Commercial ships have no defense against this tactic and the British and American warships and combat aircraft in the area have been unable to find and destroy the locations where the USVs are manufactured and stored. Since February 2024 Americans warships and carrier aircraft have launched six missile attacks at rebel positions in Yemen. This did not inflict enough damage to halt the attacks. The USVs are relatively small and easy to hide. Attacks from ships and aircraft have been unable to find all the USVs.
Because the USVs explode at the waterline, the damaged ship portions quickly fill with water and the ship often sinks. Since November 2023 the Yemeni rebels have launched more than 70 attacks with missiles and USVs. The attacks are uncoordinated and often inept but quantity has a quality all its own and, so far, two cargo ships have been sunk and two ships captured and held for ransom by the rebels.
Because of the attacks, maritime insurance companies have increased their premiums commercial ships moving through the Red Sea must pay. So far, the increased premiums have cost the shipping companies yearly half a million dollars per ship.
At the same time, Chinese owned ships have rarely been attacked and any attacks were accidental. As a result Chinese ships pay insurance premiums that amount to only a quarter of what everyone else is paying.
Seems to be an unstoppable method of attack that will persist as long as the Gaza slaughter continues.
The UUV, along with those seen in Iran, appears similar to a torpedo. orone-way attack underwater drone (OWA-AUVs). Generally, these have a greater range than a torpedo but are slower, making them most effective against static targets such as ships in port or at anchor. The type typically used in Iran, according to observers, can be fitted with a short mast, possibly to observe the target before attacking. It is possible that the device can be remotely operated by a wire, similar to wire-guided torpedoes. This would allow it to engage moving targets.
It has been months and still the US Navy is stumped.
The low cost USVs & UUVs so far have beaten the billion dollar US Navy.
The inlet to the Red Sea from the Gulf of Aden is only 25 miles.
I suppose a large US naval task force could line the coast of Yemen. What would that cost the US taxpayers?
It is already costing the US taxpayer a bundle. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/cost-rising-for-us-as-it-fights-off-houthi-drones/ar-AA1opJHa U.S. forces have launched roughly 800 missiles and seven rounds of air strikes against the Iran-backed Houthi rebels that have controlled Yemen since November in what has become the most sustained military campaign by American forces since the anti-ISIS air war in Iraq and Syria that reached its height in 2016-2019.
a campaign that risks chewing through munitions the Pentagon would rather stockpile for a potential confrontation with China.
“There is a huge cost” being placed on the U.S. in continuing its mission in the Red Sea, said Jonathan Lord, a former Pentagon official, including “a real strategic cost to U.S. readiness, to say nothing of the opportunity cost on our ability to project power in the world.”
A campaign that produced little but cost beaucoup dollars and showed the world how ineffective our navy is in stopping the attacks.
Also the Houthi have missiles. They might like to see how good the US Navy’s anti missile defense is if the US Navy decides the line the coast of Yemen with ships.
The only way to stop the attacks is via costly boots on the ground. The Iraq War has Shown how expensive that would be.
Or we could stopping supplying Israel with the munitions it is conducting the genocide in Gaza.
The problem is throughout the region. There are 4 other worse wars with worse famines and diseased populations. The forces of Islam only just see Israel.
Yemen is one of the worse wars than Gaza. The Houthi get young men who would not fight at age 15 to volunteer to fight against Israel. Then the Houthi put those young recruits on the line to do battle in a different city in Yemen.
The Houthis advertize against Israel to fight their own internal battles.
The US government loves a good genocide.
I believe you just don’t understand how evil US foreign policy is.
Sure it is. It is a Muslim civil war of Shiite vs Sunni. The US has been supplying Saudi Arabia with munitions to be our proxy. The Houthis are Shiite & thus allied with Iran [arch US enemy as they overthrew US imposed dictator-the Shah].
The U.S. has also provided the coalition with logistical support, including mid-air refueling, targeting advice and support, intelligence, expedited munitions resupply and maintenance.
As a genocide scholar, I believe that under international law, the U.S. shares responsibility with the Coalition for genocide in Yemen.
What does this mean? It means that the U.S. must cease and desist all activities that facilitate genocide in Yemen. This would include stopping all sales of weapons and ending logistical support for Coalition action.
The CIA overthrew overthrew the representative government in Iran & put the Shah on the throne as dictator. The west regain partial ownership of the oil in Iran.
Before its removal from power, his administration introduced a range of social and political measures such as social security, land reforms and higher taxes including the introduction of taxation on the rent of land. His government’s most significant policy was the nationalisation of the Iranian oil industry, which had been built by the British on Persian lands since 1913 through the Anglo-Persian Oil Company(APOC/AIOC), later known as British Petroleum (BP).[10]
Batman Naderipour, alias Tehrani, should know what he is talking about. He admitted torturing hundreds of people and murdering dozens in 16 years as key interrogator for the secret police, or Savak.
In addition to domestic security, the service’s tasks extended to the surveillance of Iranians abroad, notably in the United States, France, and the United Kingdom, and especially students on government stipends.
I believe you just don’t understand how evil US foreign policy is.
I support democratic forces. That means change in how Russia and Muslims governer. Meanwhile we are seeing horrible stuff because of Russia/Putin and the forces of Islam only.
Directed energy weapons are in the testing/use phase and have been successful at downing airborne drones. They are new, there’s still a lot of work to be done but they do (at least) exist outside the CGI fantasies of Hollywood.
THE AGE OF the laser weapon is finally upon us.
The United States Army has officially sent a pair of high-energy laser weapons overseas to defend American troops and US allies against enemy drones, the service recently [revealed], marking the first publicly known deployment of a directed-energy system for air defense in military history. And, according to a top official, those weapons are actively blasting threats out of the sky.
The weapon, known as the Palletized High Energy Laser (P-HEL) and developed by the American defense contractor BlueHalo based on the company’s 20-kilowatt [Locust Laser Weapon System], first arrived in an unspecified location overseas and “commenced operational employment” in November 2022, according to an April [press release] from the company. A second system arrived overseas “earlier this year.”
One advantage (among many others) is that there is no physical media required, no bullets to run out, no gunpowder to be loaded. So long as you have a generator capable of powering the weapon you can shoot indefinitely as fast as your targeting allows. That’s the kind of thing (a the only thing I can think of) that would combat an airborne drone swarm.
The possibility of seaborne drones is a different issue; they would likely be invulnerable to this sort of defense, but then would move much more slowly and deliberately than airborne RoVs and would be susceptible other methods of defense.
President Assad in July 2015, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad made a formal request to Russia, asking for them to send military aid to combat terrorism.
The US supported rebels that wished to depose Assad.
And we know how that turned out. It was the US meddling in Syria.
Russia paddled the US behind just as did the North Vietnamese. https://www.reuters.com/article/world/obama-authorizes-secret-support-for-syrian-rebels-idUSBRE8701OK/ President Barack Obama has signed a secret order authorizing U.S. support for rebels seeking to depose Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his government, sources familiar with the matter said.
US intervention was unilateral and illegal according to international law. But we know international law does not apply to the “indispensable nation”.
The interventions of the United States are not legal as its purpose was to depose a legally elected government. Very similar to what the US attempted in Venezuela recently.
With the eager support of some members of the USian media. I remember CBS “news”, almost daily, offering “rare looks” at the war in Syria. They would go to a refugee camp across the border in Turkey, talking to women and children, saying, according to the translator voice over “where is America? America has to help us”. As if it is “cruel and unusual” for a government to hit back at people who take up arms against it.
Irony knows no limits department: recently, a “thought leader”, who wanted to overthrow the Venezuelan government, said that, if things in Shiny-land don’t go his way, he will move to Venezuela, because “it’s safer there”, under the same regime he wanted to overthrow.
