Posted on 03/15/2024 9:04:01 AM PDT by hardspunned
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim to have a new, hypersonic missile in their arsenal, Russia’s state media reported Thursday, potentially raising the stakes in their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and surrounding waterways against the backdrop of Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
The report by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited an unidentified official but provided no evidence for the claim. It comes as Moscow maintains an aggressively counter-Western foreign policy amid its grinding war on Ukraine.
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
I wouldn’t think the disorganization of Yemen on a national scale would allow them to develop something like thar kind of missile. So Iran supplying their alleged hypersonic missiles instead makes more sense. I wonder if our partner over there, the Brits, can defend against those? Would help out if yes.
The only viable target for a hypersonic missile is an aircraft carrier. It would be stupid to waste a hypersonic on a tanker or cargo ship.
Paid for by Obama/ Biden and US taxpayers.
There is an unexpected silver lining here. It’s unlikely the Houthis will be able to launch more than one at a time. This will give the USN a real-world test in a relatively mild combat arena. I’ve been concerned for a very long time that the US and other navies have been building ships and developing capabilities based on threats that are being replaced by more numerous, cheaper swarm weapons. Some of those will be hypersonic. Some will just be a cloud of tiny drones that will kill anyone on the deck and damage equipment but not destroy the ship. (A potential mission kill.) Others will be swarms of various size suicide drones and crewed boats.
The Hooties have hypersonic missiles while the American MIC can’t build a working one yet. Are we really getting our money’s worth from our defense contractors and their bought-off bitches in the Pentagon? We are getting ripped off and abused by the bureaucracy and their puppet federal politicians.
Gee, I wonder where they got *that*? /s
Destroying a cargo ships with missiles is the whole point. Every successful attack is driving shipping insurance through the roof. Shipping insurance for cargo ships is too expensive or not even offered and now most cargo ships are going around the horn of Africa instead of through the Suez Canal thanks to the Hooties. Also the Hooties can place their bets on the stock market and then attack accordingly to make their bets pay.
Take a look at the effect on global shipping the Houthis have had by getting lucky a few times in the Red Sea. Being a global pain in the a$$ and disrupting shipping is the Houthi goal. Their Red Sea success would pale in comparison to the deterrent effect of one hypersonic hit on the shipping route around the African continent. An additional single hit in the Straight of Hormuz would have most of the world crying uncle. They aren’t in this to sink a few ships, they want to destroy the shipping lanes with the terror of what they are capable of.
The Russians in the Ukraine are using drone swarms to block and tackle for a concurrent missile strike. The Ukrainians are forced to down the drones and then are left with their pants down and out of ammo and the missile gets through. I doubt they will tack American naval ships because that would invite too strong our response, they’re just gonna keep picking off the cargo and tanker ships.
Site source of “confirmation”
Any “hypersonic” missile they might possess would be of Russian/Chinese origin like the Iskander with its added booster becoming the Kinzal missile which is really just a ballistic missile with a additional motor for the terminal stage.
real hypersonic missiles are not ballistic in nature but travel at hypersonic speed from launch.
There is no defense. We are told the Aegis systems of our carrier battle groups could shoot them down but we have been told many things by the MIC that turned out not to be true when finally tested.
Paid for by Obama/ Biden and US taxpayers.“
Exactly where else would a 3rd world country get these?
The 50s are calling. They want their “missile gap” back.
The Hooties are using what Iran supplies and Iran is using what Russia or China supply. All are liquid fueled ballistic missiles with a booster motor for terminal flight, like the Russian Kinzal.
None are the sleek real hypersonic missiles that the US and China are developing.
“I doubt they will tack American naval ships because that would invite too strong our response, they’re just gonna keep picking off the cargo and tanker ships.”
The Houthis are barely technological. They have been given sophisticated weapons. But they have little in the way of assets to find ships other than the Mark I eyeball. The radars on mountain tops are probably either damaged or being jammed. The cargo ships are turning off their beacons while they’re in range.
Originally, they were hitting individual ships and said they were only hitting those that were Israeli or dealing with Irael. Probably they were using info gathered by an Iranian ship in the region. But they’ve hit a number of ships that should not be in the categories they said they were going after. They have and will fire at warships probably because they can’t tell them from any other ship. If the USN is in the area, they may be targeted. Even if the missile isn’t heading for them, they will try to hit it. Anything we learn from success or failure is a gift.
The US is supplying Ukraine, why wouldn’t Russia/China do the same for people attacking the US and their allies? Useful idiots will die for Russia as their efforts yield invaluable information about the West’s tactics, weapons capabilities, and weaknesses. We will discover that Aircraft Carriers and the Battleships of this era, and yet we keep building them. Space and under the sea are where we need to be going.
The US is supplying Ukraine, why wouldn’t Russia/China do the same for people attacking the US and their allies? Useful idiots will die for Russia as their efforts yield invaluable information about the West’s tactics, weapons capabilities, and weaknesses. We will discover that Aircraft Carriers ARE the Battleships of this era, and yet we keep building them. Space and under the sea are where we need to be going.
“Fattah is a precision-guided two-stage solid-fueled missile with a range of 1400 km and terminal speed of Mach 13 to Mach 15. Its warhead has a spherical engine running on solid fuel with a movable nozzle that allows the warhead to increase its own speed and move in all directions.”
A container ship in the Indian Ocean can protect itself from a precision guided missile arriving at Mach 15? If you say so.
Just like with NATO countries using their troops covertly in the Ukraine it is probably Iranian troops embedded with the Houthies that are shooting the missiles.
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