US Navy and other partners defeat largest drone attack yet from Yemeni Houthi rebels in the Red Sea

 

Mockup drones and missiles in Sana'a Yemen. Fox News.

The US Navy and other coalition partners defeated a major mass drone attack from Houthi rebels in the Red Sea. Fox News. At least 28 drones were shot down in one of the largest attacks since the war began. The attack was on Saturday and lasted two and a half hours. The attack was one of the first after last week's attack on shipping killed three people on a freighter. No reports of damage on US Navy or allied ships, or civilian ships, were made. 

My Comment:

This was a fairly significant attack on US vessels in the Red Sea, though the DOD is being rather coy on the exact details, probably for security reasons. No mention of which ships were involved, which of our allies were involved or whether or not the US Navy ships were the targets or if it was the freighters being targeted again. 

Regardless, it appears to have been a failure. 28 drones used and no damaged reported is not a good look for the Houthis. Their entire attack force was either shot down or failed to hit the target, which is a failure in my books. 

About the only thing this accomplished is further depleting the Navy's stock of defensive weapons. Given how intense the fighting has been in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden I would not be surprised if some of the Destroyers deployed there are getting low on weapons. Eventually they are going to run out and when that happens they will be vulnerable to these drones. 

I do think that the Houthis were smart to do this kind of attack. If they had been a little more coordinated in their attack and concentrated on one target they might have had a success. If all 28 drones were arriving at exactly the same time and attacked from different directions they could have damaged or even destroyed whatever ship they were targeting. Unfortunately for them they apparently didn't coordinate that well. 

Regardless, they are learning and I think it's only a matter of time until another freighter gets wrecked or a US Navy ship gets destroyed. The Navy has to be right every single time but the Houthis only need to get lucky once and it's very possible that could happen. 

What is clear is that our airstrikes are doing almost nothing to prevent these drone attacks. The Biden administration has failed in their policy, but like I said, there wasn't much they could do. This is modern warfare and the truth is that it's very hard to disrupt drone and missile attacks with only airstrikes. Short of having troops on the ground I don't see how we could stop these attacks.