Houthi Red Sea strikes kill first sailors, as ballistic missile threat proliferates (Houthi threats against the Straight of Hormuz)

DUBAI — The ongoing strikes on ships in the Red Sea by Iranian-backed Houthi militias took their first lives on Thursday, with two sailors aboard the commercial vessel MV True Confidence killed by incoming fire. It’s a tragic, but almost inevitable, step in the Houthi campaign of launching missiles against commercial ships, as the Yemeni group attempts to disrupt trade and commerce in the region.

But the worst could still be coming, experts say, thanks to the impressive technological leaps the Houthis have shown in the realm of ballistic missiles.

The Houthis already made history in becoming the first group to successfully strike a naval vessel with a ballistic missile, and experts tell Breaking Defense the weapons have shown enough range to reach US bases in the region and threaten strategic choke points in the Middle East. Making matters worse: analysts warn it is likely that America’s premiere challengers, China and Russia, are studying how the weapons have succeeded and what danger they pose to US air defenses, in an effort to find a chink in Western armor.

Iran likely has nukes already.

I don’t care about Israel at all.

Our military is in a sorry state, and our domestic issues are far more important.
Shippers can go around Africa.
This affects shipping between Europe and Asia. They can get involved if they want.
Ansar Allah firing on ships in their territorial waters isn’t an act of war against the US.

If you’re so inclined, silentprofessionals is hiring maritime security professionals.

To some extent I agree with you, but a lot of the problem is not at the individual battle level. EVERY ship that's been hit has been an undefended merchant ship. The Houthis have yet to demonstrate they can hit a US warship, much less sink one. Granted that if we give them enough tries, at some point there will be a human or technical error on our part. Then we'll see how our damage and fire control parties work, but the most recent evidence is that they are quite good. Merchant ships are a much different matter, as they are not manned nor trained to deal with missile hits.

The Russians? Give me a break. For one thing, their fire control sucks. That ship B4 last that they lost to sea-drone attacks -- did you see the vid? They continued shooting at a clearly disabled drone (was just going around in circles) while another drone came past it and tagged their ship. Sailors were shooting hand-held rifles at the drones, too. I am not impressed.

Nonetheless, what are WE doing wrong? Plenty.

First, we've not built nearly enough AD destroyers, and we should have a pack of AD Frigates too. Small, fast, screen ships, drone hunters, etc... The list of what's needed isn't short! Mind you, this is not to put them, say, off Yemen for several years. They are for task force defense and short term defense of an area / sea lane.

In both cases you still have to expeditiously take care of the problem at its root. In this case, you "convince" Iran to no longer be sending the Houthis anything more than food. A repeat of Operation Praying Mantis would likely do the trick.

For that, and a lot more, our current strike capabilities in most regards are NOT obsolete, and in fact are quite good. The problem is to add more defenses to them, which requires reversing our long decline in defense spending as a % of GDP. Even with Trump, we barely did better than break even. In this new world of the 2020's and beyond, if we can't get defense spending back up to around 4% of GDP, we are probably hosed.

Lots of new systems and approaches needed...

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.