@Pointblank:
Informative and precise post but there are certainly some gaps in the official story for security reasons and we will have to wait until some
Annexes will be declassified.
In my POV the
INS Hanit incident is evidently worse since USN at least was timely aware that Saddam's air force was buzzing around over the Gulf with highly sophisticated Mirage F1-EQ5 equipped with two Exocet AM-39. However Zahal just thought cruising around 10-12 km off the Lebanese coast leisurely shooting at some coastal targets of opportunity would be an excellent idea since they had done this routinely for almost 20 years during any
´punishment´ operation against Hizballah. Oops, that turned out this time to be a very
bad idea... Israeli intelligence failed miserably before and during the war and the rounding up of more than 50
´spies´ this year alone by Lebanese security indicates that things are not improving for them either.
@Finn McCool:
Exactly, many books and articles about USN's operations in the Gulf 1987/88 are inconsistent and amateurish.
Most interesting would be evaluating some Iranian publications about this ´limited war´ with USN. There are probably some books around about this topic since the Pasdaran own several publishing houses being busy churning out many works every year about the
´imposed war´ with Iraq (o.k. many are full of propaganda but they cannot be much worse than what we have got currently!).
Hey we need a friend in Tehran shedding light on this subject! 
We will have to hear definitely both sides of the story to draw any lasting conclusions!
@Ambivalent:
Perhaps the Harpoon capability of the Intruder was still classified back in '88?
Besides that is no fanboy chatter since the ´Harpoon story´ originates actually from ret. Cdr. Arthur Langston who was Deputy Air Wing Commander and Strike Group Leader on USS Enterprise at the time of Praying Mantis. He told his version to several scholars and journalists a couple of years ago; why should he lie? Only for his vanity?
