Cracking down the Australian based logistic chain of Separatist Terrorists!
It was on 11th May 2006; that Sri Lanka Navy thwarted a LTTE Sea Tiger’s concentrated attack aiming at the Passenger Ferry (PF) ‘Pearl Cruise’ ferrying 710 unarmed military personnel from Trincomalee to Kankasanthurai (KKS) in the Jaffna Peninsula. The attack was launched off Vettalaikerni in the north-eastern seaboard with the sunset, but the attackers were not able to proceed more than 10 Nautical Miles from the coastline due Navy’s Fast Attack Crafts (FAC) engaging the enemy boat cluster and stopping them from going anywhere near the intended target.
I was the Flotilla Training Commander back then after being hand-picked for the second time to train the Flotilla to fight at sea, by then Commander of the Navy Vice Admiral Wasantha Karannagoda. The FACs fought as they were trained, and the onboard Norwegian Peace Monitor’s letter of appreciation issued stand as a testimony (see image below) for the fighting prowess of the Navy’s foremost fighting element; the 4th Fast Attack Flotilla.
The Navy lost one FAC, P 418; a Colombo Dockyard built 24m LoA, aluminium hull FAC commanded by Lieutenant Commander Lalith Edirisinghe (KDU 12th Intake; I was the Troop Commander for them back in 1994). P 418 was rammed by the single purpose build suicide boat of the Sea Tigers. It was evident that the enemy was targeting the PF Pearl Cruise; a steel hull 53m LoA passenger ferry on contract to play between the KKS and Trinco for civilians of Jaffna Peninsula. The video footage recorded from the MSIS (A stabilised camera system installed onboard FAC to record and also for the remote firing of the 23mm ZSU gun system of the Typhoon system) indicates that P 418 engaged in a dogfight and heading to a specific target amidst the enemy attack crafts whilst engaging with enemy’s boats. There were 17 personnel onboard at the time of the incident with one Army Signalman who was doing the coordinating communication in the Army channel.
The next day morning, SLN Divers went down to investigate and recover whatever available from the wreck and made several surprising discoveries. The Divers sketched the wreck of P 418 concentrating on how and what were the damages and details to recreate the incident as an after-action report. The Divers also sketched the remain of the enemy suicide craft, observing that entire afters section of the suicide boat has survived due to shape-charged explosive pack fitted at the front. They also recovered 4 Out Board Motors of Yamaha make (and after servicing them in Trincomalee we were surprised to see that all digital maters are operating and the OBMs were brand new with only some 15 to 20 hours of operation since manufacturing!) The Divers also recovered the hydraulic steering rack (see image) from the sea bottom, which was shot through, but the factory tag was intact. It was of Hydrive make and made in Australia! This was the first time the Navy recovered a hydraulic steering rack of this make and model.
(The hydraulic steering rack (above) is used to couple and operate high power OBMs in this case 4 x 200 Hp Yamaha OBMs (below; when the suicide boat was reconstructed to the scale after studying the recorded images and the recovered transom of the enemy suicide boat))
This piece of information was promptly shared with the Australian authorities and the Australian Federal Police (AFP) responded swiftly to visit Colombo to record details of the recovery as well as the Naval Diver who recovered same form the sea bottom. A young energetic Diving Officer named KMRT Bandara, then a Lieutenant Commander rank led the diving recovery programme of wreck of the remains of the enemy suicide boat, the four OBMs, whatever bits and pieces worth of recovery of the FAC and complete sketching of the remaining of the suicide explosion on seabed.
After the sharing there was a long silence; we also were busy with our day to day managing of the sea dominance and too occupied with the evolving dynamics of asymmetric war fighting at sea till about some six months later the AFP came up with a team of lawyers, intelligence officials and investigators. They handed over to us a dossier of images where LTTE elements were building coastal freighters and dual purposes boats. And they were built in two shipyards in Indonesia! Both shipyards were in the vicinity of Jakarta where many shipbuilding facilities are available and the images when analysed by the Flotilla reveals that some of the designs are already encountered in Sri Lankan waters!
Images of various kinds of vessels being built at LTTE sympathiser’s boatyard in Indonesia.
The yard manufactured boats with Inboard Engines (bottom) and custom made designs for variety of clients whilst facilitating transfer of OBMs and other navigational equipment’s on the pretext of boat building
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This is how media reported these developments in respective sources:
Tamil Tiger Arrested in Australia
How Charities became the front organizations for terrorism funding
Tigers Down Under
The takeaway from these learning is that even today we see COTS are being used for warfighting and compared to yesteryears, the usage is more and versatile! Take the example of drones, and how they are being used in Ukrainian front, and in Gaza. Then, take a look at the producing nations of these relatively low-cost gadgetries, the kind of market dominance and opportunities they have got! And these compel one to keep studying the evolving dynamics of the warfighting and the history somewhere else in the world how global connectivity and global trade facilitate usage of Commercial Off-the-Shelf items for creative warfighting!
Marine Superintendent @ MER Solutions Asia Pacific | BVIQ
1 周A lot of information with lessons to learn. Thank you very much Sir.
Hydrographic Surveyor
2 周Recollecting those memories are very important as you always mentioned..to be proactive than reactive as well as to identify the counter, counter counter and counter counter counter actions