Why Houthi Air Defenses are “Ineffective” and “Useless”

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.