"On the night of February 19 to 20, French multi-mission frigates (FREMM) detected multiple drone attacks coming from Yemen in their respective patrol areas in the Gulf of Aden and in the southern Red Sea. Two drones were engaged and destroyed," Etat-major des Armees (the Chief of the Defence Staff) said.
Footage provided to Storyful by the military is described as showing the moments both drones were destroyed over the southern Red Sea.
France has been operating in the Red Sea since the Houthis, officially Ansar Allah, began targeting civilian and military ships transiting the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait between the Arab Peninsula and Eritrea in November. France joined the Greek-led European Union EUNAVFOR ASPIDES operation on February 19.
The Houthis have vowed to continue attacks on ships in the Red Sea until Israel's blockade on Gaza is lifted.
presstitutesjournalists surely not.Every mediocre air defense missile can shoot down any average drone. But the problem with that is twofold.
First, the average air defense missile costs 100 to 1000 times the money of such a drone. Especially Western AD missiles are ridiculously overpriced, relatively to their performance. So, which side won here ?
The second issue is, ships carry only a very limited amount of such missiles. Many Western navies even got rid of the capability to restock at sea, so deployment time is limited, and they need to return to certain harbours.
But worse, this allows for an easy defeat of the ship. Just start a saturation attack (employing more drones than the ship carries AD missiles), and hits are guaranteed. Or start a saturation wave with cheap dummy drones first, and follow with a wave of cruise missiles and larger, more effective drones.
As an added bonus point, the West has only very limited production capacities and capabilities left, so they are currently running through their reserves.
Could it be that some forces are colluding here, provoking Nato to disarm itself ? It very much looks like that.