British ship is hit by Houthi drone in latest Red Sea attack - days after UK and US air strikes in Yemen

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ne...r-strikes-yemen.html

A British-owned cargo vessel was attacked in the Red Sea yesterday, the UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) said, in what was believed to be a Houthi rebel drone strike.

The attack on the Barbados-flagged ship happened west of Hodeida in Yemen just after midnight on Tuesday, when the captain reported 'a small craft' had pulled up on his Port side.

Moments later, there was an explosion on the bridge which damaged the windows.

But no crew were injured in the attack and the vessel was deemed safe to continue its journey.

Hours later, Houthi rebel military spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree claimed in a statement that his forces attacked two separate vessels, one American and one British, in the Red Sea.

It comes after British and American warships and jets launched a third round of strikes on rebel-held targets in Yemen.

More at link

apparently the strikes we've already had didn't get the message across

quote:

Originally posted by nhtagmember:
apparently the strikes we've already had didn't get the message across

the positive of the continued harassment is that it assists in targeting strikes to the situs of the offenders. Keep doing it and the US can keep destroying/responding, and outlasting them should come at little cost in terms of casualties.

quote:

Originally posted by nhtagmember:
apparently the strikes we've already had didn't get the message across

Those only work when your enemy doesn’t have warning ahead of time, allowing them to evacuate and remove weapons from known or suspected targets.

quote:

Originally posted by sse:

quote:

Originally posted by nhtagmember:
apparently the strikes we've already had didn't get the message across

the positive of the continued harassment is that it assists in targeting strikes to the situs of the offenders. Keep doing it and the US can keep destroying/responding, and outlasting them should come at little cost in terms of casualties.

There are some issues that limit our ability to maintain this strategy

a) We are shooting 2 million dollar missiles to shoot down thousand dollar drones. The expense limits how many we have of course
b) Some of the ships can't be rearmed at sea and have to leave station to do so
c} The sailors and their ships can only take so much sea-time before they have to leave station

The Russians used a war-of -attrition in Ukraine against their U.S. provided missiles and targeting drones, trading lives for Uke electronics until the gear ran out and the Russians started another offensive with much less opposition.

I would guess that a few logistics types are warning the administration that we are spending our children's inheritance with this strategy while the admin 30 somethings are telling them to just figure it out.
War is more complicated than their expeerience with Halo tells them.

Maybe groupy Joe has a secret plan

quote:

Originally posted by wishfull thinker:

...Maybe groupy Joe has a secret plan

Nope.

Supplier bottlenecks threaten US Navy effort to grow arms stockpiles

By Megan Eckstein
Feb 6, 05:00 AM

WASHINGTON — If U.S. military planners’ worst-case scenario arose in the Pacific — having to defend Taiwan from a Chinese invasion — American military forces would target Chinese amphibious ships.

Without them, according to Mark Cancian, who ran a 2022 wargame for the Center for Strategic and International Studies that examined this exact scenario, China couldn’t invade the neighboring island.

But to sink these amphibs, forces would have to destroy a protective ring of combatants with air defense and anti-submarine capabilities, as well as decoy ships and merchant vessels moving invasion forces and their gear.

U.S. submarines would “rapidly fire everything they have” at the multitude of targets, Cancian said, ”using up torpedoes at a much, much higher rate than the U.S. has expected to do in the past...”

Complete article:

https://www.defensenews.com/na...row-arms-stockpiles/

This administration doesn't want to stop them, the administration wants to look like they're stopping the Houthis, good for the sheep to lap up, Joe's tough on those rebels. Smoke and Mirrors.

quote:

Originally posted by sse:

quote:

Originally posted by nhtagmember:
apparently the strikes we've already had didn't get the message across

the positive of the continued harassment is that it assists in targeting strikes to the situs of the offenders. Keep doing it and the US can keep destroying/responding, and outlasting them should come at little cost in terms of casualties.

This strategy has been tried many places and worked precisely no where. Turns out the enemy can absorb more strikes than we're willing to send.

none of the strikes were really meant to destroy

they were meant to 'signal'

selected empty targets, a few ammo dumps and vacant buildings

that's just a minor annoyance, not a real military strike

quote:

Originally posted by nhtagmember:
none of the strikes were really meant to destroy

they were meant to 'signal'

selected empty targets, a few ammo dumps and vacant buildings

that's just a minor annoyance, not a real military strike

Precisely. Sullivan, Blinkin, et al are meddling with target lists and crossing-out all the ones they don't want struck. They're scared of the Iranians thus they're pushing strikes that don't directly affect them nor does it alter the Iranian's paradigm.

I have no doubt, that at the very top of CENTCOM's target list are the two Iranian support ships that have been anchored/slow-steaming in the Red Sea providing logistics support and ship intel data to the Houthis. They should've been sunk night one, the Iranian public would have no location to rally around since it happened outside of their borders and the vast majority of them have no idea that these ships exist. Instead, the National Security team is scared and has blocked-off any action that directly affects the Iranians, ergo nothing will change. Every ammo stash in Yemen, Syria & Western Iraq should be struck, sink those Iranian ships and crater any known training camp & comms node.

quote:

Originally posted by wishfull thinker:

quote:

Originally posted by sse:

quote:

Originally posted by nhtagmember:

We are shooting 2 million dollar missiles to shoot down thousand dollar drones. The expense limits how many we have of course

Sigh. Where is the USS New Jersey when you need her? Maybe we should pull the USS Missouri out of Pearl?

And this is not a real suggestion, only upset or the lack of foresight over something that was predicted and now has come to pass. Sometimes older IS better and cheaper.

quote:

Originally posted by corsair:

quote:

Originally posted by nhtagmember:
none of the strikes were really meant to destroy

they were meant to 'signal'

selected empty targets, a few ammo dumps and vacant buildings

that's just a minor annoyance, not a real military strike

Precisely. Sullivan, Blinkin, et al are meddling with target lists and crossing-out all the ones they don't want struck. They're scared of the Iranians thus they're pushing strikes that don't directly affect them nor does it alter the Iranian's paradigm.

I have no doubt, that at the very top of CENTCOM's target list are the two Iranian support ships that have been anchored/slow-steaming in the Red Sea providing logistics support and ship intel data to the Houthis. They should've been sunk night one, the Iranian public would have no location to rally around since it happened outside of their borders and the vast majority of them have no idea that these ships exist. Instead, the National Security team is scared and has blocked-off any action that directly affects the Iranians, ergo nothing will change. Every ammo stash in Yemen, Syria & Western Iraq should be struck, sink those Iranian ships and crater any known training camp & comms node.

This is exactly what DJT will do one day one, much like Reagan did many years ago…

quote:

Originally posted by Loswsmith:

quote:

Originally posted by wishfull thinker:
We are shooting 2 million dollar missiles to shoot down thousand dollar drones. The expense limits how many we have of course

Sigh. Where is the USS New Jersey when you need her? Maybe we should pull the USS Missouri out of Pearl?

And this is not a real suggestion, only upset or the lack of foresight over something that was predicted and now has come to pass. Sometimes older IS better and cheaper.

I know battleships are great romantic icons but, Billy Mitchell proved air power could be advantageous over big-gun navy, what is a battleship with limited to anti-air capability going to do against the current threat?

Knocking down anti-ship cruise and ballistic missiles with $2m missiles in order to protect a $1.5b ship is one thing, the bad delta is using those same $2m missiles against $50k flying lawnmowers with a payload. You're not wrong about about the lack of foresight, the development of energy weapons 'should've' been able to address this and the Navy has fielded two different models BUT, only two ships have these and they're NOT in-theater.

quote:

Originally posted by corsair:

quote:

Originally posted by Loswsmith:

quote:

Originally posted by wishfull thinker:
We are shooting 2 million dollar missiles to shoot down thousand dollar drones. The expense limits how many we have of course

Sigh. Where is the USS New Jersey when you need her? Maybe we should pull the USS Missouri out of Pearl?

And this is not a real suggestion, only upset or the lack of foresight over something that was predicted and now has come to pass. Sometimes older IS better and cheaper.

I know battleships are great romantic icons but, Billy Mitchell proved air power could be advantageous over big-gun navy, what is a battleship with limited to anti-air capability going to do against the current threat?

Knocking down anti-ship cruise and ballistic missiles with $2m missiles in order to protect a $1.5b ship is one thing, the bad delta is using those same $2m missiles against $50k flying lawnmowers with a payload. You're not wrong about about the lack of foresight, the development of energy weapons 'should've' been able to address this and the Navy has fielded two different models BUT, only two ships have these and they're NOT in-theater.

I see your point to my counter, but I guess my real point should have been that it seems pretty clear that the Navy should have an inexpensive stand-off system to engage targets that are on shore. And what historically has had that capacity? Battleships. The NJ et. al. were held out of mothballs for years/decades because they could deliver payloads against targets with no real risk to themselves. And then the missile mafia said cruise missiles and drones are the future! and to an extent that is ABSOLUTELY true. But getting rid of a tool that is specialized but is really hard to replace might not make fiscal sense and I posit that there are justifiably those in the Navy now that are saying "I told you so".

That is not to say that said battleship has ANY business ANYWHERE on a modern naval battlefield. But at the right time and place, there is nothing better.

And you aren't wrong about energy weapons, but that wasn't the mission I was thinking about (my poor choice of quote notwithstanding). The battleship, I COMPLETELY AGREE, has ZERO business doing anti-drone/missile defense. But dropping a 16" shell onto some terrorist "from the blue" at a fraction of the cost of a Tomahawk? Yes please and thank you.

I mean, AC-130s have a role similar to this where there is not anti-air capacity to worry about. The Navy missed out. But I'm sure Raytheon (the maker of Tomahawk missiles), LOVES this.

quote:

Originally posted by wishfull thinker:

The Russians used a war-of -attrition in Ukraine against their U.S. provided missiles and targeting drones, trading lives for Uke electronics until the gear ran out and the Russians started another offensive with much less opposition.

They did? How come they are still stuck pretty much where they were since the fall of 2022? And they are hitting much less civilian infrastructure targets than in the winter of 2022/23?

quote:

Originally posted by corsair:


Knocking down anti-ship cruise and ballistic missiles with $2m missiles in order to protect a $1.5b ship is one thing, the bad delta is using those same $2m missiles against $50k flying lawnmowers with a payload.

Small consolation, but according to the latest hack these Iranian drones are ~$200K per unit, not $50K.

PS. I'm surprised Phalanx is not enough to deal with these things.

quote:

PS. I'm surprised Phalanx is not enough to deal with these things.

Well, it's "supposed" to be a last ditch weapon.

Perfectly capable of doing it as long as the number of threats is relatively low, the gun is a pain in the ass to reload quickly as well(4 minutes with a well trained 2 man crew). The reason you don't want to have to use it is that the threat is so close by the time you do(typically ~1-2 miles). Although I am not sure what they are setting the threat engagement range for in this environment in the newer models...

quote:

Originally posted by echidna:

quote:

Originally posted by corsair:
Knocking down anti-ship cruise and ballistic missiles with $2m missiles in order to protect a $1.5b ship is one thing, the bad delta is using those same $2m missiles against $50k flying lawnmowers with a payload.

Small consolation, but according to the latest hack these Iranian drones are ~$200K per unit, not $50K.

PS. I'm surprised Phalanx is not enough to deal with these things.

Phalanx finally got one, see bottom of pg5...the bigger question how did it get through.

If the USN had more funds, they'd replace Phalanx with SeaRAM, Phalanx is only good for 2-4 engagements before needing to reload, SeaRAM has 11 shots and can make hits further away. As saturation tactics become more common, USN is gonna need to field a lower-cost option with some range.

Here's a counter-drone system the Army has. It appears to be land-based only, there is no mention of it on ships.

Army orders hundreds of counter-drone Coyote munitions amid attacks on US bases

The order comes after dozens of drone and rocket attacks on U.S. bases in the Middle East.

BY NICHOLAS SLAYTON | PUBLISHED FEB 10, 2024 11:36 AM EST

The Army is rushing to field more counter-drone air defenses. This week the Army announced it had agreed to a $75 million contract with Raytheon for 600 Coyote 2Cs, a loitering counter-drone munition. It’s doing so using its rapid acquisition authority, allowing an expedited process to quickly acquire and field the weapons.

The Pentagon already has In addition to the Coyote munitions, but this new deal will expand the Army’s arsenal of them and fast. Under the rapid acquisition authority, the Army is able to secure the contract and start delivery in less than a month after it received authorization to purchase the Coyotes. This allows the Army to much more quickly acquire and field the munitions compared to the normal process, which can take months if not longer. The contract was made in mid-January, with the Army only announcing it this week...

Complete article with a photo:

https://taskandpurpose.com/new...-coyote-interceptor/

Sounds like we need our own swarm, but, with a focus on as cheap a system as possible - say structure the contract so it’s just about lowest cost per stop, not lowest bidder.