While the missile boat—a small craft equipped with sophisticated missiles meant to be fired at other ships—is now a standard component of modern navies, its use was largely pioneered by the Jewish state. In his 1988 book, The Boats of Cherbourg: The Navy that Stole Its Own Boats and Revolutionized Naval Warfare, which has recently been updated and republished, Abraham Rabinovich tells the story of how this came about. Efraim Inbar writes in his review.
During [the Yom Kippur War], Israel’s military was ill-prepared, but the exception was the Israeli navy. Until 1973, it played a marginal, low-priority role in Israel’s security landscape, strategic outlook, and budgets. Yet, it planned for years for the possibility of war and won every naval battle to worldwide accolades.
Rabinovich recounts how innovative Israeli naval officers developed the concept of the missile boat with approval from the Ministry of Defense (primarily Shimon Peres) and harnessed modest resources to complete the project. Israel’s defense establishment helped the navy procure the necessary equipment from abroad, and finally, smuggled the boats from [the French port of] Cherbourg to Israel despite a French embargo.
In 1960, opposing larger and better equipped navies, including Soviet destroyers and missile boats, Israel’s naval command faced immense challenges. Neither the required missiles nor suitable boats existed in Western arsenals. So the Israelis developed a weapons system indigenously. The German government feared repercussions from Arab governments and refused to build a revised version of the Jaguar fast-attack craft for the Israelis. Instead, Israeli naval engineers modified the German design and moved construction to a French shipyard in Cherbourg. The Gabriel missile was developed for use with these boats.
Read more on Middle East Quarterly: https://www.meforum.org/61476/review-boats-of-cherbourg