Reaper Losses

ComNavOps has long stated that UAVs, especially the larger ones, are utterly ineffective, unsuited, and non-survivable over the battlefield and the Air Force has publicly agreed with that assessment.  Despite my statements, many (including the Navy) continue to believe that UAVs will provide omniscient awareness about our enemies.  Well, we’re finally starting to accumulate some real world data.  We know that Iran has downed multiple UAVs in the past [2] but now we have combat data from the Navy’s engagement with the Houthis in Yemen.  What does the data show?
 

Seven Reaper drones have been brought down by the Houthis since the beginning of March, with six of them occurring since March 15 and three of them over the past week, the official said. At least 15 Reapers have been brought down by the Houthis since October 2023 … [1]

Bing’s AI search engine reports (unsourced),
 

Houthi rebels in Yemen have downed seven US MQ-9 Reaper drones since March 31, 2025. Since November 2023, the Houthis have claimed responsibility for downing fourteen MQ-9 Reaper drones. Yemeni forces have shot down seven US MQ-9 Reaper drones this month and 22 since October 2023. Each MQ-9 is worth about $30 million, so that means the US has lost $660 million worth of drones over Yemen in about a year and a half.[1]

Other sources have similar or larger reported loss numbers.  The point is not the exact number of losses but the fact that this proves that larger UAVs are not survivable over the modern battlefield.  In this case, the conclusion is even more emphatic since the Houthis are far from a modern, top tier military force like the Chinese and because these losses are occurring in the face of supposed high intensity attacks on the Houthis – and yet they somehow manage to routinely shoot down our UAVs?  I guess our attacks aren’t very effective, are they?
 

MQ-9 Reaper

How is it possible that the Houthis can manage to operate radars and SAM launchers while supposedly being overwhelmed by US military attacks?  We can’t stop the Houthis from doing this but we think we’ll take on the Chinese?

 
I don’t have a target list for this anti-Houthi campaign but, clearly, we’re not hitting the right targets.  Our UAVs are being shot down and drones/missiles are getting close enough to our carrier to make it take evasive action.  Against a tenth tier military force with no air force, aren’t we supposed to own the air?  A mosquito shouldn’t be able to fly from Yemen without a missile heading up its backside.
 
All of this is screaming at us that we need to re-evaluate our ideas about how to fight China.
 
 
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Fun fact:
 
The U.S. Air Force has about 280 Reapers in its inventory, each costing about $28 million, according to the Congressional Research Service.[1]
 
Cost aside, these losses are starting to cut into the military’s inventory of Reapers and we can be sure that we are not seeing all the operational losses from around the rest of the world.
 
 
 
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[1]ABC News website, “Houthis shoot down growing number of US drones”, Luis Martinez, 23-Apr-2025,
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/houthis-shoot-growing-number-us-drones/story?id=121099082
 
[2]As one example, on 20-Jun-2019, Iran shot down an RQ-4A Global Hawk BAMS-D with a Khordad SAM. 

Red Sea Weapon Expenditure

The War Zone website has an article offering the first glimpse into weapon expenditures in the Red Sea against the Houthis.  As stated by head of Naval Surface Forces, Vice Adm. Brendan McLane, here are the weapon expenditures:
 

• 120 SM-2 missiles
• 80 SM-6 missiles
• 20 Evolved Sea Sparrow Missiles (ESSM) and SM-3 missiles (combined, for some unknown reason)
• 160 rounds from five-inch guns

 
Total = 220 missiles
Total = 160 shells
 
CIWS was not mentioned although at least one example of CIWS use has been documented and acknowledged by the Navy.
 
Against this expenditure, the Admiral claims “more than 400” targets were engaged.
 
 
Elementary arithmetic shows that if the Navy’s 380 total munitions fired destroyed “more than 400 targets”, that’s a kill ratio (pK) of greater than 1.0 !!!!!  In other words, every Navy munition killed its target and many killed more than one target.  That’s amazing.  That’s incredible.  That’s unbelievable.  No, seriously, that’s not believable.  In fact, it’s blatantly wrong.
 
The admiral continues his unbelievable statements with,
 

“We’ve done the analysis with what we used to shoot in World War II, and we’re at about two rounds per incoming missile,” McLane said.[1]

We didn’t engage missiles in WWII so I have no idea what he’s talking about.  Aerial targets in WWII required thousands of rounds per hit so, again, I have no idea what he’s referring to.
 
Further, the good admiral undoubtedly is not including 5” shells in his statement of analysis as 5” guns have a near-zero chance of hitting a missile.  So, subtracting out the 5” shells, that means the Navy’s 220 missiles destroyed more than 400 targets for a pK of 1.8 or almost two targets destroyed by each defensive missile fired.  That’s just totally absurd, of course.
 
Setting all that aside, the admiral claims that two ‘rounds’ (which I assume to mean missiles) were used per engagement which would conform to the Navy’s standard ‘shoot, shoot, look’ tactic.  That means that the 220 missiles could have engaged only a maximum of 110 targets not more than 400.  That also assumes that every engagement worked and that would so greatly fly in the face of all historical defensive missile performance as to be flat out unbelievable.  The pK’s throughout history have been uniformly in the 0.01-0.25 range not 1.0-2.0.
 
Now, to be fair, the admiral wasn’t offering a detailed engagement analysis;  he was just providing weapon expenditures and likely threw out a ballpark number of targets just to provide context.  I don’t think he was lying or even being intentionally misleading.
 
I can readily imagine that some of the 400 targets were engaged by aircraft whose weapons (Sidewinders, presumably) weren’t included in the Navy’s ship weapons expenditure although that would mean that even fewer targets were actually engaged by ship missiles and that would significantly lower the pK.
 
We know that 5” guns are notoriously inaccurate (recall the Vincennes incident where some one hundred rounds were fired with zero hits) so the 160 shells fired were probably directed at just a few targets.
 
Clearly, this scant bit of information the admiral provided is not useful in analyzing weapon performance, only total expenditure and even that has gaps in the information since Sidewinders, CIWS, and RAM, among others, were not mentioned.  While the presumed pathetically poor quality and performance of the attacking missiles would result in better pK’s than historically found, I’m certain that the pK is nowhere near 1.0 and, indeed, the admiral’s own claim of two rounds per engagement disproves the apparent pK.  Unfortunately, until the Navy provides some detailed performance data, we can only speculate.
 
The only valid conclusion from the admiral’s statements is that we are on the wrong side of the cost curve … big time!  We’re using $2M-$4M missiles (two at a time!) to shoot down thousand dollar drones and cheap missiles.
 
This simply reinforces the common sense conclusion that you deal with attacks not by defending but by destroying the source of the attacks.  Perhaps the new administration will take a different view of the Red Sea actions than the previous administration.  We’ll have to wait and see and, in the meantime, we’ll continue to bleed money, deplete our missile inventories, and risk our ships while waiting for the inevitable leaker that gets through.
 
 
 
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[1]The War Zone website, “Navy Just Revealed Tally Of Surface-To-Air Missiles Fired In Ongoing Red Sea Fight”, Geoff Ziezulewicz, 14-Jan-2025,
https://www.twz.com/news-features/navy-just-disclosed-how-many-of-each-of-its-surface-to-air-missiles-it-fired-during-red-sea-fight

Protecting the Sea Lanes?

The Navy is out there, every day, protecting the sea lanes.  That’s why we do deployments, right?  So, how’s that sea lane protection working out?  According to shipping giant, Maersk,
 

Attacks in the Red Sea by Iran-aligned Houthi militants have disrupted a route vital to east-west trade, with prolonged rerouting of shipments, pushing freight rates higher and causing congestion in Asian and European ports.
 
Maersk said recent data showed that the number of ships crossing through the canal has fallen 66% since carriers began diverting their vessels around Africa.
 
Maersk in July said disruption to its container shipping via the Red Sea had extended beyond trade routes between the Far East and Europe to its entire global network, and warned of a "cascading impact" causing congestion.[1]

 
So, what is the mightiest navy in the world doing about this threat to the sea lanes?  Well, we’ve shot down a few drones and missiles and bombed some suspected launch sites … to no effect.  Attacks on shipping continue and ships continue to get hit.
 
Similarly, Iran continues to harass shipping, attacking, seizing, and mining passing ships while our navy stands by and does nothing.
 
 
Conclusion
 
I know I’ve criticized our endless deployments but if we weren’t out there protecting the sea lanes, bad actors might attack shipping with drones and missiles so thank goodness we’re out there, continuously deployed.
 
Our presence is deterring nothing.  We’re clearly not effectively protecting the sea lanes.  Tell me again, why are we doing deployments?
 
 
 
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[1]Newsmax website, “Maersk: Impact From Red Sea Attacks Intensifying”, 5-Sep-2024,
https://www.newsmax.com/finance/streettalk/maersk-red-sea/2024/09/05/id/1179157/

Luck is Not a Strategy

It is being reported that a US Navy ship, the USS Gravely, a Burke class destroyer, was forced to use its CIWS to down a sea-skimming anti-ship missile.  If this continues, there is only one possible outcome.  No defense is perfect and the Houthis only need to win once whereas the Navy has to be 100% perfect. 
 
This is an unsustainable, unwinnable situation.  We’ve got to either leave the area before we lose a ship or we have to engage with total force.  There is no middle ground.  The administration is hanging the Navy out to dry.

It is also disturbing that a (apparently single) missile could get that close.  Something failed.

True Multi-Domain War

‘Multi-domain’ is the current buzzword and fad of the month in the US military although, in practice, it seems to just be gibberish-speak for more computers and more unmanned assets.  That aside, the basic concept is that you wage war not just on the kinetic level but on additional levels such as the electromagnetic, public relations, Internet, space, and so on.  Unfortunately, one of the major domains that has the most potential impact is also the most overlooked and ignored and that is the financial domain.
 
Consider the current Houthi conflict.
 
We’re trading shots back and forth with the Houthis and, clearly, not deterring them in the least.  This is yet another in an endless list of demonstrable failures of deterrence for those of you who believe deterrence is effective but, I digress …
 
The point is that our minimal attacks are having little or no effect.  This is quite similar to the ISIS truck-plinking that we engaged in some years ago and which had zero impact.
 
If we were serious about ending the Houthi actions, we’d focus as much on the financial domain as the kinetic and it would likely produce far better results.  The Houthis must finance their operations, weapon acquisitions, weapon component acquisitions, shipping and transport costs, ‘soldier pay’, etc.  That financial mechanism is not just a local, village level network.  They’re engaged in global financial dealings with suppliers, Iran, and others.  That financial network represents a major center of gravity and extreme vulnerability for the Houthis.  We have the means to completely shut down their financial network, halt bank transfers, seize assets, freeze and seize bank accounts, etc.  I’m not a financial expert so these are just the conceptual, top level ideas that I’m aware of.  I’m sure our government accountants and financial experts could devise much more extensive and effective methods.  We should also be tracking and covertly eliminating links in the Houthi financial chains … you know, CIA type work.
 
Waging war is not cheap and the Houthis are not above the financial requirements.  In fact, being a smaller operation, relative to the US, they are more vulnerable to financial disruptions.  Of course, it would help if we would stop giving billions of dollars to Iran![1]
 
I know that the administration will claim to be applying some sanctions against the Houthis but we are a universe away from bringing the full weight of our financial combat capability to bear.  Just as our occasional strikes accomplish nothing, a few minor sanctions also accomplish nothing.
 
We need to either bring our full military and financial might to bear on the Houthis in a true multi-domain fight or we need to leave the area.  What we’re doing is accomplishing nothing and risking everything.  One lucky hit on a warship and the Houthis win on the global stage.
 
As with so many things, our military and government (largely one and the same!) pay lip service to concepts but refuse to actually carry them out to the maximum extent.  We talk about multi-domain combat but largely refuse to engage in financial combat which has, arguably, the most potential to produce the desired results.

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Note: The same considerations apply to our dealings with China.  We are at war with China, right now, even if the current administration refuses to acknowledge it, and we’re making almost no effort to win or even engage.  If we were to fully engage in financial combat with China we’d win overwhelmingly.  Yes, there would be some short term pain for us but also some incredible long term gains.  However, that’s a topic for another post.
 
 
 
 
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[1]Guardian website, “US agrees to release $6bn in Iran funds as part of deal to free detained Americans”, Julian Borger, 11-Sep-2023,
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/11/us-iran-sanctions-waiver-americans-detained-iran

Houthis and the Marines – Same Mission?

Reader ‘Robtze’ just thoroughly embarrassed me in a comment with an incredibly astute observation that I completely missed.  He observed/asked whether the Houthis were executing the same mission  the Marine Corps envisions with their island/coastal missile shooter concept.
 
To address his comment, yes, this is almost exactly the mission set.  Let’s take advantage of this remarkable similarity and examine how the coastal ‘missile sniping’ concept is working out.
 
Weapons.  One probable difference is the weapons.  While we have no definitive information on the missiles the Houthis are using, it’s likely that they’re smaller and shorter ranged than the missiles the Marines envision using.
 
Targeting.  From day one, this has been one of the unaddressed, major mysteries about the missile shooting concept.  The Marines have no ability to target beyond the horizon and, if they did, the size and scope of that effort would totally negate the ‘hidden’ and ‘small’ characteristics of the concept (using medium to large UAVs, for example).  We see that many of the Houthi missiles appear to be blind fired, being described by US spokesmen as having indeterminate targets. 
 
From this, we can infer that the targeting issue is a valid one that is not easily solved and will, indeed, be problematic for the Marines.
 
Logistics.  One difference is that the logistic (resupply) issue isn't present for the Houthis since this isn't an isolated island.  They can obtain supplies overland.  Of course, even in this case, the supply routes and methods present a vulnerability that could be targeted and disrupted by US forces.  It seems patently obvious that this logistic vulnerability will exist many times over for Marines on an isolated island in Chinese controlled waters.
 
One of the characteristics of the Houthi attacks is the scarcity of attacking weapons.  It would have been reasonable to expect that they would launch swarms of drones or saturation levels of missiles to try to increase the odds of getting a hit on a Navy warship.  That has not happened which leads one to wonder if their weapon inventories are significantly limited.  If so, this would, again, raise the logistic issue with resupply of missiles, despite being overland, being a weakness.  Again, this illustrates the difficulty (impossibility) of the Marines getting resupplies under their concept.
 
Survivability.  The US and UK have finally executed a counter-strike. 

The US and UK launched some 72 strikes against 60 targets in 16 locations.  The Pentagon described its targets as radar systems, drone storage and launch sites, missile storage and launch facilities and Houthi command and control nodes.[1]

This suggests that an isolated Houthi force, with no significant air defense or counter-air capability cannot prevent the enemy from locating and destroying them.  The Marines, of course, with no significant air defense or counter-air capability, believe that they’ll be able to operate undetected on tiny islands a miniscule fraction of the size of Yemen.  This incident would seem to suggest that the Marine concept is heavy on wishful thinking and light on reality.
 
Effectiveness.  The ultimate measure of the worth of anything is in the results.  The Houthis, due to targeting difficulties and, apparently, logistic (missile inventory) challenges, have been remarkably ineffective.  Some four dozen or more attacks have generated no sunk ships, no hits on a warship, and only minor damage to several ships.
 
The Marines, of course, can expect even less success.  Chinese ships merely have to remain beyond the 12 mile or so horizon and thus achieve total safety due to the lack of targeting.  In addition, there won’t be any Chinese merchant shipping in an active war zone so the Marines would be shooting at warships, not commercial vessels and the Houthi experience demonstrates that warships are, thus far, immune to damage from limited attacks by low end weapons and drones.
 
 
Conclusion
 
This Houthi scenario is offering us a rare opportunity to observe the Marine missile shooting concept in action.  The Marines were quick to jump on – and badly misinterpret – the Ukraine experience to justify their vision.  Will they be as quick to jump on this scenario which is a near perfect duplicate of their concept and is failing badly?  I suspect you know the answer.
 
 
 
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[1]Redstate website, “A 'Morning After' Look At the Strike on Yemen and What It Is Likely to Mean”, streiff, 12-Jan-2024
https://redstate.com/streiff/2024/01/12/a-morning-after-look-at-the-strike-on-yemen-and-what-it-is-likely-to-mean-n2168651

Houthi Attack Lessons

The ongoing drone and missile attacks by the Houthis against shipping in the Red Sea ought to offer many lessons.  However, unfortunately, we have almost no detailed information about the attacks and defensive efforts which makes lessons and conclusions difficult.
 
To summarize, as best we can glean, the Houthis are using very low end aerial drones and cruise/ballistic missiles to target commercial and naval vessels.  It appears that some four dozen or so drones and missiles have been fired at various targets with a couple of hits reported on commercial vessels.  The US Navy claims one or two dozen shoot downs. 
 
That’s all the information we have.  Will that stop us from applying some analysis and drawing some conclusions?  Of course not!  Let’s see what we can learn.
 
 
Strategy.  You cannot win a defensive war/battle.  Only offense wins wars.  The attacker only needs an occasional success whereas the defense needs to be 100% successful and, long term, that’s impossible.  This is even more true when the disparity between the attacker and defender is so great.  Despite dozens of failures, a single Houthi hit on a US warship makes their entire effort an overwhelming success. 
 
By opting for a purely defensive posture, we’re putting ourselves in a no-win position where failure is assured.  It’s only a matter of when, not if.
 
Military Cost Curve.  All indications are that we are using Standard missiles to shoot down very low end drones and missiles.  That puts us on the wrong side of the cost curve.  Depending on the specific variant, Standard missiles cost $4M-$5M each.  Low end attacking drones and missiles cost on the order of thousands or tens of thousands of dollars.
 
While it is perfectly valid to say that we’re spending $5M Standards to protect $3B warships, that kind of economic exchange rate can’t be sustained.  We’re winning the battle and losing the economic war.
 
There are some vague hints that a CIWS may have engaged a target(s).  While that would be much more economical, it would also be very disturbing news:  that a low end attacking weapon could close to CIWS range against Aegis.  Note, this is far from verified.
 
Ill-equipped Ships.  Our ships are simply not suited for fighting a very low end war.  They’re equipped for high end combat (and not well, either, but that’s a separate topic) and lack effective, low end weapons.
 
Targeting.  The Houthi attacks are, presumably, directed towards specific targets although some of the descriptions of attacks strongly suggest that some portion are being nearly blind fired toward general areas.  Regardless, one of the often overlooked aspects of combat is counter-targeting.  The enemy can’t target what they can’t detect.  It is vital to understand how the enemy conducts their detection and targeting and then deny them that process.  There is no indication that the US is applying any counter-targeting effort.
 
Drone Effectiveness.  Despite the desire of the Western military world to jump on the unmanned fadwagon, the reality, as evidenced by these attacks, demonstrates that drones are, essentially, totally ineffective against a prepared and capable defender.  This should come as no surprise as we’ve repeatedly documented and discussed the lack of effectiveness of drones in combat situations in the pages of this blog.
 
 
Summary
 
It is clear that the US is approaching this situation unwisely by opting to adopt a defensive, appeasement stance.  It is delusional to believe that we can maintain a 100% success rate no matter how unsophisticated the attacking weapons are.  We must either leave the area to avoid the inevitable defensive failure or shift to an offensive posture and eliminate the threat.
 
It is also clear that our ships are ill-equipped to deal with low end threats in an economical but effective manner.  We need lower end vessels such as frigates, corvettes, or patrol vessels
 
Perhaps the major lesson from these attacks is that drones are not the all-powerful, invincible threat that so many make them out to be.  This mini-conflict is the perfect counter to the perceived (but incorrect) success of drones in Ukraine.  This is a warning to us not to make drones a major element of our force structure.
 
 
Caution:  As stated at the beginning, we have almost no detailed information about these attacks and defenses so be very cautious drawing lessons and conclusions.  The points I’ve made are general, based on the situation, rather than specific, based on details.  I would very much like to believe that the Navy actually recognizes these points and is taking appropriate action and just not making it public but there is no reason to believe that is the case.