Red Sea / Houthi rebels situation

ubersonic said:
So while drones are indeed highly effective, and arguably the future of warfare, it should be noted that their operational effectiveness is currently being distorted somewhat right now due to the fact that they are mostly being utilised in combat against an enemy who not only has no drone defence but has actively taken steps to inadvertently make themselves much more susceptible to drone attack than other modern militaries.
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Ukraine is also struggling somewhat against Russian drones - there was a good article about it on the BBC recently actually https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-67991772

Most militaries are poorly prepared for them, while the medium size stuff can be dealt with by the likes of the Shilka and Gepard and the larger stuff by a variety of air-defence platforms and there are some ewar systems out there for jamming, etc. there are few optimal systems for dealing with a range of drone threats. Which is surprising really as the basic physical mechanics of such a system aren't overly complicated, detection and the algorithms involved a bit more so but not an exceptionally hard problem to solve.
 
Think the Houthis must be laughing after the revelations about our broken aircraft carrier(propellors), the russians too, after we have previously media covered broken down (old) russian carriers.
Monies we are spending to politically show allegiance with USA&Israel on missiles should be diverted to these more basic needs.
 
ubersonic said:
It should be noted that two of the main reasons drones have been so incredibly effective in Ukraine are because (A) the most prolific supplier of drones to Ukraine (Turkey) operate Russian AA systems and so it makes sense that their drones would be additionally effective at exploiting the weaknesses of such systems. And (B) because in an effort to save money Russia scrapped almost all of their ZSU anti air units (imagine somebody stuck a Phalanx CIWS on top of a T-55 hull and you're basically their, functionally if not visually) because they thought that they wouldn't need to defend their ground units against visual range air attack due to always fighting with air supremacy and having mobile SAMs.

So while drones are indeed highly effective, and arguably the future of warfare, it should be noted that their operational effectiveness is currently being distorted somewhat right now due to the fact that they are mostly being utilised in combat against an enemy who not only has no drone defence but has actively taken steps to inadvertently make themselves much more susceptible to drone attack than other modern militaries.
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Nah that's a complete red herring, @potatolord was talking about commercially available drones, that Turkery makes use of some Russian air defence systems has nothing to do with their effectiveness, no basic commercial drone is going to be intercepted by those systems, they're too short range, fly too low etc..

Maybe it was relevant to the Bayraktar or some long range drones but those are rather different thing.
 
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Chojin said:
It doesn't seem like the West has a cost effective answer to the "axis". With Russia being on a wartime footing they have the manufacturing capabilities.

So do Iran with their cheap drones. Seeing a lot more innovation from them e.g. Shahed-238.

I would have thought the US knew they weren't going to have the monopoly on drones forever and would develop something cheaper than $2 million missiles.

Uncomfortable to think but their military aura will be damaged if the Houthis are successful in taking out one of their ships.

www.theguardian.com

Deadly, cheap and widespread: how Iran-supplied drones are changing the nature of warfare

Attacks using Shahed drones have been carried out by militias in the Middle East and Russia in Ukraine
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
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the response would be stark. The US sank over half the Iranian navy just for damaging one of its missile cruisers and if it wasn't for the President calling off the rest of the attack the Americans were going to sink the entire Navy.

Now imagine what they will do if Iran/Yemen sank one of their aircraft carriers and killed 5000 sailors. I wouldn't be surprised if they flattened Tehran
 
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jpaul said:
Think the Houthis must be laughing after the revelations about our broken aircraft carrier(propellors), the russians too, after we have previously media covered broken down (old) russian carriers.
Monies we are spending to politically show allegiance with USA&Israel on missiles should be diverted to these more basic needs.
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Saudis have been bombing Houthis for years with ongoing civil war in Yemen its only made them stronger the saudis have had enough they were sueing for peace until the americans waded in

Grim5 said:
the response would be stark. The US sank over half the Iranian navy just for damaging one of its missile cruisers and if it wasn't for the President calling off the rest of the attack the Americans were going to sink the entire Navy.

Now imagine what they will do if Iran/Yemen sank one of their aircraft carriers and killed 5000 sailors. I wouldn't be surprised if they flattened Tehran
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Yeah brilliant kill tens of thousand of unarmed civilians who already hate their own government for their brutal repression of women that'll work well in convincing the Revolutionary Guards to stop. There won't be any surge in anti american sentiment, no sir. Plays right into their hands.
 
Blackjack Davy said:
Saudis have been bombing Houthis for years with ongoing civil war in Yemen its only made them stronger the saudis have had enough they were sueing for peace until the americans waded in


Yeah brilliant kill tens of thousand of unarmed civilians who already hate their own government for their brutal repression of women that'll work well in convincing the Revolutionary Guards to stop. There won't be any surge in anti american sentiment, no sir. Plays right into their hands.
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I didn't t say it's going to happen, I just said I'd not be surprised, after all there is many examples of it, another example: Americans went to war and killed 200k people when someone attacked them and killed 3k people in 2001. If you think the Americans won't over react to Iran/Houthis sinking a carrier, where have you been, living in a bubble??
 
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ubersonic said:
It should be noted that two of the main reasons drones have been so incredibly effective in Ukraine are because (A) the most prolific supplier of drones to Ukraine (Turkey) operate Russian AA systems and so it makes sense that their drones would be additionally effective at exploiting the weaknesses of such systems. And (B) because in an effort to save money Russia scrapped almost all of their ZSU anti air units (imagine somebody stuck a Phalanx CIWS on top of a T-55 hull and you're basically their, functionally if not visually) because they thought that they wouldn't need to defend their ground units against visual range air attack due to always fighting with air supremacy and having mobile SAMs.

So while drones are indeed highly effective, and arguably the future of warfare, it should be noted that their operational effectiveness is currently being distorted somewhat right now due to the fact that they are mostly being utilised in combat against an enemy who not only has no drone defence but has actively taken steps to inadvertently make themselves much more susceptible to drone attack than other modern militaries.
Click to expand...

Both the Russians and Ukrainians are getting a pasting by cheap drones. International shipping is getting hit, to the point a major US operation is underway to reduce the threat. It's too early to say how effective that will be.

Drones are the new landmines. They are a cheap, easily deployed, area denial weapon (some war need can correct me on terminology here) and no-one has an effective answer at this point.

I see proliferation of cheap, commercial drones as a big, and unknown problem. If a country with a large drone manufacturing capability decides to attack a neighbour, they'll be using masses of cheap drones as part of the mix.

We can look forward to these popping up everywhere over the next decade.
 
jpaul said:
Think the Houthis must be laughing after the revelations about our broken aircraft carrier(propellors), the russians too, after we have previously media covered broken down (old) russian carriers.
Monies we are spending to politically show allegiance with USA&Israel on missiles should be diverted to these more basic needs.
Click to expand...
It's a total propaganda joke from the UK to be showing support as a military power, when in actual fact the ONLY reason we are considred any type of threat is because of our nuclear deterrent. Take that away, and we struggle to get in to the top 10 of miltary powerhouses. If the Ukraine/Russia conflcit has shown anything, it has shown that there is still a need for boots on the ground at the frontline, and what do we have, 83-86,000? For all our tough stances and allegiance with the U.S, we're well out of comfort zones. Wasn't it the U.S that recently said that they don't consider the British army a top level fighing force anymore?
 
teejay73 said:
It's a total propaganda joke from the UK to be showing support as a military power, when in actual fact the ONLY reason we are considred any type of threat is because of our nuclear deterrent. Take that away, and we struggle to get in to the top 10 of miltary powerhouses. If the Ukraine/Russia conflcit has shown anything, it has shown that there is still a need for boots on the ground at the frontline, and what do we have, 83-86,000? For all our tough stances and allegiance with the U.S, we're well out of comfort zones. Wasn't it the U.S that recently said that they don't consider the British army a top level fighing force anymore?
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This week's Economist has a short article on the UK military and its funding and planning, and it is damning.
 
potatolord said:
This week's Economist has a short article on the UK military and its funding and planning, and it is damning.
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It doesn't surprise me in the slightest. My nephew is currently in the process of leaving the army, and has said that with all the group of friends that signed up at the same time, only 1 remains. He said it's rife in the Army right now. The UK miltary is like that single member of a gang that you've cornered, whilst when with the gang is the loudest one shouting. We need to invest a higher level of GDP to the correct spending of the defense budget, but money alone isn't going to solve our immediate problem - we're years behind having a good enough military that just doesn't rely on having a nuclear deterrent.
 
Grim5 said:
the response would be stark. The US sank over half the Iranian navy just for damaging one of its missile cruisers and if it wasn't for the President calling off the rest of the attack the Americans were going to sink the entire Navy.

Now imagine what they will do if Iran/Yemen sank one of their aircraft carriers and killed 5000 sailors. I wouldn't be surprised if they flattened Tehran
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So far three servicemen have died and many injured and that hasn't happened. Iran is a different beast now that they have supposed nuclear dirty bomb capabilities. I think that's a turning point for how involved USA would be prepared to deal with them. Once a country has nuclear then it's tip toeing around the edges with proxy wars (Russia/Ukraine) and bombing external militias. Basically they invaded the wrong country in 2003.

potatolord said:
We can look forward to these popping up everywhere over the next decade.
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There are between 5-10 million commercial drones produced a year and that's only going to increase. It could even reach the point where countries are buying more drones than rounds of ammunition.

I'm just surprised there hasn't been a terrorist attack in the UK yet as that seems inevitable.
 
teejay73 said:
It's a total propaganda joke from the UK to be showing support as a military power, when in actual fact the ONLY reason we are considred any type of threat is because of our nuclear deterrent. Take that away, and we struggle to get in to the top 10 of miltary powerhouses. If the Ukraine/Russia conflcit has shown anything, it has shown that there is still a need for boots on the ground at the frontline, and what do we have, 83-86,000? For all our tough stances and allegiance with the U.S, we're well out of comfort zones. Wasn't it the U.S that recently said that they don't consider the British army a top level fighing force anymore?
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The UK is still potent even without nukes. But we don't have a military big enough to fight a world war anymore.

Tactics also became very special forces and air force focused.

When it comes to nuclear powers, the days of large armies squaring off are gone. They'll just threaten to fling nukes if they get overwhelmed.
 
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teejay73 said:
It's a total propaganda joke from the UK to be showing support as a military power, when in actual fact the ONLY reason we are considred any type of threat is because of our nuclear deterrent. Take that away, and we struggle to get in to the top 10 of miltary powerhouses. If the Ukraine/Russia conflcit has shown anything, it has shown that there is still a need for boots on the ground at the frontline, and what do we have, 83-86,000? For all our tough stances and allegiance with the U.S, we're well out of comfort zones. Wasn't it the U.S that recently said that they don't consider the British army a top level fighing force anymore?
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We'd struggle to put 20K ground forces into theatre... never mind 80+K. Which is why something needs to be done but we'll likely only learn that the hard way if it comes to it and possibly too late. (Hopefully it never comes to it but it isn't something we should bank on).
 
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Rroff said:
We'd struggle to put 20K ground forces into theatre... never mind 80+K. Which is why something needs to be done but we'll likely only learn that the hard way if it comes to it and possibly too late. (Hopefully it never comes to it but it isn't something we should bank on).
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And we're not alone. Look at Germany, Italy etc. Germany's defense is a complete disaster despite having many leading arms manufacturers. Underfunded for decades. This is part of the reason some countries were pushing for a unifed EU forces (i.e something to sit next to or replace NATO if needs be), where each country could put in it's specilisations. E.g Germany with Tanks, special forces, ammo production, Spain aircraft, France seaborne forces, UK Navy, Airforce. With the US faffing around with Trump in charge and an unknown future for NATO it made sense but of course not for the headbangers who saw it as an EU thing and ... well yes there we go. It's incredibly hard for one country to spend the amount needed by itself unless you're the US or have massive numbers of troops (Turkey) etc.
 
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