Battle of Baltim The Battle of Baltim ( also Battle of Damietta , Battle of Baltim – Damietta , Battle of Damietta – Baltim or Battle of Damietta – El Burelos ) was fought between the Israeli Navy and the Egyptian Navy on October 8 – 9 , 1973 , during the Yom Kippur War . It took place off the Nile delta , between Baltim and Damietta . The battle erupted when six Israeli Sa ' ar class missile boats heading toward Port Said were engaged by four Egyptian Osa class missile boat s coming from Alexandria . It lasted about forty minutes . The Osas fired Styx missile s , missed , and begun withdrawing back to Alexandria when the Israelis began to give chase . Two Osas were sunk by Gabriel missile s within a span of 10 minutes , and a third was sunk twenty - five minutes later . The fourth made it back to base . Background . On October 8 , the third day of the war , the Israel Defense Forces launched a counterattack in the Sinai in an attempt to push the Egyptian Army back across the Suez Canal . Israeli naval command expected ground pressure on Port Said to prompt a withdrawal of Egyptian naval assets from the local harbor to Alexandria , to the west . A flotilla of Israeli missile boats was therefore ordered to proceed to Port Said . The boats , having just arrived back in Haifa after the Battle of Latakia , had not yet completed refueling . Nevertheless , within twenty - five minutes eight boats were heading south at thirty knots . These arrived off Port Said five hours later , meeting Commander Michael Barkai who was already on station with two boats . By that time , the counterattack in the Sinai had failed and the Egyptian boats did not leave the port . Barkai and Admiral Binyamin Telem decided to lure the Egyptians out by shelling coastal targets along the Nile delta . At 21 : 00 , just as they began shelling , they detected targets to the west . The Israeli boats charged at forty knots , but after about thirty minutes it turned out that they had been chasing electronic shadows . Halting to regroup , Barkai asked his ships to report the state of their fuel and munitions supply . The boat he was on , INS Miznak , and three others , were very low on fuel . He contemplated a return to Haifa , but eventually decided to send back the boats that were low on fuel and remain on site with the remaining six . As he was moving from the Miznak to INS Herev , four Osa class missile boat s were detected coming out of Alexandria , heading east . When Barkai climbed aboard the Herev , he ordered his force to move toward Alexandria . Prelude . Barkai had two Sa ' ar 4 - class missile boat s , INS Reshef and INS Keshet ; two Sa ' ar 3 - class missile boat s , INS Soufa and INS Herev ; one Sa ' ar 2 - class missile boat s , INS Eilat ( named after the INS Eilat sunk six years earlier ) ; and one missileless Sa ' ar 1 - class patrol boat , INS Misgav . At 23 : 00 , Barkai formed his boats into three pairs , moving in parallel lines across a broad front . The northern pair included the Reshef and the Keshet , the central pair the Eilat and the Misgav , and the southern pair the Herev and the Soufa . At this point , the Osas did not appear on the radar or the long - range electronic sensors , and it was not clear if they were moving toward the Israeli force . Close to midnight , Barkai took the southern pair to shell targets at Damietta on the delta . As they prepared to fire , their ESM detected something off Baltim , to the west . Barkai ordered the northern pair to disperse long - distance chaff to his north , to see if that would draw fire . After a few moments , the chaff cloud was targeted by missiles from the west . The Sa ' ar boats switched on their electronic defenses and opened full throttle , while Barkai decided not to call for help from the Israeli Air Force . Battle . The Israeli battle line was crescent - shaped , with the northern pair positioned further forward from the rest . Two pairs of Osas were moving towards the Israeli force but were still outside the forty - five kilometer range of their Styx missile s . The range of the Israelis ' Gabriel missile s was twenty - five kilometers , forming a gap the Israelis hoped to bridge unharmed using their Electronic Warfare equipment which offered the Styx missiles more targets than were available . At 00 : 15 , Israeli sensors detected an Egyptian missile launch at a range of . After two minutes , these missiles exploded harmlessly in the sea . The Egyptians continued their advance and fired three more salvos in the following ten minutes , their fire aimed mostly at the chaff clouds dispersed by the northern Israeli pair . After firing their last barrage at a range of thirty kilometers , the Osas made a figure - eight maneuver and began speeding back to Alexandria , with the Sa ' ars giving chase . Barkai warned his commanders not to fire at any range longer than . His calculations suggested that they could catch the slower Osas before they could reach the port . After a twenty - five minute chase , INS Keshet entered the seventeen kilometer range and fired a missile which hit an Osa . At this point , Keshet ' s engine room began taking water from a burst pipe . Firing off another missile , Keshet stopped two kilometers from the damaged Osa while INS Misgav closed in and hit it with gunfire . Meanwhile , INS Reshef fired and hit the second Osa , while INS Eilat also fired one missile . The Reshef charged at the damaged Osa and sank it with gunfire . The southern pair of Osas split , one of which was then hit and came to a standstill , although it did not sink . The Herev and the Soufa fired dozens of shells into the Osa before discovering that it had in fact run aground . The other Osa headed west toward Alexandria , and got out of range . The Reshef was closest to it and began chasing the Osa , but the weapons officer reported an electrical malfunction preventing a missile launch . INS Reshef kept pursuing , hoping to reach gun range , but Barkai noticed that it was breaking away from the rest of the force and was getting dangerously close to the coast . Fearing it would be vulnerable to air attacks , he ordered it to withdraw . The commander of the Reshef asked for a few more minutes , but eventually rejoined the force . Aftermath . Noting that the force was too close to Alexandria , Telem ordered Barkai to stop the chase . At 13 : 30 , the force headed back to Haifa . The fourth Osa reached Alexandria . Egypt claimed to have sunk four Israeli " targets " , three they believed to be motor torpedo boats and one missile boat . Years after the battle , the commander of the Reshef met an Egyptian naval officer who commanded one of the Osas at the US Naval War College . He said that he and two or three crew members survived the explosion and managed to swim ashore .