Shooting down Houthi drones is expensive

Task & Purpose magazine : The U.S. Navy has used more missiles for air defense since combat operations in the Red Sea began in October 2023 than the service used in all the years since Operation Desert Storm in the 1990s, said retired Navy Cmdr. Bryan Clark, of the Hudson Institute. Over that 15-month-period, which ran from Oct. 19, 2023 to Jan. 19, 2025, the Navy saw the most combat at sea since World War II, Clark told Task & Purpose. “It’s kind of amazing how the Navy has held up with no losses, but the cost has been pretty enormous,” Clark said. “The estimates are the Navy has used up $1 billion-plus worth of interceptors to shoot down these drone and missile threats.”

For now, the conflict appears to be on pause, possibly due to the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that was announced on Jan. 19. But the Navy will need years to replenish its supply of missiles, and that puts the service in a bad position if the United States and China went to war today, Clark said. “I think most estimates are within a few days of combat, if there was an invasion of Taiwan, that the U.S. — the Navy in particular — would run out of weapons,” Clark said. “That’s the problem: The weapons we’ve designed are too difficult to build for the industrial base, because they’re too specialized; they have too much of a bespoke a supply chain, and they’re manufactured by hand, at low-rate productions.” ‘We had never done anything like this before’.

Too close for missiles, switching to guns : The Navy also revealed in January that it had fired 160 rounds from ships’ five-inch main guns as part of combat operations in the Red Sea. Those main gun rounds have been used to destroy Houthi drones, Clark said. “They have been using guns to shoot down drones lately, especially the Hypervelocity Projectile,” Clark said. “The Navy built all those Hypervelocity Projectiles originally as part of the rail gun program. I think they’ve used about 50 for air defense.” Hypervelocity Projectiles are designed to hit the target, while other 5-inch rounds explode near the target, showering it with shrapnel, he said. Not only are the 5-inch rounds less expensive than missiles, but the Houthi drones often fly too low or too close to the ship to be hit with missiles, Clark said. “What often happens is these really small drones get close enough to where the missile can’t really engage in time, because the missile has a minimum range, also,” Clark said.

USN cruiser USS Lake Erie launches an SM-3 in May 2013 – US Navy photo

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