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One Warship Thwarting a Houthi Attack a Year Ago Changed the U.S. Navy
(Military Times) Geoff Ziezulewicz - On Oct. 19, the Navy destroyer Carney became the first American warship to take out a barrage of Iran-backed Houthi rebel missiles and drones fired from Yemen. Such intercepts have since become a harrowing, near-daily occurrence for destroyers in those waters. On that day, Carney took out a Houthi attack the Pentagon later said was headed for Israel, downing 15 drones and four land-attack cruise missiles over 10 hours. Since then, the Red Sea has become the arena for the longest sustained "direct and deliberate attacks at sea" that the fleet has faced since World War II, Fleet Forces Command head Adm. Daryl Caudle said. Since Carney's first victory, the surface fleet has honed its tactics and tuned its radars for such a fight, instances when a ship's Combat Information Center sometimes has mere seconds to ascertain and take out a Houthi attack. Skippers also report that their crews have been galvanized by such experiences, finding meaning in the life-and-death minutes they endure in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. "This really gave our sailors the why," said Cmdr. Jeremy Robertson, the ship's commanding officer for that cruise. While tactical battles have been won, strategic wars have not, according to James Holmes, a retired Navy gunnery officer and professor of maritime strategy at the Naval War College. "The tacticians have done their work magnificently...and the combination of sensors, fire control and weaponry has performed as advertised against an array of threats similar to what [Iran, Russia and China] field," said Holmes. "Bringing down anti-ship ballistic and cruise missiles is no easy feat, but they have done it." Yet the Navy has been unable to stop the Houthis from attacking merchant vessels traveling through the vital Red Sea. "The mission has fallen short of its strategic goal, namely allowing merchant shipping through the Gulf of Aden, Bab el-Mandeb Strait, and Red Sea to resume unmolested. We can flip strategic failure to success when shipping firms - and the all-important maritime insurance companies - feel comfortable enough to start using that route again."