Sailors aboard the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and its accompanying warships have spent four months straight at sea defending against ballistic missiles and flying attack drones fired by Iranian-backed Iran's Houthi sock puppets
...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The legitimate Yemeni government has accused the them of having ties to the Iranian government. Honest they did. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is
God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the JewsThey like shooting off... ummm... missiles that they would have us believe they make at home in their basements. On the plus side, they did murder Ali Abdullah Saleh, which was the only way the country was ever going to be rid of him...
s, and are now more regularly also defending against a new threat — fast unmanned vessels that are fired at them through the water.
While the Houthis have launched unmanned surface vessels, or USVs, in the past against Saudi coalition forces that have intervened in Yemen
...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of...
’s civil war, they were used for the first time against US military and commercial in the Red Sea on January 4. In the weeks since, the Navy has had to intercept multiple USVs, including one on Wednesday.
It’s "more of an unknown threat that we don’t have a lot of intel on, that could be extremely lethal — an unmanned surface vessel," or USV, said Rear Adm. Marc Miguez, commander of Carrier Strike Group Two, of which the Eisenhower is the flagship.
The Houthis "have ways of obviously controlling them just like they do the (unmanned aerial vehicles), and we have very little little fidelity as to all the stockpiles of what they have USV-wise," Miguez said.
The Eisenhower has been on patrol here since November 4, and its accompanying ships have been on location for even longer, since October.
In those months the Eisenhower’s fleet of fighter and surveillance aircraft have worked non-stop to detect and intercept the missiles and drones fired by the Houthis at ships in the Red Sea, Bab el-Mandeb strait and Gulf of Aden. The carriers’ F/A-18 fighter jets are also frequently launched to take out missile sites they detect before munitions are fired.
As of Wednesday, the carrier strike group, which includes the cruiser USS Philippine Sea, the destroyers USS Mason and Gravely, and additional US Navy assets in the region including the destroyers USS Laboon and USS Carney have conducted more than 95 intercepts of drones, anti-ship ballistic missiles and anti-ship cruise missiles and made more than 240 self-defense strikes on more than 50 Houthi targets.
"We are constantly keeping an eye on what the Iranian-backed Houthis are up to, and when we find military targets that threaten the ability of merchant vessels, we act in defense of those ships and strike them precisely and
But the USV threat, which is still evolving, is worrisome, Miguez said.
"That’s one of the most scary scenarios, 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," Miguez said.
That pace has meant the ships have spent four months at a constant combat pace with no days off with a port call.
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USS Dwight D. Eisenhower: 2024-01-21 US strike Houthi anti-ship missile aimed towards Gulf of Aden
USS Dwight D. Eisenhower: 2024-01-12 US fighter jets, destroyers and subs fire more than 100 precision-guided missiles at 60 Houthi targets - including command centers, munitions depots and radar systems - after tanker attacks in the Red Sea
USS Dwight D. Eisenhower: 2024-01-11 Major Yemeni military operation targets US ship involved in supplying Zionist entity UPDATE: all drones’n’missiles shot down