The Houthis should have been annihilated in one week.
Posted on 08/19/2024 3:13:53 PM PDT by Rummyfan
f you find a message that is consistent over time, through times of ease and times of challenge, and at each challenge in the real world this message is validated, reinforced, and found to be correct — is that a message you need to pay attention to?
Since the Houthi joined a second front with the Gazans against Israel by attacking international shipping in the Red Sea and its approaches, the US Navy has led the international response and has been engaged in continuous combat operations facing almost all anti-ship weapons that any navy would expect to face in 2024.
The experience in the Red Sea is validating the consistent messages about fleet size and requirements voiced by our guest this week on Midrats — a consistent guest since 2010 — Bryan McGrath, Commander, USN (Ret.).
(Excerpt) Read more at cdrsalamander.substack.com ...
The Houthis should have been annihilated in one week.
Where’s the money in that?
‘Midrats’
haven’t heard that in a looong time
was never impressed
For all the war mongers out there who want the US to dominate the world, however idiotic the goal, you can’t do it by sending manufacturing abroad at the behest of the McKenzie consultancy. It was and remains lunacy. Of course the belief was the seignorage based upon the petro dollar would allow us to continue to buy stuff and charge it to the world. But that was all based upon a time when the US was the world’s dominant manufacturing power.
Tryna remember what was served for Midrats (midnight rations) during This Guy’s four month Red Sea deployment beyond cold cuts for sandwiches...it was no royal feast that’s for sure...
Well, letting a typo like that sneak by hardly inspires confidence...
That said, the thought is a good one, but then gets rather lost. What we need is to go asymmetric ourselves, in a big way, with existing technology. Consider that the USS Reagan cost around 4.5 billion dollars. What would be the cost to take a medium age cargo ship, say, a car carrier, and turn it into a drone carrier? Not Reapers or Predators -- something like the better of the drones in each range class the Ukies are using should be sufficient for "difficult targets, lesser version would be used . Throw in a few anti-sea-drone sea-drones, and a few conventional sea drones. Maybe a few small auto-cannon for close-in defense, some Manpads, and some modified Javelins or similar. Further defense can be via our existing AD destroyers. Even a middle age car carrier is a big ship: Converted it would have the capability to launch and operate at least 500 drones a day, and I'm not so sure 1000 is unreasonable. (A 10 y/o car carrier is a big ship!) Put two of these off Yemen. What the hell are the Houthis going to do about 2000 drones a day, almost every freaking day? (I know that sounds like a lot of drones, but consider the West is working on and well on the way toward arming Ukraine with 3 million drones a year.)
The above is just a suggestion. It surely needs refinement, and better ideas should be out there. Think outside the box, in big ways...
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