© Indian Navy taken from INS VisakhapatnamThe British oil tanker Marlin Luanda burned for several hours after Houthi attack
A we detailed earlier, two contradictory narratives soon emerged: namely the Houthis said they scored a direct hit on one of the US ships, while the Pentagon flatly rejected the claim as nonsense. US CENTCOM said the missiles were intercepted, with one falling into the sea. But this has given rise to many more questions than answers, and some analysts are calling the hostile encounter a clear "loss" for the US Navy and the no less than three well-armed warships attempting to keep the commercial vessels safe.
Below is important commentary from @ArmchairW and raises all of the relevant points, showing that the Pentagon narrative doesn't fully add up [emphasis ZH]...
* * *
Lost amid all the other news breaking in the last 24 hours is one particularly disturbing story: the United States Navy lost a battle at sea yesterday. CENTCOM put out an anodyne press release yesterday stating that afternoon, "Iranian-backed Houthi terrorists fired three anti-ship ballistic missiles from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen toward the U.S.-flagged, owned, and operated container ship M/V Maersk Detroit, transiting the Gulf of Aden.
One missile impacted in the sea. The two other missiles were successfully engaged and shot down by the USS Gravely (DDG 107). There were no reported injuries or damage to the ship." All well and good... but as it turned out there was a lot more to the story.
This engagement occurred while two American merchantmen - the Maersk Detroit and the Maersk Chesapeake - were attempting to run the Bab al-Mandeb from south to north while being covered by the USS Gravely. An AEGIS destroyer's defensive umbrella should have turned this transit into a milk run - except it didn't. CENTCOM admits that one of the Houthis' tactical ballistic missiles - undemanding targets as far as such things go - got through the Gravely's interceptors.
What they neglected to mention was that it struck about a hundred meters from the Maersk Detroit, and that after the attack the convoy aborted the transit and retreated back into the Arabian Sea rather than press on into enemy fire. Was retreat the correct decision at the moment? Probably, the Gravely was shepherding two lumbering merchantmen and facing unsuppressed shore batteries of unknown strength and capability in broad daylight, quite possibly without adequate air cover given the ambiguities of the Eisenhower's exact station in the Red Sea and the limited combat radius of its air wing.
Was this operational plan inadequate? Almost certainly - reading between the lines, it reeks of a complacent assumption that Houthi missile batteries had actually been suppressed by a few rounds of air raids and that a single AEGIS destroyer could handle anything the Houthis could throw at them with no need for additional contingency planning.
In the event neither of these assumptions were correct - and because of it a convoy covered by one of the US Navy's premier warships retreated from a battle that was going badly. Perhaps the Task Force command should stop trying to shape narratives on this website and get to work on getting the Bab al-Mandeb back open to Western shipping, because right now that particular pool looks very closed.
YouTube channel What's Going on with Shipping comments:
Reader Comments
The US marine better avoids ANY surface angagement.
The Russians started in the late '60s, and never stopped improving it.
Not by coincidence, the initial development of the Patriot system started around the same time. I suspect most of the software is still maintained in FORTRAN. The combat "quality" of this system was shown up by the Houthis, during their war against the US-allied Saudis. The system failed to shoot down UAVs approaching at a speed of WWI aircraft, which didn't even make evasive maneuvers.
The problem is trying to shoehorn meanings into groups of words from two different language families. Even within a specific family, we commonly use multiple words as though they had the same meanings - and often they do not.
In the instant case, our strategists believe - erroneously - that calculability is, or can be made, sufficient to provide tactical superiority in time of battle. The problem is that having a calculable response does not guarantee predictability. Here is the crux of the language problem: calculation must be performed quickly enough to pre-dict: that is, to SAY BEFORE. If a calculation cannot tell us what is about to happen before it happens, it is useless in a practical tactical sense.
The ADS must be able to measure and predict the path of an incoming object with sufficient precision to match it with a possible trajectory of it's own defense missiles.
And the AD missiles fired by the system must not only have sufficient precise guidance to adjust its trajectory towards the predicted target, but also sufficient aerodynamic and control capabilities to detect and correct for evasive maneuvers of the target.
Because that is what Russian missiles are famous for.
Not to mention their hypersonic missiles, were in most cases only one evasive maneuver is required to move beyond the dynamic range of the defense missile targeting it.
Despite all claims to the contrary, no Western ADS has ever managed to shoot down any Khinzal missile.
That is why I wonder what is the "minimum threshold" for the algorithm to consider a missile a legitimate threat? One could possibly disrupt the system, by first sending a salvo of missiles of this nature, followed behind fairly closely but prior to the "system" making adjustments. Then some missiles are unlikely to be shot down after the initial salvo is defended and occupies the "defensive system". These missiles ought target directly the inadequate defensive system - then after that - let em have it - full out attack with missiles followed by ground troops storming the border in synchronicity .
Overwhelming attack from all sides and the water as well.
I wonder what Jordan is planning?
The Russians claim to shoot down HIMARS projectiles and SCALP missiles regularly. They usually don't engage in empty rhetorics or undefensible claims. AFAIK they claim their S-500 system can shoot down Khinzal / Zirkon missiles. I suppose they have tried.
But probability plays a certain role.
Evaluations assign certain "kill probabilities" to specific AD missile - target combinations. And the number of missiles shot at an incoming object is usually adjusted to achieve a certain kill probability.
Which leads us to the next tactic - flooding. If you shoot more objects (drones, missiles) than your enemy can shoot down during the raid, the last one's are guaranteed to get through.
That way, the Houthis can defeat a US or British battleship with old missiles and cheap drones, if they want. Especially since the AEGIS capacitiy is very limited.
Israel is in Trouble!
BK
Which is (as stated), policing actions against third-rate armies without air defense and goat herders with AK-47s for Nato and the US.