The American warship USS Carney’s gunslinger performance in the Rea Sea – shooting down up to four Land-attack Cruise Missiles (LACM) as they sped north from Houthi rebel launch sites in Yemen – was a massive blow to Iran.
It thwarted the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in its latest attempt to set the whole Middle East ablaze. For Tehran is no doubt keen to take advantage of the new war between the Israelis and Hamas in order to fulfil its ultimate goal of annihilating Israel. It is likely using its Houthi rebel proxies in Yemen in a bid to escalate the conflict.
The LACMs’ flight profile was not at the US Navy ship but heading north to Israel’s Red Sea port of Eilat, with the cool heads and quick reactions of USS Carney’s highly-trained sailors prevailing in order to prevent escalation.
An Arleigh Burke Class destroyer equipped with the all-seeing Aegis Combat System, USS Carney, on detecting the threat, fired multiple SM-2 Standard missiles from the silos of a Mk41 Vertical-launching System (VLS). Other weapons opened fire against different targets, with the ship’s big 5-inch main gun and gatling-gun Close-in Weapon System (CIWS) destroying up to 15 Houthi drones.
During the nine-hour action, all were targeted with precision by the destroyer’s Spy-1D radar and individual weapons guidance systems. And so wreckage was rained down on the ocean’s surface rather than the world witnessing death and destruction in Israel’s Red Sea port and tourist resort of Eilat.
USS Carney had only hours earlier made a southbound transit of the Suez Canal to enter the Red Sea, her 281 crew on high alert.
It was surely suspected the Iranians would prompt their Houthi proxies to attack Israel. For in October 2016 the Houthis actually fired missiles at American destroyers patrolling off Yemen.
USS Mason, a sister of the Carney, used SM-2s and a Seasparrow missile to down two Houthi-fired Anti-shipping Missiles (ASM). These were also likely to have been supplied by Iran. So-called ‘suicide boats’ have been previously used by the Houthis against ships, with one hitting and damaging a Saudi Arabian naval vessel in 2017, though it was suggested the guilty party was actually a missile.
That Tehran is determined to pour oil on the raging fire of conflicts in the Middle East is no secret, not least its intervention in the Syrian civil war and supplying weapons to insurgent groups to kill British and American troops during the Iraq War.
In more recent times the UK, with a Type 23 frigate forward-based in the Arabian Gulf, has defended merchant shipping against IRGC attempts to seize them.
It has also worked alongside the US Navy to intercept arms shipments by the IRGC to the Houthis. Twice in early 2022, the frigate HMS Montrose ‘seized Iranian weapons from speedboats operated by smugglers in international waters south of Iran,’ according to the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD). ‘The items included Surface-to-air-Missiles [SAMs] and engines for Land-attack Cruise Missiles [LACM], in contravention of the UN resolutions.’ Past targets of attacks by Houthis using Iranian-supplied LACM have been Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Components for the Iranian Project 351 LACM, known as Quds, were among items seized by the Royal Navy during interceptions off southern Arabia. It might be that type of weapon which was launched – and shot down by USS Carney – over the Red Sea.
Such actions are used by the Iranians to test their missile systems in anger.
Their ultimate aim is creating a cruise missile capable of being launched by jets from skies over Iran itself to reach the heart of Israel.
Whether or not the Iranians, via their Houthi and Hezbollah (Lebanese) proxies armies, will dare to attack American, British and allied naval vessels operating off the coast of Israel in the Mediterranean or in the Red Sea, is uncertain.
The acid test may come at any moment as the Pentagon moves various US Navy units from Arabian waters to the Mediterranean, and vice versa, transiting the Suez Canal in the north and the Bab-el-Mandeb chokepoint at the southern end of the Red Sea.
One thing is for certain – the formidably-armed warships of the US Navy, which are part of what the Pentagon calls its Integrated Air and Missile Defense Architecture, are ready to act.
According to Pentagon spokesman Brigadier General Pat Ryder, the USA is “prepared to utilise [it] whenever necessary to protect our partners and our interests” in the Middle East, adding that “we have the capability to defend our broader interests in the region and to deter regional escalation…”
No sane person wants to escalate things right now into a massive war between Iran and the USA. But, should a Houthi missile hit a US or allied vessel, it will see launch sites in Yemen blitzed as happened back in 2016. The Iranians will be warned that if they try to supply any more missiles to the Houthis they will reap the whirlwind.
