Israel Shipyards Begin Construction of Reshef-class Corvettes

The Ministry of Defense, the Israeli Navy, and Israel Shipyards marked on February 18, 2025 the beginning of the production process for the Reshef-class ships (corvettes) in a traditional “steel cutting” ceremony, signaling the start of the manufacturing of five advanced warships. The event was attended by Acting Director General of the Ministry of Defense Itamar Graf, Commander of the Israeli Navy Vice Admiral David Saar Salama, Deputy Director General and Head of the Defense Procurement Directorate (DOPP) Ze’ev Landau, Head of the Finance Division at the Ministry of Defense CPA Dekel Cohen, owners of Israel Shipyards Industries Shlomi Fogel, Assi Shmeltzer, and Sami Katzav, CEO of Israel Shipyards Eitan Zucker, and other senior officials. As part of the deal, led by the outgoing Director General of the Ministry of Defense, Maj. Gen. (Res.) Eyal Zamir, Israel Shipyards will provide the Navy with five advanced “Reshef”-class ships at a cost of approximately NIS 2.8B ($780M). The new ships are expected to replace the old “Saar” (Sa’ar 4.5 or else Nirit Class) vessels, which will be retired after nearly four decades of service. My story for Naval News, here.

Israel Launches Reshef-class Corvette Program

Israel's Ministry of Defense today inked the contract to start the Reshef-class corvette program. Five vessels are being procured for the Israeli Navy. They will be built locally by Israel Shipyards but some hull modules will be fabricated overseas by a U.S. shipbuilder. After more than 20 years, the Israeli Ministry of Defense and the IDF are resuming the production of combat ships in Israel. Today, December 12, 2024, the Director General of the Ministry of Defense, Maj. Gen. (ret.) Eyal Zamir, signed the “Reshef” deal in a small ceremony at HaKirya, Tel Aviv, attended by the Navy Commander, Maj. Gen. David Salama, Deputy Director General and Head of the Defense Procurement Directorate (DOPP), Zeev Landau, Head of the Planning and Force-Build-up Directorate of the IDF, Maj. Gen. Eyal Harel, Chairman of Israel Shipyards, Sami Katsav, CEO of Israel Shipyards, Eitan Zucker, Head of the Finance Division, CPA Dekel Cohen, and other senior officials. M ystory for Naval News, here.

INFOGRAPHICS #43: Future Surface Combatants Vol. I (Type 26, MMSC SA, Sa'ar 6-class)

Written by D-Mitch

In this post, I include some of the infographics I made and published on social media, about new surface combatants that are under construction and about to enter service in the near future.

 

1. City-class (Type 26) frigate of the Royal Navy (8 ships) 

Type 26 - City class frigate of the Royal Navy. High resolution image here.

Unidentified systems on warships

Written by D-Mitch  

In this short article I will include all those tweets where I asked for help in order to identify weapon systems or sensors on various warships. Those systems have not been identified yet.If you know the systems I would be grateful.

1. Launchers on an Israeli Navy Sa'ar 4.5 class FACM? 

Unidentified boxy launchers amidships

Unidentified launchers on a Sa'ar 4.5

The following photos were taken on May 29, 2017 and were posted for the first time by the user Eugene 5110 at forums.airbase.ru. Some people identified those boxes on an Israeli fast attack missile boat (FACM) as Spyder, Iron Dome or Spike (NLOS) launchers. Another person suggested that it was a Green Dragon loitering missile/munition. Indeed, the launching system looks similar to that. Others proposed different kind of systems. The tweet and the comments are at this link. Do YOU know the system?

Sa'ar 4.5 (Hetz) class fast attack craft of the Israeli Navy

Written by D-Mitch
 

Sa'r 4.5 class fast attack missile craft (FACM), the powerful
naval protectors of Israel. Photo by Ofek Ron-Carmel

When we talk about Israeli vessels, aircraft or any kind of military platform, we expect a variety of sensors and antennas, of which the majority of them have usually an unknown to the general audience purpose. This is exactly the case for the naval class which is analyzed in this article where its sensors related to electronic countermeasures, are reported mainly based on my experience and also on my judgement according to the producers' product descriptions. I must admit this article was not easy at all; an article which I started writing about a year ago and reached over than 35 pages... It was worth it though as I believe I managed to write the most complete article about the class online. The Israeli naval class which is analyzed in this article is the Sa'ar 4.5 class or else Hetz class of fast attack missile craft (FACM); the backbone of the modern Israeli Navy (Hebrew: חיל הים הישראלי‎‎, Ḥeil HaYam HaYisraeli (English: Sea Corps of Israel); Arabic: البحرية الإسرائيلية‎‎) which is the naval warfare service arm of the Israel Defense Forces. Actually there are two different subclasses that are both named Sa'ar 4.5. The first subclass consists of two boats and was initially called Chochit (Hebrew: חוחית‎‎), but renamed to Aliya (Hebrew: עליה‎‎) and later on were sold to the Mexican Navy which renamed to Huracan class. Two Aliya subclass boats are in service with the Mexican Navy. This class will be analyzed in a future post. The second subclass was initially called Nirit (Hebrew: נירית‎‎) but renamed to Hetz (Hebrew: חץ‎‎). It should be mentioned here that this class was once the most heavily armed and most advanced in the world in the fast attack missile craft type. Today, Sa'ar 4.5 (Hertz), in its regular configuration, shares the first place together with the Egyptian Ezzat class (Ambassador Mk III) the latest addition to the Egyptian Navy, and certainly is one of the best FACM in the world today.

FLEETS #14: Swedish Navy, Israeli Navy and Egyptian Navy today

Written by D-Mitch

This is the fifth article about various countries' navies today. In these articles, I briefly describe a country's naval fleet by reporting the ships in each type/category of warships and by providing a nice image where all the types of warships are illustrated and the units of its class are reported. I include the vessels that will enter in service this year and I have excluded those that are about to be decommissioned. I deliberately excluded many classes of auxiliary ships; those that they have "0" defence capacity and those that have secondary roles such as hydrographic survey ships, tugs, depollution vessels and training ships.

NAVAL FORCES #6: Naval Power in the Eastern Mediterranean in 2015

The following image was created by me (D-Mitch) in order to illustrate the major naval fleets in the Eastern Mediterranean. This image was included in a long and very detailed article (in Greek) titled ΝΑΥΤΙΚΕΣ ΕΞΕΛΙΞΕΙΣ ΣΤΗΝ ΑΝΑΤΟΛΙΚΗ ΜΕΣΟΓΕΙΟ (English: Naval Developments in the Eastern Mediterranean) that was written by me and fox2 and you can enjoy it in the above mentioned link. This article marks my new cooperation with fox2 at his blog idbam.blogspot.gr; more articles will follow in the future.

Naval Power in the Eastern Mediterranean in 2015. Image in high resolution here.