In the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the Syrian and Egyptian fleets, deploying ships provided them by the Soviet Union, engaged Israel in the first-ever missile-to-missile battles at sea. Although the Soviet missiles had twice the range of Israel's, the Israeli boats destroyed virtually every Arab vessel engaged without suffering a loss, using electronic counter-measures to baffle the radar of incoming missiles. These battles would revolutionize naval warfare worldwide. The book also describes how the Israeli navy decided to develop missile boats even though no other navy in the West had them. Five of the boats, embargoed by France before the war, were smuggled out of Cherbourg in a daring Christmas eve operation by sailors who had infiltrated the port.