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This is for the type of warship. For other uses of Missile Boat, see Missile Boat (disambiguation)

An 'Osa I' class missile boat in 1983. The Osa class are probably the most numerous class of missile boats to have been built.

A Missile Boat is a small craft armed with anti-ship missiles. Being a small craft, missile boats are popular with nations that are looking for an inexpensive navy. They are similar in idea to the torpedo boats of World War II; in fact, the first missile boats were modified torpedo boats replacing two or more torpedo tubes with missile tubes.

The doctrine behind the use of missile boats is based on the principle of mobility over defence. The advent of proper missile and electronic counter measure technologies gave birth to the idea, that because a missile is far more accurate than a shell and can penetrate even the most heavily armored ship hulls, warships should now be designed to outmaneuver their enemies and get to a better position first.

The first use of Missile boats was by the Egyptian Soviet-built Komar class craft fire of four SS-N-2 Styx missiles on the Israeli destroyer Eilat on October 20, 1967, shortly after the Six Day War, causing the latter's sinking with 47 dead.

The first naval missile battles between missile boats occurred between the Israel Navy (using indigenously-developed Gabriel missiles), and Syrian and Egyptian craft during the October 1973 Yom Kippur War. The first of these engagements became known as the Battle of Latakia. In these battles, some fifty Gabriels and a similar number of Styx missiles were fired, and seven Arab craft were sunk.

Another successful use of missile boats was in the Indo-Pakistan War of 1971, where the Indian Navy launched Operation Trident and Operation Python using Osa class missile boats to target ships and the Karachi harbour[1].

• Komar and Osa - Former USSR and satellite states.
• Huangfeng - People's Republic of China.
• Saar - Israel, variants in service with South Africa, Mexico,Sri Lanka and a small number of other countries.
• Pegasus - United States, six now decommissioned Hydrofoils.
• Skjold - Norway, stealthy surface effect catamaran
• Visby - Sweden, stealthy patrol ship
• Super-Vita - Greece, fast attack craft missile
• Ratcharit - Thailand, fast attack missile boat.
• Kılıç - Turkey, fast attack missile boat.

The term Missile Boat is also often used as a slang synonym for a Ballistic Missile Submarine, primarily used by US submariners.

Colloquially, and especially in video gaming, the term is applied to any offensive combat vehicle equipped with an extremely large number of missiles (such as the fictional Missile Boat of the Star Wars: X-Wing game series).

• Fast Attack Craft
• Anti-ship missile