By Kris Osborn, President, Center for Military Modernization
US Navy F/A-18s and warship weapons have again targeted and destroyed multiple attacking Houthi-fired drones and missiles, a now regular occurrence which both indicates the effectiveness of US ship-defenses and precision weaponry and the inept and ineffective weapons capability, targeting, guidance systems and attack technologies operated by the Houthis.
The success and precision with which US and allied military forces continue to destroy Houthi targets in Yemen and throughout the region also likely relates to the ability to sustain uncontested air power and ISR throughout the region for targeting. Clearly the US operates with both accurate surveillance and air superiority, yet another factor is the essential “uselessness” of Houthi air defenses systems.
“USS Laboon (DDG 58) and F/A-18s from the Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group engaged and shot down seven UAVs over the Red Sea. There were no injuries or damage reported. These actions will protect freedom of navigation and make international waters safer and more secure for U.S. Navy vessels and merchant vessels,” a Feb 3 CentralCommand essay on the military actions explains.
It does not appear as though the Houthi’s present much of an air-defense threat, despite the known and documented Iranian efforts to export air-defense weapons to the Houthis in violation of UN regulation
A very interesting and detailed essay from The Washington Institute for Near East Policy as far back as 2018 makes clear that Houthi air-defenses are essentially “benign” and do not pose a threat to coalition aircraft.
“When the rebels took Sana in September 2014 and other parts of the country in March 2015, they seized most of the government’s inventory of ex-Soviet SAMs and associated radars, including SA-2s, SA-3s, SA-6s, SA-9s, and man-portable air-defense systems. But these weapons never posed a serious threat to coalition aircraft,” the analysis explains. The threat assessment from 2018 may not account for any developments since then in terms of potential Iranian efforts to further arm Houthis, yet the essay points to factors will are still very likely to be quite relevant. Not only have Houthi missiles been largely ineffective and apparently lacking the guidance technology capable of accurately targeting commercial and coalition ships, but the US coalition clear appears to have consistent and clear ISR of the area in terms of both identifying threats on the ground and destroying or “intercepting” missiles and drones in the air.
“The air-defense environment in Yemen has been largely benign,” the essay explains.
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy writes that many of the Houthi weapons have not been maintained and may were destroyed in previous military action in 2015.
“Many of them were obsolete and in need of repair. Second, the coalition destroyed many fixed air-defense sites, radars, and rebel-operated interceptor aircraft by mid-April 2015. Third, the rebels converted many of the surviving SA-2 missiles into short-range, surface-to-surface ballistic missiles called the Qaher-1 and 2 (aka “Conqueror”),” the essay says.
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In addition to destroying airborne drones over the Red Sea, U.S. Central Command forces also destroyed four drones on land before they took off.
“U.S. Central Command forces conducted strikes against four Houthi UAVs that were prepared to launch. U.S. forces identified the UAVs in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen and determined that they presented an imminent threat to merchant vessels and the U.S. Navy ships in the region,” Central Command writes.
The CentCom essay did not specify the method of attack for destroying drones on the ground from Houthi-controlled areas prior to take-off, yet given the clear circumstance that the US and its allies operate with air supremacy, it seems likely the drones were destroyed by fighter jets such as an F/A-18. Should the four drones be in a recognized or “fixed” location in close proximity, then a single Tomahawk could be used, however the attack on drones likely called for smaller, precision strikes such as those which can fire from an F/A-18.
Furthermore, Houthi air-defense radars have been previously destroyed by Pentagon military strikes, according to a Jan 12, DoD essay.
“Targets included command and control nodes, munitions depots, launching systems, production facilities and air defense radar systems used by the Houthi’s to carry out attacks against vessels operating in international waters,” the DoD essay says.
Kris Osborn is the President of Warrior Maven – Center for Military Modernization and Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.
