Ron Paul: "We Spent a Billion Dollars Fighting the Houthis…and Lost'
(ronpaulinstitute.org)
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Any Navy vets care to weigh in on wtf is happening in the Red Sea?
a sm2 (standard missile 2) is I think right around $1mil a shot.
we just can't afford to really do anything about it. we're bleeding into Ukraine and Israel now. we really can't afford either, let alone another in addition.
our navy isn't really all that great. we ordered a bunch of mostly useless and fragile ships in the early 2000s. they were supposed to be modular but none of that actually worked out. it's taken us over 10 years to build and commission our last aircraft carrier. we just sold another USA shipyard to SK just this week. our logistic support ships are like at 55%. that was the result of the last war gaming. supposed to be at 85%+.
everything is fucked. we have faggots, jews, and women running things. nothing works. everything is breaking.
I keep hearing this from various professionals. Perhaps giving up gunnery in favor of high tech ballistics was a mistake?
How dare you question the high priests of the Military-Industrial Complex? Shun the unbeliever, shun. Next you'll be wanting an effective infantry rifle and a tank made this side of the Ford presidency.
Our tank is still the best in the world, it's fine as is. No need to make a new fuck up if the current thing works great.
Always found that odd, shouldn't computers make aiming guns easier than ever?
Pretty sure guided missiles require more expensive (and expendable) resources than most ballistics alternatives.
Not only do you have the fuel and payload, but also the circuitry, computer bits, sensors/guidance systems, communications, etc etc.
Especially when considering the ranges that naval vessels are usually firing from compared to say, tanks or infantry. Likely has to reach a moderately higher quality threshold than your average computer-controlled setup.
A tool is only as good as its operator.
Like the atomic bomb, missiles trump guns when your enemy doesn't have them. You can hit them while they can't hit you.
Our peers have it too, so it's not great.
There's a whole very technical conversation to be had here. The Navy developed and then abandoned a class of "littoral" combat vessels in the mid aughts. These ships would have been designed to handle exactly what is happening in the Red Sea. The problem is that these vessels would have to be "fighting" ships. They would have had to rely on a combination classic naval guns for offence and CIWS guns for defense. Its a workable system but not perfect. They would not have been "superior" and I think thats why they were abandoned in favor of more "modern" fleet solutions.
Actually no. Gunnery shouldn't be eliminated, but the key here is range and stealth. If you can't have stealth, then you need raw numbers.
Our anti-ship missiles are fucking terrifying for their range, for their stealth, and their cost isn't terrible. The Chinese don't have the stealth for their missiles, so they went with raw numbers on the cheap (like most chinese goods). So far, we have the advantage in that fight.
Gunnery, however, just can't get around range. You can't reasonably shoot a gun 200 miles, even a battleship sized rail gun. You can't win a dog-fight with a Gen 5 fighter if you can't get to it, let alone see it. These are insurmountable problems.
Missiles are the current king. There's no way around it. The issue is that some idiots think that means that guns are irrelevant. They're not, they're just not as useful as they once were.
Just hand out TOWs to merchant ships. Or let them install some automatic deck guns. Might fix the "refugee" boat problem while we're at it.
This is why Article 1 of the Constitution allows congress to give private ship owners Letters of Marque.
I wonder, is it not still technically legal anyways? (ignoring NFA restrictions for the moment...) What is the exact law here? A company can have armed security at their port terminal, and at the docks. Can they not have an armed boat?
On the other hand there's a big difference between "it's ok to use lethal force in self defense" and "you can shoot at dangerous looking ships at your discretion and maybe proactively sink them if they keep harassing you."
Its why russia isnt intercepting all missiles and drones that is shot at russia. They determine if the incoming thing is hostile or not, what it is and its trajectory to see if its worth firing a 2 million dollar anti-ballistic missile to intercept the incoming thing.
The navy is in better shape than you give it credit for, and we are well ahead of everyone else, so much that even if we were in as bad of a state that you describe, we'd still be ahead.
Frankly, I think that's exactly the reason we are fighting these wars. China is looking for a Taiwanese invasion; and causing American attrition in Israel, Ukraine, and Yemen helps a lot. Lucky for us, the Chinese are more retarded than we are.
we're not willing to actually solve the houthi problem.
the second they started threatening shipping is when a serious country would have reduced their cities to ash.
And none of this 'nation building' garbage afterwards.
You're talking like they have legitimate cities to level.
This is like saying you want to bomb Mogadishu to stop Somali pirates. These pirates probably don't even live in the city, and don't care.
Not Navy but Army.
It's cost effectiveness, combined with the fact that muslims don't care about their own lives.
It costs a tiny fraction to attack of what it costs to defend and counter attack. The Navy's battle doctrine assumes air superiority, but worse assumes infinite resources.
I'm not sure I buy this. "I'm willing to die to fight the outlander" is not the same as "I don't care if I live or die." Particularly when the Yemenese Houthis seem to be achieving their goals.
Make no mistake, I don't care about what are essentially 21st century privateers (Iranian letter of marque, as it where), but a Navy's job is not to go fight the other guy's navy. Navies exist to protect commerce. Why is a US carrier group unable to do this in the Red Sea?
I'm sure about it. I've seen them strap bomb loaded backpacks onto little kids, and then tell them if they go hug the Americans that we'll give them candy.
You can never convince me that they care about their own lives.
Besides that, the answer to your question is simple. Their armament can reach shipping in the straights, with incredible cost effectiveness. Even if you invent some kind of high tech thingedy thing that can somehow snipe their rocket infantry before they fire, they don't care. All you've done is kill Omar and maybe destroy one rocket. They have a million more rockets and a million more Omars.
Turns out globalism isn't economically viable.
It's "if I die, I can be replaced" writ large.
"Who cares if I lose one kid? I can make five more."
Fair enough. I guess the answer to my gripes it that modern tech require a "land war" when it come to control of the Red Sea.
thats not "not caring about their own lives" though, thats them "not caring about someone else's kids' lives". and thats a scale the west isnt that far away from them on.
"to the shores of Tripoli" in the US Marine Corp anthem refers to the victory over Barbary pirates lol
I know. That was kind of my point. Surely an MEU and a naval support could hit Houthi ports and surrounding facilities then return to the carrier group? Its how we used to fight. Are the joint chiefs taking such exercise off the table?
Isn't the red sea maybe a little too shallow for a carrier to operate in?
Don't forget that Biden can't will reelection if oil prices spike before the election. Expect the US military to be a giant bitch for the next 6 months (at least).