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
So like… it’s a ship right? Even if an individual group could laid a singular attack that could deplete all of the resources of a warship, which for all intents abs purposes is infinite as far as any single conflict is concerned. Like they have more bullets periodt.
But if they start to run low they’ll just leave. Like it’s a war not a pissing contest. If they see they’ll be overwhelmed they’ll just turn and go. They can fire in every direction at all times so like… no problem. Just run and gun and hit the gas when you realize you only have enough ammo to get out of range.
Which i would like to remind you that a warship alone has more than enough armament to stave off a drone strike and rain hell on the base. The warship has better range than a drone and equal range to a missile so you’re not going to have time to actually continue your sustained strike long enough to wear out the armament.
Idk I’m not normally one to go all USA military best, but like also…. us military biggest budget.
Lots of great technical answers here. But one of the most important reasons is simply retaliation.
A drone strike that big and coordinated would have to be done pretty close and likely very easy to trace the source of.
And US warships ( plus whatever else the US would want to commit) can retaliate in a very big and very unpleasant way.
This is actually probably the biggest current threat to the US Navy. It costs comparatively very little to operate 10,000 drones, all with a bomb attached. That’s not something you can shoot down individuality.
So there’s been a push to develop anti-drone technology. A couple ways to do that are by interrupting the communication signals (like a cell phone signal jammer), and EMP bursts.
As much as Phalanx is great, this in combination with a larger multi purpose gun like the 57mm bofors [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bofors_57_mm_Naval_Automatic_Gun_L/70](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bofors_57_mm_Naval_Automatic_Gun_L/70) probably more ideal since it has much great range. So ideally take out many of threats before they are even in visual range.
Also it appears CIWS being replaced with [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIM-116_Rolling_Airframe_Missile](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIM-116_Rolling_Airframe_Missile) missiles in upcoming boats such as Constellation class frigate. Will RAM is probably great it only has 11 missiles. Constellation has the 57mm gun.
This is exactly how Hamas managed to push through Israel’s “Iron Dome”.
If you lob enough — massive numbers — of rockets and drones, something is eventually going to make it through. This is starting to play out more and more as it gets cheaper and cheaper to build and launch drones. Launching million dollar missiles to intercept five thousand bucks worth of drone is a painful burn and if enough drones are incoming, eventually CWIS needs reloading and missile tubes are empty.
You’re forgetting about removing the weapons of mass destruction. They’ve still not been found 🤪
If you consider the government of Iraq a democracy I’ve a bridge to sell you.
Do not. Touch. The boats.
It’s not like they’re using precision munitions that can effectively target the ships. Or even know where the ships are.
Probably stuff that isn’t public. Not to mention to launch a “drone swarm” you have to assemble a bunch of drones. We gather intel on everything through every method you can think of and likely some you cant. We would likely know you were launching a drone swarm before you knew you were launching a drone swarm and act accordingly.
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