Profound Lessons After Anti Ship Missile Strikes on Yemen s Houthis The US warship s combat strategy

Mondo Military Updated on 2024-02-29

The sea and air attacked at night, and the US radar signal exploded.

According to a report by the Russian satellite network, Yemen's Houthi rebels once again launched a three-dimensional all-round night attack on the US aircraft carrier in the Red Sea. It can be said that the Yemeni Houthis are becoming more and more adept at strikes, and they have begun to carry out a variety of coordinated strikes.

Yemen's Houthi plan for a joint naval and air attack is designed to put the US military in a hurry. The U.S. ** command announced that Yemen's Houthis took a variety of measures, first dispatching three unmanned boats to secretly approach the U.S. military ** from near Hodeidah, and launching a self-detonating attack at night.

Unmanned boats have made a name for themselves on the Russian-Ukrainian battlefield, and the Ukrainian army has repeatedly used unmanned boats to attack the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Crimea at night, successfully hitting a number of Russian ships. Therefore, the Houthis in Yemen decided to use unmanned boats to carry out sneak attacks.

After the departure of the unmanned boat, the Houthi command center in Yemen again sent a suicide drone to attract the attention of the US Aegis ship and cover the sneak attack of the unmanned boat.

The real raid was carried out at the same time that the drones were attracting the attention of the US military. Yemen's Houthi shore-based anti-ship missiles input data and sent two anti-ship cruise missiles, which flew at ultra-low altitude and hit the US Aegis ship that was busy with air defense.

There are suicide drones in the sky, anti-ship missiles at low altitudes, and semi-submersible unmanned ** boats on the sea surface. Yemen's Houthis carried out a multi-layered raid that hit the US military directly. The radar of the US ship Aegis appeared at one time and several incoming signals.

However, the Houthis in Yemen are flawed by their slow pace. The Iranian anti-ship cruise missiles used by the Houthis in Yemen are subsonic missiles with a maximum speed of only 800-900 kilometers. In addition, the unmanned boat is too far away from the US military, and it is easy to be discovered by the US military during the voyage of dozens of kilometers.

And in reality, UAVs pose little threat to US Aegis ships. At the same time, the Iranian anti-ship missiles used by the Houthis in Yemen cannot carry out ultra-low-altitude flights due to the limitations of circuit boards or civilian chips, and their speed is also slow. Therefore, it is very easy for the Sea Sparrow and Standard missiles of the US military to intercept these missiles.

Battles in the Red Sea have confirmed that the information perception capabilities of a single Aegis ship are enough to intercept small targets such as subsonic low-altitude missiles or suicide drones when countering non-saturation strikes.

The biggest problem with subsonic anti-ship missiles lies in radar guidance capabilities, especially anti-jamming capabilities. On the battlefield, the advantage of radar guidance of anti-ship missiles is that the locking range is long, but the disadvantages are also obvious and easy to be jammed.

It's not too much of a problem to deal with freighters and ordinary ships, but it's a different story when it comes to high-end targets like aircraft carrier battle groups or Aegis ships. These targets are equipped with high-power electronic warfare systems of the strategic level, and it is very difficult to burn through their electronic defense systems.

It can be seen from the exercise of our ** team that when China's 055-class Guangxi China Aegis ship resisted a subsonic low-altitude attack, it not only fired a radar decoy and jamming bomb, but also formed a 100-meter electromagnetic fog in the air, causing the incoming missile to lose its target signal.

In addition, after the shipborne early warning and detection system detects the air target, the jamming bomb and the 1130CIWS close defense system are used to coordinate the counterattack. And without launching anti-aircraft missiles, it can be seen that our Aegis ships have a richer range of means and technologies in the fight against subsonic low-altitude missiles or suicide drones.

But why can't the Yemeni Houthis destroy the U.S. boat?

Statistically, the anti-ship missiles used by the Houthis in Yemen are mainly subsonic anti-ship cruise missiles, which are slower and less anti-jamming. And the unmanned boat at sea does not have a great impact on the US military, because the US military has more drones and UAVs than the Russian Black Sea Fleet, and has stronger detection capabilities.

Another key factor is that the width of the Red Sea is mostly only a few tens of nautical miles. Yemen's Houthis happen to lack the ability to effectively monitor and strike US boats and cargo ships. And the US military drone can easily monitor the launch location of the Houthi anti-ship missile in Yemen.

This battle is a wake-up call that we can't just deal with U.S. ships like the Houthis in Yemen. We need to take a large number of saturation strikes or high-speed penetrations, and have good anti-electronic jamming capabilities.

However, the victory or defeat of the Red Sea battle is no longer whether it can be hit**, but whether the Houthis in Yemen can continue to launch a naval attack war for a long time, cut off shipping in the Red Sea, hit the Israeli economy, and put pressure on the West.

In the Vietnam War and the Afghan War, the U.S. military won most of the battles, but ultimately lost the entire war.

In short, even if Yemen's Houthis fail to hit U.S. aircraft carriers and warships, they can continue to launch naval attacks and hold back U.S. forces in the Red Sea for up to two years.

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