How Did a US Navy Warship Destroy a Houth-Fired 14-Drone Attack Swarm?

By Kris Osborn, President, Center for Military Modernization

Electronic jamming, proximity fuses, interceptor missiles, deck-mounted guns, “area” weapons to blanket areas with protection and possibly even lasers are all possible reasons why the US Navy’s USS Carney destroy tracked, disabled or destroyed a small swarm of 14 enemy drones at one time.

A public statement from US Central Command says “in the early morning hours of December 16 (Sanna time) the US Arliegh Burke-class guided missile destroyer USS CARNEY (DDG 64), operating in the Red Sea, successfully engaged 14 unmanned aerial systems launched as a drone wave from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen.”

These attacks, which were defended by British warships as well, represent the latest escalation in a series of what appear to be Houthi-backed attacks on Israel, the US and non-military maritime commerce in the Red Sea.

The operational specifics of how this was accomplished are certain to be unavailable for security reasons, yet the successful combat performance of layered ship-defenses appears to show breakthrough progress in the area of ship-based radar, fire control, target tracking, precision and possible non-kinetic countermeasures. However it was accomplished, the defeat of a drone swarm in an operational setting not only protected US Navy sailors and ships aboard the USS Carney but also appears to have saved a number of commercial vessels transiting the Red Sea.

Distributed Lethality

The swarm intercept suggests that weapon systems long-in-development designed for the specific purpose of countering drone swarms may have indeed reached operational maturity. We may not know the particular countermeasures or integrated layers of ship defenses that were used to destroy or stop the Houthi drones, yet the Navy has spoken for years in a general way about a series of surface-fleet wide upgrades and weapons enhancements intended to better “arm” the fleet for massive “blue-water,” “open water” maritime warfare. The initiative, which emerged roughly around 2015, was referred to as Distributed Lethality, and it was a comprehensive and high-tech effort to overhaul and improve weapons and defenses across the surface fleet.

There are many particular systems which may have been used to destroy the drones, many of which may have in recent years been added or upgraded as part of the multi-year distributed lethality initiative. Specifically, enhanced ship defenses include laser such as the Laser Weapons System (LAWs), an EW system called Surface Electronic Warfare Improvement Program (SEWIP) Block 3, the SeaRAM missile system, Rolling AirFrame Missile and Close-in-Weapons-System (CWIS). As far back as 10 years ago, the Office of Naval Research demonstrated and deployed the LAWs on an amphib in the Middle East called the USS Ponce. The LAWs laser system introduced a low-cost way to track and incinerate enemy drones, and it was also scalable such that it could either disable or fully incinerate the target. In more recent years, the Navy has been integrated an even more advanced series of laser weapons onto destroyers, certain applications of which may have been used against the Houthi swarm. One such possibility is HELIOS, an advanced Lockheed Martin laser system now being integrated onto US Navy destroyers. An interesting 2022 essay in Naval News says HELIOS, which stands for High Energy Laser With Integrated Optical Dazzler and Surveillance, has been integrated onto US Navy destroyers.