles.
Neptune, the longest and largest of the Israeli Navy submarines, entered into a deep dive the moment it cruised past the Bab-el-Mandeb strait and entered the Gulf of Oman. After two days of covert diving, it arrived around noon at the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz. It rose to periscope depth and transmitted to American Task Force 54’s Combat Information Center (CIC) that it was at its assigned location for the beginning of the drill.
The opening code word was transmitted, and the attempts to locate the Israeli Neptune and the American Louisville submarines began. Dozens of sonar operators and ACINT (acoustic intelligence) specialists settled down to search for the submarines’ transients, or passive acoustic signatures, using the sensitive active and passive sonar arrays in their headphones.
From the single runway at American airbase RAFO Thumrait in the Sultanate of Oman in the Persian Gulf, a Lockheed P-3 Orion maritime surveillance plane, also used for anti-submarine warfare, took off, bearing a crew of five magnetic tracking experts, capable of monitoring the noise made by two whales mating deep in the sea.
Simultaneously, a Eurocopter AS565 Panther helicopter, adapted to locate submarines, took off from the French destroyer.
Neptune, under the leadership of Commander Yoni Rittner, rose occasionally to periscope depth, tracking the destroyers searching for it. The spectators stationed on the destroyers’ command bridge, whose roles included identifying such threats, could not spot the edge of the periscope, which was the size of a tin can, above the surface of the water.
The Israeli submarine was practicing collecting intelligence from the destroyers and its surroundings without being discovered. These cat-and-mouse games managed to thoroughly annoy Captain Steven R. Rosen, commander of the USS Stockdale. Even when underwater towed array sonar was deployed by the destroyer, it did not manage to pick up the Neptune’s acoustic signals, or even the trail left behind in the wake of its periscope.
The
relatively small size of the Neptune and its high maneuverability allowed it to rest on the folds of the sandy sea floor, between the crevices, and disappear among them. All attempts to locate the Neptune by the forces tracking it proved fruitless.
Current, cutting-edge warships are equipped with two types of sonar. Active sonar is based on intercepting echoes returning from the body of a submarine in response to pulses of sound transmitted by the ship. Passive sonar arrays are based on intercepting acoustic noise emitted by the submarine on sonar towed by the tracking vessel. These sonar devices easily located the American submarine Louisville, as its nuclear-powered engine necessitated streaming air conditioning to the walls of the reactor, which left behind an acoustic signature that could be rapidly located.
In contrast, the Neptune managed to evade the magnetic observation and location systems on board the Orion aircraft, which was scanning the Strait of Hormuz in a sprinkler pattern back and forth. At the time scheduled in advance for ending the exercise, the Neptune surfaced from its dive, situated precisely between the two American destroyers, and therefore protected from hostile Iranian eyes.
Commander Yoni Rittner addressed Captain Steve Rosen on the comm network. “I’m sure you’re going to smile when you see what I’m sending you,” he said, unapologetic yet appropriately humble.
Captain Rosen’s computer screen was soon displaying a close-up photo of him at an amazing resolution, wearing his green navy battle uniform, standing on the command bridge holding powerful marine binoculars. It was immediately followed by more photos of the two American destroyers, the French frigate, as well as photos of the Iranian guard ships that had tried to disrupt the drill. Steve Rosen smiled to himself in satisfaction. He was actually enjoying Commander Yoni Rittman’s chutzpah.
Once the exercise was over, the INS Neptune continued on its secret mission in the Persian Gulf, collecting intelligence along the Iranian shore and in navy and army facilities.
The debriefing following the maritime drill took place at the Fifth Fleet’s command post in Manama. Tel Aviv HQ sent over the commander of the Israeli submarine fleet’s Shayetet 7, Colonel Ben-Haroush. He thoroughly enjoyed garnering compliments for the Neptune’s excellent performance from the commanders of the Fifth Fleet and the other forces that had taken part in the exercise.
The destroyer commanders had plenty of technical questions, but Ben-Haroush could not answer most of them.
“The only thing I can tell you is that the Israeli Navy’s Shayetet 7 operates several submarines, the most familiar of which are Dolphin and Dolphin AIP,” he explained. “Our new submarines, INS Neptune, manufactured in Germany, feature new, advanced operational capabilities previously unseen in the Middle East.”
Two weeks after the drill, following intensive and productive intelligence work in the Strait of Hormuz, the Neptune began to make its way underwater to its home port in Israel.
A full moon shone over the Gulf of Aden in the southern entrance to Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, meaning ‘the gate of tears’ in Arabic. The straight separates Asia from Africa and links the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden in the Indian Ocean.
Dozens of enormous tankers, each loaded with 200,000 tons of crude oil, as well as merchant ships laden with shipping containers, all made their way through the narrow strait leading north to the Red Sea, on the way to the Suez Canal and to Europe. Simultaneously, convoys of ships were heading south, toward the markets of Asia and Oceania. All this massive traffic filtered into a narrow marine strait, split in two by Perim Island. This funneled the strait into a relatively narrow water channel, approximately fifteen miles wide and no deeper than a thousand feet.
Longtime engine officer Raffi Korabelnik approached submarine commander Rittner, his expression solemn.
“Commander, we have a severe leak going on in the front exhaust valves. It gets worse deep undersea, and we have to surface to stop it. We’ll have to cruise in plain sight on the surface until I can fix the leak.”
Rittner was highly displeased with this exigency. Usually, submarines cruise at a depth of at least 165 feet underwater in order to remain concealed and avoid being hit by passing ships. However, this time, they had no choice. Due to the technical mishap, they had to surface in the midst of a hostile environment.
“This is the shittiest place to surface,” Rittner grumbled to himself. “To have to come up here, of all places?” According to the latest intel, Houthi rebels from Yemen, along with Hezbollah activists, were camping out on Perim Island. As far as he could remember, they had recently attacked two passing Saudi oil tankers.
“But we’re equipped with an active defense system,” Korabelnik tried to soothe him.
“That’s true, but the system is experimental, and hasn’t been tested in real-life conditions against the newest missiles the Iranians have,” Commander Rittner said, employing appropriate caution. “How long do you need to fix the leak?”
“Three hours at most,” the engine officer replied.
“You have an hour!” Rittner decreed.
“Why don’t we veer away a bit from Perim Island and the ships’ route, and do it closer to the coast of Djibouti? Would that be safer?” the navigation and communication officer suggested.
Rittner gazed in concern at the large Command & Control screen, displaying the navigation map. In the straits, close to the coast of Djibouti, were seven small islands adjacent to the shore, indicating dozens of underwater sandbanks.
“I don’t like that. I think it’s more dangerous,” he said.
The navigation and communication officer nodded in agreement.
At sea, there was no room for error. Any collision with an underwater sandbank would almost certainly lead to water flooding the submarine. The commander had immense responsibility over himself and the fifty staff members under his command. He was also afraid that any collision with an object underwater would mean rising to the surface in an uncontrolled manner, which might lead to hitting the bottom of a passing ship.
The alternatives were bad, and submarine commander Rittner decided to authorize the lesser evil and allow the engine officer to rise to the surface and submerge again immediately once the repairs were completed until they entered the Gulf of Eilat.
The piloting center operator, who sat facing the bow, pulled the wheel in order to surface. The screen in front of him filled up with numbers and coordinates specifying the orientation of motion in the water.
The commander, sitting in the technical center, tracked the piloting station before looking over to the command and control station, which was staffed by two operators attentively watching the monitors, menus, and buttons that allowed them to control the engine, the mechanical systems, and the submarine’s weight and balance.
“Rise to periscope depth,” Rittner commanded.
The submarine began to float up slowly. The engine officer called out their depth every thirty feet until they reached periscope depth, about fifty feet under the surface of the water. Commander Rittner walked over to the periscope to examine what was happening on the surface of the water in the busiest sea lane in the world.
The sea was quiet. The silver band of moonlight on the water emphasized the intimidating silhouette of rocky Perim Island about two miles away from the submarine, an island that should have been uninhabited. He zoomed in with the periscope lens; no lights were visible on the island. Seemingly, everything was safe. He hoped that if there were indeed enemy forces on the island they would not recognize him. The profile of a small diesel submarine was not as prominent as a giant tanker. However, his heart did not bode well.
He was not aware of being followed from a distance by the Iranian spy vessel Saviz.
Rittner’s mind processed the pros and cons and he decided to take the chance.
“Let’s surface,” he commanded.
The submarine’s tanks were emptied, and it floated to the surface.
“Bridge Commander, open the upper chamber hatch,” Rittner commanded. The officer on duty unlocked the airlock pulley opening the metal dome leading up to the bridge chamber head, near the edge of the submarine’s upper fin.
Rittner addressed the navigation and communication officer, instructing, “Contact the Navy HQ Command and Control Center via HF43 and convey our location and the fact that we’re rising to surface since our submarine has a sealing malfunction that has to be repaired.”
“On it,” the navigation and communication officer replied succinctly, heading for the comm center.
Rittner climbed the ladder to the bridge, holding Steiner Commander marine binoculars. He was followed by a lookout who stood beside him, scanning the sea, particularly the routes of the massive ULCC oil tankers sailing a short distance away from them at a speed of twenty-five knots. The Neptune’s commander raised the binoculars to his eyes and looked in concern at the island of Perim, sprawling out to his right. The island appeared dark and abandoned to him.
From a recent intelligence dispatch, he remembered that this was precisely the location where the Saudi oil tanker had been attacked at the beginning of the year.
Rittner knew the missile that had hit the Saudi tanker was called Al Mandab-1 and was in fact a variation on the Chinese C-802 coast-to-sea missile, licensed to be manufactured in Iran. The missile was constructed in Yemen by Hezbollah experts who had come from Lebanon, since they spoke Arabic, while the Iranian specialists did not. An informer had updated French sources that Hezbollah operatives were, in fact, present at the coast-to-sea missile batteries, and were tasked with launching them during any operational activity dictated by the Iranians, due to the Houthi rebels’ operational inadequacy.
