Sunday, December 9, 2007

The Sea Tigers: An Independent Analysis

Main Sea Tiger Vessels

Name

crew

Max Speed (knot)

Armament

Remark

Muraj

(Fast Attack Craft)

10

45

3 machine guns (2x 23mm)

Surface search radars are being standardized on some versions. Equipped with portable SAM unit. Cargo capacity to carry 12 petrol barrels. It is also faster than the SL Navy Super Dvora MK II boats

Thrikka

4

45

1 machine gun (Cal 50)

Used by frogmen for debussing.

Sudai

6

10

1 machine gun (Cal 50)

Used for attacks against naval craft.

Idayan

2

45

None

Jet boat, such as a civilian type. 200 horsepower outboard engines.

Stealth (unknown)

35 (?)

None

First seen in LTTE video footage. Just a stealthy design or an

Exotic type of 2 seated boat.

Sea Tigers Equipment

Classification

Type / Quantity

Remark

Patrol Vessels

Israeli made Dvora MK-I FPC[1] (50 tons)

Russian made Mirage Class Boat (120 tons)

The Sea Tigers’ precious vessels.

Freighters

GPS/Radar equipped

Due to the SL navy’s surveillance, transporting operations are pretty limited. Even the Tamil tigers do not have a possible anchorage harbor for unloading.

Midget Submarine

Custom made, equipped with Sonar

Unidentified. Specifications unknown. Made of FRP. Limited underwater capability.

Small Boats

High-Speed Water Jet

‘Stealth design’ Boat 2-Seater
FRP Boats

Those small boats are a core power of the Sea Tigers for their suicide mission.

Auxiliary equipments

Frogman Kits
Air Compressors
Underwater Scooters
Human Torpedo Units

Human torpedo units are unidentified. Probably based on Japanese KAITEN in WWII.

By SHY and DW

24 comments:

Unknown said...

Thanks for a great post, just one question under patrol vessel class, so do the Sea Tigers posses a dvora?

Where would they store such a vessel, their muraj boats while large I believe have flatter hulls than the Dvora so they are able to transport them on trailers, but an actual dvora would be hard to transport no?

TropicalStorm said...

Could you please re-format this post so that the information becomes easier to read?

Also, are there any numbers available?

Unknown said...

Maybe this will help TS, just did it up quickly:

Sea Tigers Chart

NOLTTE=Peace said...

Army captured 3 tiger Stealth Suicide boats in the Eastern operation, and found that were made of fibreglass with a 2 man crew capacity and capacity for another 50 Kg explosive load.

TropicalStorm said...

Thanks Jack.

Jambudipa said...

The LTTE sea wing Muraj etc is a lot more agile than the Dvora at similar speeds at around 35-40 knots. The Navy cannot afford to match the agility of LTTE Muraj as it needs to cover a longer distance patrolling and hence require a larger boat. The agility + pack hunting tactic gave LTTE the edge until Dvora's cannon's were upgraded. Not only the main gun upgraded, more firepower has been added with extra guns mounted all around the vessel. As soon as there is evidence LTTE has upgraded its capabilities, there must be an automatic reciprocal weapons upgrade in the forces. The dithering, corruption and incompetence of previous Naval command was responsible for a lot of the casualties. Had the guns been upgraded earlier, many lives would have been saved.

Vibe said...

Thanks for the info DefenceWire. I can't wait till the Navy destroys all of those crappy LTTE vessels.

Sam Perera said...

Defencewire,

How and when did LTTE get a Dvora? Is this something taken from SLN?

GoldenEagle said...

panhinda

The UFAC III made by CDL can hit a top speed of 55 knots. It an incredible piece if engineering by CDL. Plus it is also cost much less than the Israeli Dvora.

BTW, with 30mm bushmaster cannons attached to them, they have become such a potent weapon.

Defencewire said...

jack,
Thanks for the handiwork with the chart.

sam,
They captured a Dvora in March 2001 off the coast of Mullaithivu.

Jambudipa said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

Sorry guys I just noticed I forgot to add DW's headings for the chart, anyway in the first one, the first three columns are name, crew, and speed, the rest being notes.

Unknown said...

So DW how and where can they hide a big boat like the Dvora? Thanks

Sam Perera said...

GE,

Does SLN use UFAC III made by CDL?

Renegade! said...

defencewire,Great Analysis-keep it up!!..

Any links/sites where these sea-tiger vessels could be seen-maybe photos,drawings?..

Renegade! said...

defencewire,guys,does the SLA operate the chinese Type-85 MBT?

Unknown said...

DW
I thought the the colombo class UFAC can reach in excess of 50knots
And the Dvoras we have are also 45knots max which is equal to a Muraj...
And about agility...Since we captured a Muraj... what's the propulsion system on it??? If i remember correct it had multiple 200HP+ OBM's... The Dvoras have thrust vectoring systems with surface drives...which should be superior to that of the Muraj...
Unless the Muraj is much smaller to the 60ft long dvora...
And the Super Dvoras have over 4000hp as opposed to about 1000(4x250HP OBM's) from the tiger Muraj...
Doesn anyone know who build these Muraj boats? Is it locally done a bought from another country etc???
I hope that our guys are using the captured ltte vessel to test it's shortcomings...no vessel is perfect and if and when we find the problems with it...we might be able to use that against them...

Rajaratasurfer said...

How are those ltte idiots able to hide a Dvora ? maybe I'm clueless !
But, SLA will get those bozoz !

Pound them boys , pound them !

GoldenEagle said...

Sam Perera

Yes, the SLN uses the UFAC III.

TropicalStorm said...

A long endurance air craft mounted with heavy cannon would be ideal to hunt and engage these sea-tiger flotillas. I know we did experiment with an old Russian plane sometime ago, but don't we really have anything that can carry out that functions? I'm looking for a Spectre (C-130) type platform?

Unknown said...

TS
I beleive USAF used a retrofitted DC series turbo prop before the spectre gunship in nam...
This was supposedly very popular among the ground troops for providing CAS...
But not sure how effective this would be against fast moving vessels since a larger plane would be less agile and we would need to have a high tech fire control systems...

Rajaratasurfer said...

ranil mate, thats Puff the magic dragon DC 3 's which the Thai's have now with Beesler engines w 1 20mm gatlin & 2 7.76 gatlins !ideal for lanka cuz, low maintenance !

TropicalStorm said...

Ranil

Still, an airborne platform would have a massive advantage over any surface vessel, no matter how fast it is. No boat can exceed 100mph, while even the slowest aircraft fly faster.

Unknown said...

Rajarata
Yep...that's the one :)
I would assume that we don't have the money to have such a "specialized" aircraft dedicated to that duty alone...

TS
No arguments there mate. I thought our hinds would be ideal to take on sea tiger flotillas but heard that those b'tards carry RPG's and other form of AA weaponry that even might include manpads..
If we have the money we could've gotten some Ka52's :) that's just wishful thinking at this stage i guess :(

Something i've noticed on bith defencenet and defencewire we seem to have bloogers with very good knowledge of the airforce and the army etc but not much on navy matters...
Very little about the navy have been posted when it comes to details...

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