Houthis’ Sea Drones on the Way!
Sea drones are being used to smash Russia’s navy, and now they’re being used by the Houthis to threaten a US carrier strike group too.
Rubymar, a Belize-flagged, British-registered ship carrying combustible fertilizer, was damaged in a Sunday missile strike claimed by the Iran-backed Huthi rebels.
Its crew was evacuated to Djibouti after one missile hit the side of the ship, causing water to enter the engine room and its stern to sag, said its operator, the Blue Fleet Group.
A second missile hit the vessel’s deck without causing major damage, Blue Fleet CEO Roy Khoury told AFP.
Business Insider by Mia Jankowicz • February 16, 2024 // Yahoo
As the Dwight D Eisenhower carrier strike group fends off attacks in the Red Sea, Houthi rebels have added a new weapon to their arsenal — naval drones, the Associated Press reported.
Houthis have launched or attempted to launch multiple explosive, uncrewed vessels into waters off Yemen where they would threaten US Navy and commercial vessels since January 4, adding a new surface-level threat to the attacks involving airborne drones and missiles.
Rear Adm Marc Miguez, the commander of the Eisenhower carrier strike group, told the outlet that the sea drones are “more of an unknown threat that we don’t have a lot of intel on, that could be extremely lethal.”
Naval drones present one of the most “scary scenarios,” he said, adding: “To have a bomb-laden, unmanned surface vessel that can go in pretty fast speeds. And if you’re not immediately on scene, it can get ugly extremely quick.”
US forces have encountered Houthi sea drones in commercial shipping lanes on at least three occasions, specialist outlet the Maritime Executive reported.
On February 5, US forces decided that two such drones presented “an imminent threat” to shipping and took them out, according to US Central Command. The US military has also regularly conducted strikes on USVs that the Houthis were preparing to launch.
The emergent technology of sea drones has been largely pioneered — with considerable success — by Ukraine against Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.
In the last two weeks alone, Ukraine claims to have sunk a Russian corvette and a landing craft using only a handful of inexpensive, home-produced MAGURA V5 naval drones.
The drones are far from infallible — experts have told Business Insider that they often fail to reach their target — but the payoff if they do hit gives Ukraine an “immense asymmetric advantage,” Basil Germond, an expert in international security at Lancaster University in the UK, said.
Miguez told the AP that, at present, the US Navy does not have good intelligence on how many drones the Houthis have.
The rebel group has also used them in the past against Saudi coalition forces involved in Yemen’s civil war, the AP reported.
The Dwight D Eisenhower carrier strike group has been responding to near-constant attacks on and malign activities in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden for weeks, and the strike group commander told Business Insider’s Jake Epstein about how US forces have adapted their approach to target Houthi missiles and drones before they can even be launched.
Yet its $32M MQ-9 Reaper drone has been shot down and missiles had hit the engine room of the British “Rubymar,” paralysing the cargo ship [carrying combustible fertilizer] when sailing through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.
“The LORD shall smite thee with madness, and blindness, and astonishment of heart; and thou shalt grope at noonday, as the blind gropeth in darkness” Deuteronomy 28:28-29
“I create darkness; I create evil; I, the LORD, do all these things” Isaiah 45:7
“Think not that I am come to send peace on earth. I came not to send peace, but a sword” Matthew 10:34
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