I’ve read about many instances of Houthi drone attacks and missiles being successfully intercepted by US warships. I have no doubt that these ships are capable of completely neutralizing these types of attacks in a vacuum… but given the cost disparity between the drones/missiles and the defense equipment used to stop them… what’s stopping the opposition from spamming so many at once that the ships can’t keep up?
Instead of repeated, futile attacks, what would happen if the opposition stock piled all of their resources and launched them at once, in waves, one right after the other?
Surely there must be some finite limit to the amount of defensive ammunition (not sure of the right term here) the ships are able to carry at sea.
Is it just a matter of the ships being so well equipped that any force capable of exhausting their supplies is simply impractical- even if the drones are pennies on the dollar in terms of comparative cost?
In: Engineering
That’s been the basic concept of ship combat since the 1960s or so. 20th century world war 3 was going to have an act with massive squadrons of Soviet bombers launching hundreds of missiles at U.S. carriers.
That said, air defense ships carry a lot of missiles. The U.S.’s standard destroyer has cells for around 90 missiles, many or most of which will be for air defense, plus guns and various spooky electronics. They were built to have a fighting change in a superpower war. Also, I think the Houthis were mostly targeting civilian ships and the warships were trying to protect them.
Still, missiles are getting cheaper and more available, and you’re right, the time isn’t too far off when a mid-tier power can throw 97 missiles at a ship that’s got 96 to defend itself with. A lot of current thinking is around “disrupting the kill chain” which means break something the other side needs to find you and get their missiles launched. Stay over the horizon, shoot down aircraft trying to find you, jam sensors, attack missile launch sites, etc.
There’s also electronic warfare and a lot of interest in energy weapons, which could totally change the balance. The line between the two is isnt strict, [current radars](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AN/SPY-6) have more in common with microwave ovens than many people realize.
Righteous, assertive retribution? We tend to bomb to the stone age people who attack us. One warship isn’t worth getting bombed back to the stone age.
Anything that small and cheap will not have the capability or fuel to travel a long distance.
In other words, the drone base or mothership must be relatively close by and probably within striking distance of whatever ship it was trying to kill, or even worse, that ship’s friends.
Ever seen a c-ram working?
You don’t even need to wait until the point defense guns are out of ammo, you can overwhelm any point defense system by throwing enough stuff at it.
But getting that many drones/missiles together is costly. Even less expensive rockets have a fairly high price.
And, you don’t actually know how many you’ll need. The actual abilities of US Naval point defense are classified, maybe each gun can shoot down five missiles per second. Or one. Or ten. Or one every half second. So how many missiles (which cost money) do you throw at a destroyer in hopes that some get through by sheer weight of numbers? You can experiment and find out, but that’s an expensive experiment, and of course the US military is now looking for you so… you know, not exactly a great outcome.
This is why governments are investing heavily in R&D for defensive lasers. With the right equipment, one of these can destroy one unarmored drone every 10 seconds or so for many hours on end. Put a few of them together and you can stop a dozen or more drones every minute.
I think a big factor is that a US ship or carrier group isn’t going to just stay on defense. They’re going to pound the area where the attacks are coming from. Look up the USS Wisconsin. North Korea was taking pot shots at it from a bunker on a hill, and the ship responded by removing the entire hill with artillery. The North Korean guns and the men operating them were likely destroyed in the first few seconds but the ship just pounded the area until there was nothing left. If you launched an overwhelming attack on a US ship, they’d likely track the origin point quickly and overwhelm your position and the surrounding towns with missiles and aircraft, and they would likely go way overboard to drive home the point that it was a very bad idea.
The drones you need to carry any meaningful type of weaponry on them are not the ones you get on Amazon. Even the larger more expensive drones that private owners buy have very little weight-bearing capacity. US warships are heavily armored. You need powerful explosives to even make a dent. Those types of explosives are really heavy. So the drones that can deliver that kind of payload and are quick enough to not get shot down from a mile away actually cost millions. Any drones the Houthi rebels have are probably smuggled from elsewhere or salvaged so they can’t actually manufacture them in mass. And if they did, we’d be able to locate the factory where they are doing it an turn it into a crater.
I wouldn’t be surprised if we have laser systems in place by now. Laser tech has advanced greatly in the past decade… and that’s just what the public is aware of.
Aside from everything everyone mentioned, I just want to mention that the last time Japan touched US warships, the US made 2 “sun” rises in Japan
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