quote:

Originally posted by corsair:

quote:

It stands to reason that the Russians and Chinese are watching closely to see how US and Israeli-made systems intercept the weapons the Houthis are firing. In essence, these strikes are doing R&D testing for Moscow and Beijing — an indirect threat, but a threat nonetheless, from the proliferation of these ballistic weapons in the region.

There's very little sense in that statement.
Anybody who's paying attention and in the neighborhood is seeing how weapons and sensors perform. The more important and salient fact is, those employing those weapons and sensors are ACTUALLY seeing how they perform, under real world conditions thus, able to extrapolate the necessary data to make improvements. In short, Anti-Ship Ballistic Missiles fired at various ships, at various angles & trajectories have been intercepted at a very high success-rate. Drones, once feared to be too small for air search and targeting radars to pick-up, are visible and trackable. The Western air defense systems are working, period. The next questions is dealing with the shooters and their motivations.

Perhaps not, corsair, but there’s quite a lot more to the article than that.

quote:

Originally posted by slosig:

quote:

Originally posted by tacfoley:
Time to exercise the B52s.....just a small flight - say...fifty?

Hmmm, don’t know anything about the munitions they carry, so this might not work, but maybe a couple of them could get “lost” and send a couple of Iranian tubs to the bottom while they were at it?

Your choice -

The B-52H with a weapons payload of more than 70,000lb is capable of carrying the most diverse range of weapons of any combat aircraft. The nuclear weapons capacity includes 12 AGM-129 advanced cruise missiles (ACMS), 20 AGM-86A air-launched cruise missiles (ALCM) and eight bombs.

However, just good old-fashioned dropped ordnance? Fill yer boots..... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGLgZ8htLI4

Mind you, the restruc tured B2 is looking good..Northrop Grumman is converting the B-2 bomb rack assembly to a new ‘smart’ configuration, which will increase the number of JDAMs which can be carried to a maximum of 80. The aircraft will also be fitted with the joint stand-off weapon (JSOW), joint air-to-surface stand-off missiles (JASSM) and the wind-compensated munitions dispenser (WCMD) and will be able to carry up to 80 115kg small diameter bombs (SDB)..

Another Ship Hit By Missile In Red Sea; Former NATO Commander Warns 'Maritime Risk' Highest Ever

https://www.zerohedge.com/geop...aritime-risk-highest

Iran-backed Houthi rebels have attacked more than 40 merchant vessels amid the ongoing war in Gaza and severed several undersea communication cables. The Biden administration's Operation Prosperity Guardian, a US-led naval coalition to shield commercial ships from drone and missile attacks, continues to fail as another ship was hit by a missile Friday.

"A merchant vessel has reported that they have been struck by a missile and the vessel has sustained some damage. The crew are reported safe and the vessel is proceeding to its next port of call," UK Maritime Trade Operations, a part of the navy that provides maritime, wrote on X.

The attack on the vessel occurred around 0400 local time on Friday and 76 nautical miles west of the port city of Al Hudaydah. No details about the vessel's name or type of ship were released.

A recent interview with Adm. James Stavridis, former Supreme Allied Commander at NATO, and Goldman's Allison Nathan reveals that the world is on fire.

"In my career, I've never seen a higher level of maritime risk than I do today. That owes first and foremost to the return of great power competition, which we thought was basically over when the Soviet Union collapsed."

Three decades after the Cold War ended, conflicts rage across Ukraine, Gaza, the Red Sea, Myanmar, the Sahel, Sudan, and potentially Taiwan and Iran. The rules-based system of international relations modeled on America's liberal-democratic values is crumbling as the world stumbles into a nascent multipolar era.

More at link

Operation Prosperity Guardian. WTF. Same old shit. Fancy name but the truth is the opposite. Why the hell do these goat humping savages have the ability to continue this shit? (It’s a rhetorical question)

quote:

Originally posted by BOATTRASH1:
Operation Prosperity Guardian. WTF. Same old shit. Fancy name but the truth is the opposite. Why the hell do these goat humping savages have the ability to continue this shit? (It’s a rhetorical question)

Because we have feckless "leaders" in both the White House and Pentagon.
Neither Trump nor Reagan would have put up with this nonsense.

quote:

Originally posted by bald1:

quote:

Originally posted by BOATTRASH1:
Operation Prosperity Guardian. WTF. Same old shit. Fancy name but the truth is the opposite. Why the hell do these goat humping savages have the ability to continue this shit? (It’s a rhetorical question)

Because we have feckless "leaders" in both the White House and Pentagon.
Neither Trump nor Reagan would have put up with this nonsense.

Bingo.

Here are operations I would like to see put into play in Yemen:
Rolling Thunder. Arc Light.

I understand guys. Hence the (rhetorical question) comment. Edit to add, we know bozo is pulling the strings on all this BS.

Yooper Sigs. YES. Dumb bomb the F out of these places. No more tit for tat with multimillion dollar precision guided weapons responding to cheap ballistic missiles and Iranian produced drones.

Replenishing Missiles Used To Down Houthi Threats Will Require Extra Funding

The Navy’s need to restock missiles it has fired to protect ships in and around the Red Sea underscores larger cost and capacity concerns.

BY JOSEPH TREVITHICK
PUBLISHED MAR 12, 2024 4:11 PM EDT

The U.S. Navy is hoping to see around $150 million in supplemental funding to help replenish its stocks of SM-2 surface-to-air missiles and other munitions after months of shooting down Houthi missiles and drones in and around the Red Sea. There have been and continue to be significant concerns about the rate at which American warships are expending munitions against Houthi threats and the broader ramifications thereof. These are issues The War Zone explored in detail in a recent feature that you can find here...

Complete article:

https://www.twz.com/news-featu...equire-extra-funding

'Surprising' Intensity Of Houthi Attacks Push French Warship To Exit Red Sea

https://www.zerohedge.com/geop...warship-exit-red-sea

France's Aquitaine-class FREMM frigate Alsace has turned tail from the Red Sea after running out of missiles and munitions repelling attacks from the Yemeni armed forces, according to its commander, Jerome Henry.

"We didn’t necessarily expect this level of threat. There was an uninhibited violence that was quite surprising and very significant. [The Yemenis] do not hesitate to use drones that fly at water level, to explode them on commercial ships, and to fire ballistic missiles," Henry told French news outlet Le Figaro in an exclusive interview published on 11 April.

"We had to carry out at least half a dozen assistances following [Yemeni] strikes," he added. The commander of the Alsace also revealed that, after a 71-day deployment, all combat equipment was depleted.

"From the Aster missile to the 7.62 machine gun of the helicopter, including the 12.7mm, 20mm, or 76mm cannon, we dealt with three ballistic missiles and half a dozen drones," Henry adds.

According to the French commander, the Franco–Italian Aster missile – each carrying a price tag of up to $2 million – "was pushed to its limits" by the Yemeni armed forces, as the Alsace had to use it "on targets that we did not necessarily imagine at the start."

Henry added that Sanaa has markedly increased its use of ballistic missiles after relying mainly on suicide drones at the start of Yemen's pro-Palestine operations in the Red Sea and stressed that the French Navy has not faced such a tough battle since NATO collectively launched its 2011 war on Libya to depose the late ruler Muammar Gaddafi.

"I was there too. It wasn't the same thing. It has been even longer since we have engaged with this level of weaponry and violence. The threat to the boat was much greater in the Red Sea," Henry notes.

The Alsace entered the Red Sea in late January, a few weeks after the US and the UK launched an illegal war on Yemen to protect Israeli shipping interests. The frigate was deployed as part of the EU naval operation Aspides – Greek for shield.

With a mandate initially set for one year, Aspides saw the deployment of several EU warships and airborne early warning systems to the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, and surrounding waters. According to authorities in Brussels, the mission is exclusively defensive, and its forces are not taking part in US-led attacks against Yemen.

Aspides came together after several NATO members proved hesitant or outright refused to join the floundering Operation Prosperity Guardian (OPG), which a top US commander called one of the largest battles the navy has fought since the end of World War II.

"We favor a diplomatic solution. We know that there is no military solution," US Special Envoy for Yemen Timothy Lenderking said earlier this month, acknowledging the futility of Washington's military strategy against the Arab world's poorest country.

According to Yemeni sources who spoke with The Cradle, US officials recently offered Sanaa "an acknowledgment of its legitimacy" in exchange for its neutrality in the ongoing war on Gaza.

"[Washington] pledged to repair the damages, remove foreign forces from all occupied Yemeni lands and islands, and remove Ansarallah from the State Department’s ‘terrorism list’ – as soon as they stop their attacks in support of Gaza," The Cradle columnist Khalil Nasrallah cited the sources as saying.

The offer also includes "severely reducing" the role of the Saudi-appointed Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) and "accelerating the signing of a roadmap" with the Saudi-led coalition to end the nine-year war that has decimated Yemen.

Nevertheless, Yemeni officials have maintained that their operations in the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, and the Indian Ocean will continue until Israel stops the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. "From the coast of the Red Sea or from outside it, we can achieve the goals we want in defense of our country and support of Palestine … We still have many military surprises, and there are military operations that we are keeping secret as part of a specific media strategy," Mohammad Ali al-Houthi, a senior member of Yemen's Supreme Political Council, announced on April 3.

quote:

a few weeks after the US and the UK launched an illegal war on Yemen to protect Israeli shipping interests

Can anyone explain what was an illegal war on Yemen? I only know of some strikes on Houthi missile locations in Shia Yemen territory.

"An illegal war."

What a stupid phrase.

quote:

'Surprising' Intensity Of Houthi Attacks Push French Warship To Exit Red Sea

A mis-leading and bad headline. There's no running or, tucking-tail story here.

Sure they didn't expect this level of intensity, we haven't seen this type of missile threat activity since the Falklands in '82; they did their job and went Winchester on their magazines, Bravo Zulu Frenchies!

The lesson out of all of this is, reloading at-sea needs to be developed ASAP (which it is) and ship magazines need to be larger than they currently are, 32-cells for a ship of that size isn't cutting it.

Well that's ZeroHedge for you. They tend to be circumspect on the anti-Israeli aspect of anti-globalism in their own articles out of consideration for the American post-WW II conservative part of the scene which is among their target audience; but it's there in full force if you follow the links to their regular sources - the left-wing sites like The Grayzone and Consortium News, the libertarian ones like The Libertarian Institute and antiwar.com (a site uniting authors as nominally diverse as Pat Buchanan, Noam Chomsky, Ron Paul, Paul Craig Roberts, and Cindy Sheehan), the paleo-conservative and alt-right ones featuring some of the same authors, and various conspiracy-themed blogs and substacks. Or in this case, The Cradle, a pro-Iranian Middle East "news" website which knows no other aspect. In my daily round of multi-ideological sources, ZeroHedge is a one-stop triangulation point to establish what's not happening; or as I like to put it, the world according to a disgraced Bulgarian hedgefonds manager who likes Vladimir Putin and Bashar al-Assad, masquerading as investment news.

"Damage Control Underway": Cargo Ship Hit By Missile In Gulf Of Aden In Suspected Attack By Houthi Rebels

https://www.zerohedge.com/comm...attack-houthi-rebels

More than six months since the Biden administration launched Operation Prosperity Guardian to defend the critical maritime chokepoint Bab al-Mandab Strait from Iran-backed Houthis and ensure freedom of navigation in the Red Sea, we're witnessing yet another alarming development. Late Saturday, rebels targeted a Western-linked cargo ship with missiles. This underscores the ongoing threat to the shipping lane and the utter failure of Biden's disastrous foreign policies.

AP News cites a report from private security firm Ambrey, which said the Antigua and Barbuda-flagged cargo ship in the Gulf of Aden was struck by a missile on its forward station, sparking a fire. A second missile missed the vessel, and rebels "on board small boats in the vicinity opened fire on the ship during the incident," the security firm said, adding no crew on the vessel was hurt in the attack.

"The Master reports that the vessel was hit by an unknown projectile on the aft section, which resulted in a fire. Damage control is underway, the Master reports no casualties and the vessel is proceeding to its next port of call," the British military's United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations wrote on X.

More at link

quote:

Originally posted by BOATTRASH1:
Yooper Sigs. YES. Dumb bomb the F out of these places. No more tit for tat with multimillion dollar precision guided weapons responding to cheap ballistic missiles and Iranian produced drones.

Old saying, "You're not using enough unless the rubble's bouncing"

Yes. THank you.

Col. R.J. Webb USAF POW Said as much.

Hanoi Hilton, Linebacker II, Christmas 1972

"...the stone slabs we slept on, actually bounced from the bombs....we could see the aircraft dropping and AAA returning fire..."


I also met Col. "Bud" Day when he spoke at Eglin.

Most remarkable men. And those they represented then and now.

Houthi missiles strike two ships in the Gulf of Aden, US military says

https://www.france24.com/en/mi...den-us-military-says

One anti-ship ballistic cruise missile hit the Antigua and Barbuda-flagged cargo ship Norderney forward station late Saturday, starting a fire that those on board put out, the US military's Central Command said. It added that a second anti-ship cruise missile also hit the Norderney.

In a second attack, a Houthi ballistic missile hit the Tavvishi, a Liberian-flagged, Swiss-owned-and-operated container ship in the Gulf of Aden, Central Command. Saree claimed the attack happened in the Arabian Sea, but provided no evidence. Tracking data suggested the Tavvishi was in the Gulf of Aden at the time of the attack.

More at link

Dramatic Footage Shows First Houthi Kamikaze Drone Boat Strike On Bulk Carrier

https://www.zerohedge.com/geop...-strike-bulk-carrier

Unconfirmed footage has emerged on X showing what appears to be the commodity-hauling bulk carrier "Tutor" under attack by a drone boat, allegedly controlled remotely by Iran-backed Houthi rebels. If verified, this incident is the first known drone boat attack on a commercial vessel in the Red Sea since rebels began their attacks on the critical maritime chokepoint in late 2023.

"Footage shows what appears to be the first successful Houthi kamikaze USV strike on Greek-owned cargo ship Tutor while transiting the Red Sea on June 12," X user Clash Report wrote in the post.

Clash Report said, "The ship's guard were totally confused as to what they were observing" and "couldn't even react before it hit the ship."



More at link