[Adonis]

Long post but we have some big news out of the Yemen/Red Sea area.

Old map showing location:



First was the attack on a UAE HSV Swift boat(Link), then there were 2 cruise missiles launched from Yemen at the USS MASON (DDG-87).

HSV-2 Swift

Quote:

HSV-2 Swift is a hybrid catamaran. She was privately owned and operated by Sealift Inc., and was originally built under the JHSV program as a proof of concept. As part of this program, she was directly leased for evaluation from her builders by the United States Navy Military Sealift Command from 2003 to 2013, primarily as a mine countermeasures and sea basing test platform. Later during her official naval career she was mostly used for fleet support and humanitarian partnership missions.

As of 2015, the ship was reported to have been leased by the United Arab Emirates' National Marine Dredging Company. On 1 October 2016, the ship was attacked and seriously damaged off Yemen. Houthi rebels claimed the ship sank.[2] According to unnamed US Department of Defense officials, the damaged ship was being towed to Eritrea.[3] The fate of her crew is currently unclear.

As far as I know this is the first time that this particular occurrence of missiles being fired at a US warship along with a defensive missile launch has happened since the USS Stark incident (no defensive missile launch then) in 1987. The effectiveness of the weapons launched was recorded as a matter of course but that information will not be released open source. Having stood the watch that fires missiles onboard this class of ship I can only imagine how they felt. Bravo fucking Zulu to my brothers and sisters out there.

USS MASON
USS PONCE

USNI Report

USNI Wrote:

The crew of a guided-missile destroyer fired three missiles to defend themselves and another ship after being attacked on Sunday in the Red Sea by two presumed cruise missiles fired by Iran-backed Houthi-forces, USNI News has learned.

During the attack against USS Mason (DDG-87), the ship’s crew fired the missiles to defend the guided-missile destroyer and nearby USS Ponce (AFSB(I)-15) from two suspected cruise missiles fired from the Yemini shore, two defense officials told USNI News.

Mason launched two Standard Missile-2s (SM-2s) and a single Enhanced Sea Sparrow Missile (ESSM) to intercept the two missiles that were launched about 7 P.M. local time. In addition to the missiles, the ship used its Nulka anti-ship missile decoy, the sources confirmed. Mason was operating in international waters north of the strait of Bab el-Mandeb at the time of the attack.

According to a defense official on Monday, Mason “employed onboard defensive measures” against the first suspected cruise missile, “although it is unclear whether this led to the missile striking the water or whether it would have struck the water anyway.” The official did not specify that the defensive measure was a missile fired from the ship.

USNI News understands, as of Monday, the crew of the ship was uncertain if the suspected cruise missile was taken out by an SM-2 or went into the water on its own. In the Monday statement, the Pentagon said an investigation was ongoing.

The second missile launched from Yemen hit the water without being struck by a U.S. interceptor, the Petnagon said.

Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis would not confirm Mason launched missiles to USNI News on Monday. On Tuesday, Davis told reporters the missiles coming from Yemen might have been intended to strike Ponce and that the U.S. “will take action accordingly,” in response to the findings of the ongoing investigation.

While the Pentagon will not confirm details of Mason’s engagement, the use of both missiles by the U.S. is, “very significant,” Bryan Clark, a naval analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments and former aide to retired former-Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert, told USNI News on Monday.

“It might be the first time the SM-2 used against an actual threat for which it was designed,” Clark said.
“It’s definitely the first time ESSM has been used… This is obviously a huge deal.”

The SM-2s – more than two decades old – were specifically designed to tackle Cold War cruise missile threats to a guided-missile destroyer, much like the ones Iran has presumably given to the Houthis in Yemen.

Last week a Houthi-launched cruise missile caused significant damage to the UAE-leased HSV Swift – an unarmed aluminum high-speed transport vessel used to move supplies and wounded in the region, UAE officials said. UAE is part of a Saudi Arabia led coalition that has fought against the Iran-backed Shi’a Houthis in Yemen since last year.

While U.S. sources haven’t confirmed the type of missiles, open source naval analyst and retired Navy Capt. Chris Carlson told USNI News on Monday the damage on Swift appears to be from the warhead used in a Chinese-built C-802 anti-ship missile (NATO reporting name CSS-N-8 Saccade). The C-802 is based on Cold War-era French technology.

Specifically, the damage on Swift indicates the missile had an explosively formed penetrator (EFP) warhead – a well-known feature of the C-802. An EFP expands on impact launching additional pieces of shrapnel once the missile has penetrated the outer skin of a target around its circumference.

While the guidance system is largely 1990s vintage, the C-802 carries a, “very damaging warhead,” Carlson said.

The attacks on Mason and Ponce follow an airstrike that killed more than 140 people and injured more than 500 during a funeral in Yemen. The Saudi-led bombing has prompted a review of U.S. support of the conflict fought between the collation and the Houthis since last year, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

Prior to the Saudi strike, Houthi rebels have told Saudi Arabia and its allies — via Iranian state media — to stay out of Yemen, “territorial waters.”

However the Houthis, “denied firing at the USS Mason guided missile destroyer and the USS Ponce,” according to a Tuesday report from the Reuters newswire.

Davis told reporters on Tuesday, there’s no short-term anticipated change in U.S. posture in the region.

Background on weapons used, the SM-2 is the primary AAW weapon that has defended naval air dominance doctrine for 5 decades.

Quote:

The second generation of Standard missile, the Standard Missile 2, was developed for the Aegis combat system, and New Threat Upgrade program that was planned for existing Terrier and Tartar ships. The destroyer USS Mahan served as the test platform for the development of the CG/SM-2 (ER) missile program project. The principal change over the Standard missile 1 is the introduction of inertial guidance for each phase of the missile's flight except the terminal phase where semi-active homing was retained. This design change was made so that missiles could time share illumination radars and enable equipped ships to defend against saturation missile attacks.

The ESSM is an upgrade of another old missile the AIM-7 Sparrow.

Quote:

The RIM-162 Evolved SeaSparrow Missile (ESSM) is a development of the RIM-7 Sea Sparrow missile used to protect ships from attacking missiles and aircraft.[6] ESSM is designed to counter supersonic maneuvering anti-ship missiles. ESSM also has the ability to be "quad-packed" in the Mark 41 Vertical Launch System system, allowing up to four ESSMs to be carried in a single cell.

Nulka is an active decoy that is a pretty bad ass.

Quote:

Nulka is an Australian designed and developed active missile decoy built by an American/Australian collaboration. Used aboard warships of the United States Navy (USN), Royal Australian Navy (RAN), United States Coast Guard (USCG), and Royal Canadian Navy, Nulka is a rocket propelled, disposable, offboard, active decoy designed to ″seduce″ anti-ship missiles away from their targets. It has a unique design in that it hovers in mid air while seducing the incoming anti-ship missile. The hovering rocket concept was initiated in Australia by the Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO), and the system was designed, developed and then manufactured by AWA Defence Industries (AWADI) (now BAE Systems Australia). The word "Nulka" is of Australian Aboriginal origin and means "be quick".

[Suits]

Fuck.

[kaotic]

Shit's been sketchy out there and it's only going to get worse.

My navy buddy posted about this when it actually happened, apparently he has some ears over there.

[Kona]

According to my expert calculations this happened nine hours before Sundays debate.

I wonder why we aren't hearing about it until now?

Aloha!

[El Chinito loco]

Best not to jump to any conclusions just yet.

If the Houthis did it there's no reason they would deny such a blatant attack on a clearly marked U.S. warship in international waters. Unless it was an accident but that's highly doubtful.

They didn't deny the UAE ship attack which seems like it actually did happen but the other incident with the U.S. marked warship seems very fishy.

This could be a gulf of tonkin type incident used to justify expansion of conflict against Iran (and misc Shiite) forces by the Sunni coalition with U.S. backing.

[philosophical_recovery]

They'll stop this as soon as we give them another $400 million. I spoke to Obama on the phone. He's got this, guys.

[nomadbrah]

First thing I'd do when fighting an independence war is to attack the world's superpower to get them involved against me. Makes sense.

[Adonis]

Im wondering about the technical implications here, rather than geo-pol for a moment.

If they shot 2x SM-2 and 1x ESSM, were the SM-2's not effective?

I have a buddy onboard that Im waiting to hear back from, wouldn't surprise me if they were under a comms blackout.

[Mekorig]

Saudis and their mercs are getting their asses handled by the Houtis. I will not be surprised if this is some kind of false flag to reacue the moronic saudis.

[kaotic]

(10-12-2016 01:21 PM)Adonis Wrote:  

Im wondering about the technical implications here, rather than geo-pol for a moment.

If they shot 2x SM-2 and 1x ESSM, were the SM-2's not effective?

I have a buddy onboard that Im waiting to hear back from, wouldn't surprise me if they were under a comms blackout.

Another question on top of that is, where the fuck did the Houthi's get CRUISE MISSILES from ?

[Foolsgo1d]

(10-12-2016 02:27 PM)kaotic Wrote:  

(10-12-2016 01:21 PM)Adonis Wrote:  

Im wondering about the technical implications here, rather than geo-pol for a moment.

If they shot 2x SM-2 and 1x ESSM, were the SM-2's not effective?

I have a buddy onboard that Im waiting to hear back from, wouldn't surprise me if they were under a comms blackout.

Another question on top of that is, where the fuck did the Houthi's get CRUISE MISSILES from ?

Iran.

In the war of proxy conflict both sides can do it. I look forward to more things like this. The drums of war are being carried by the winds and it won't be long till we actually hear them.

Unless we can change course politically.

[Glaucon]

The US Navy should not even be there. It smells like Lusitania during first world war.

[El Chinito loco]

Well isn't this just convenient.


http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/13/world/....html?_r=0

Quote:

WASHINGTON — An American warship stationed off the coast of Yemen fired cruise missiles on Thursday at radar installations that the Pentagon said had been used by Yemeni insurgents to target another American warship in two missile attacks in the last four days.

The strikes against the Houthi rebels marked the first time the United States has become involved militarily in the civil war between the Houthis, an indigenous Shiite group with loose connections to Iran, and the Yememi government, which is backed by Saudi Arabia and other Sunni nations. The strikes were approved by President Obama, said Peter Cook, the Pentagon spokesman, who warned of more to come if American ships were fired upon again.

“These limited self-defense strikes were conducted to protect our personnel, our ships and our freedom of navigation in this important maritime passageway,” the Pentagon said in a statement. “The United States will respond to any further threat to our ships and commercial traffic.”

Until Thursday, the Obama administration had tried to navigate a treacherous course in Yemen, publicly pushing for a peace deal while quietly providing military support to a Saudi Arabia-led bombing campaign against the rebels since last year. Yet the main goal of the administration has often appeared to be keeping the United States from being dragged too deeply into a conflict that has shown little signs of abating, and instead continues to grow deadlier.

That changed in the past four days with two separate missile attacks on an American destroyer, the Mason, that was sailing off the coast of Yemen in the southern end of the Red Sea. In both the first attack, which took place on Sunday, and the second one on Wednesday evening, missiles were fired from areas under Houthi control.

The missiles fell well short of the ship in both attacks. But American commanders believed that the attack posed a real threat.

The retaliatory strikes on Thursday targeted three radar installations that were “involved in the recent missile launches threatening U.S.S. Mason and other vessels operating in international waters in the Red Sea” and the Bab el Mandeb Strait, which is one of the world’s most heavily trafficked waterways, the Pentagon said.

“Initial assessments show the sites were destroyed,” it said.

Up to now, the Obama administration put limits on its support for the Saudi-led coalition, providing intelligence and Air Force tankers to refuel the coalition’s jets and bombers. The American military has refueled more than 5,700 aircraft involved in the bombing campaign since it began, according to statistics provided by United States Central Command, which oversees American military operations in the Middle East.

This American role has drawn criticism from human rights groups who condemn the campaign as reckless. More than 4,000 civilians have been killed since the bombing began, according to the United Nations’ top human rights official, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein.

That number includes at least 140 people who were killed in an airstrike on a funeral ceremony last weekend in the Yemeni capital, Sana. The strike prompted the administration to promise a review of the American military assistance to the Saudis “so as to better align with U.S. principles, values and interests.”

After the strikes by the United States on Thursday, a senior American military official stressed that the three radar installations were in remote areas. There was little risk of civilians being caught in the attacks, the official said, though there was no definitive declaration that civilians were unharmed in the strikes.

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to provide details not included in the formal Pentagon statement, said the attack was carried out by the Nitze, also a destroyer, which fired Tomahawk cruise missiles at the radar sites.

The radar sites, which are in Houthi-controlled territory, had been active during the failed missile attacks against the Mason and other ships. They were also active on Oct. 1 when Houthi forces are believed to have fired a missile that disabled a United Arab Emirates military logistics ship, the Swift, the American official said.

Before Thursday’s attack, Secretary of State John Kerry pushed for a peace deal in Yemen, arguing that the United States could be an honest broker because it was not directly involved in the Saudi-led bombing campaign.




The military response could now make that a more difficult position to take.

Peter Salisbury, a Yemen expert at Chatham House, a London policy institute, said in an interview conducted hours before the American strikes that “if they do intervene, it deepens the case that the Americans are party to the conflict.”

The Mason was sailing in the Bab el Mandeb, at the southern end of the Red Sea, when it was fired upon Wednesday. The ship responded with defensive fire before the missile fell into the water, according to the Pentagon.

A second American ship nearby, the Ponce, used to transport amphibious assault forces, was also untouched in the attack.

Mr. Cook, in a statement on Wednesday, said that the Mason was “conducting routine operations” when it was fired upon, and that it would continue to sail in the strait.

The senior American military official described the weapon used in the attack on Wednesday on the Mason as a coastal defense cruise missile, designed to be used against ships. The official said the missile came from an area under rebel control. The situation was similar to one that unfolded on Sunday, when a pair of coastal defense missiles were fired at the Mason but failed to hit the ship.

How the rebels might have obtained the missiles was not clear. The Houthis, who are from northern Yemen, have seized ample amounts of military hardware in their two-year campaign to seize control of the country, and they are also believed to have received substantial aid from Iran, possibly including advanced weaponry.

American intelligence officials believe that the Houthis receive significantly less support from Iran than the Saudis and other Persian Gulf nations have charged.

The Saudi-led campaign began in March 2015, about a year after the Houthis and army units loyal to Yemen’s former president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, began battling to oust the country’s current president, Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

Despite skepticism in Washington about the wisdom of the campaign, the Obama administration threw its support behind the Saudis, in part because it needed support in Riyadh for the nuclear deal it was then negotiating with Iran, a bitter enemy of Saudi Arabia.

Besides providing intelligence and refueling help, the Pentagon sent a team of military personnel to Saudi Arabia to assist the planners of the air campaign.

Yet the Saudi campaign has failed to dislodge the Houthis from Sana. Much of Yemen is now on the brink of famine, and reports of civilians’ being killed in airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition have become routine. In August, the aid organization Doctors Without Borders said it was withdrawing its personnel from the country after the coalition bombed several of its medical facilities.

Despite international condemnation of the campaign, the White House pushed ahead this year with a $1.15 billion arms deal for Saudi Arabia that includes tanks and other heavy military equipment. A Senate resolution in September to block the sale failed, but 26 senators voted for it, signaling growing congressional concern about the Saudi alliance.

“We are complicit and actively involved with war in Yemen,” Senator Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican who worked to block the arms deal, said at the time.“There’s been no debate in Congress, really no debate in the public sphere over whether or not we should be at war in Yemen.”

New York Times pumping this up too as self defense so it's most likely some kind of neo con greenlit plot to engage the U.S. in another conflict.

This time to help out the Saudi regime which should be wiped off the face of the earth.

[Handsome Creepy Eel]

New York Times has become one of the most corrupt and warmongering websites in the world, with a staggering amount of unfiltered propaganda streaming from its pages. I can't believe that as little as 10 years ago I used to be a paid subscriber and proud of it.

[Enigma]

(10-12-2016 06:51 AM)nomadbrah Wrote:  

First thing I'd do when fighting an independence war is to attack the world's superpower to get them involved against me. Makes sense.

Yeah, this is totally transparent.

[Samseau]

So how many places is the US in active military measures around the world (yet you never hear about in the news)?

Lybia
Syria
Yemen
Korea
Ukraine
Iraq
Israel
NATO

Am I missing any? We squander our nation's might for petty dictators to control patches of dirt all over the world, what a fucking waste.

[Handsome Creepy Eel]

(10-13-2016 01:22 PM)Samseau Wrote:  

So how many places is the US in active military measures around the world (yet you never hear about in the news)?

Lybia
Syria
Yemen
Korea
Ukraine
Iraq
Israel
NATO

Am I missing any? We squander our nation's might for petty dictators to control patches of dirt all over the world, what a fucking waste.

Afghanistan
Pakistan (drones only)
Somalia (anti-piracy patrols only, also not sure but I think they "accidentally lost" some weapons inthe region, or was that in Yemen?)

NATO doesn't count as a country though.

[Samseau]

(10-13-2016 02:31 PM)Handsome Creepy Eel Wrote:  

(10-13-2016 01:22 PM)Samseau Wrote:  

So how many places is the US in active military measures around the world (yet you never hear about in the news)?

Lybia
Syria
Yemen
Korea
Ukraine
Iraq
Israel
NATO

Am I missing any? We squander our nation's might for petty dictators to control patches of dirt all over the world, what a fucking waste.

Afghanistan
Pakistan (drones only)
Somalia (anti-piracy patrols only, also not sure but I think they "accidentally lost" some weapons inthe region, or was that in Yemen?)

NATO doesn't count as a country though.

I'm talking about all of the countries inside of NATO

[Foolsgo1d]

Take that list Samseau has and put a red mark where shit can really hit the fan without much pushing.

The US and NATO has put itself in a position where it could not possibly fight without using its nuclear arsenal or the biggest draft in history. How many men in the 18-35 range are needed from the US & NATO to respond to such a problem?

[Leonard D Neubache]

Good luck drafting this little black duck to die for the elites.

Not gonna happen.