As detailed by the head of Naval Surface Forces, VADM Brendan McLane, during the annual Surface Navy Association conference this week, warships expended some 400 pieces of ordnance in defense against incoming threats from Iranian/Houthi rebels over the past 15 months.
- 120 SM-2 missiles.
- 80 SM-6 missiles.
- 20 Evolved Sea Sparrow Missiles (ESSM) and SM-3 missiles.
- 160 rounds from destroyers and cruisers’ five-inch main guns.
The last one is great news, as the anti-air capability of the MK 45 5″/54 and 5″/62— especially when using proximity (VTF and IR) rounds– has been often overlooked. I mean they have a published effective AA range of 23,000 feet and can fire 20 rounds in the first minute of going hot.
Datasheets inbound:
LCS Combat!
One interesting tidbit not included in the above table is that an LCS has been bloodied in battle as well, with the USS Indianapolis (LCS 17) recently earning a Combat Action Ribbon and Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal, the first for her type, “after shooting down Houthi drones and missiles in the Red Sea.”
Indy, a Freedom-variant littoral combat ship, just completed an 18-month deployment, which included two exchanges of command between LCS Crew 112 and LCS Crew 118.
While traveling as a Surface Action Group with the destroyers USS Spruance and USS Stockdale through the Red Sea, the ships “successfully detected and defeated a combined 23 Ballistic and Anti-Ship Cruise missiles and one-way attack drones fired from Houthi Rebels in Yemen” across three days from 23-25 September.
Now, unclear is if Indy got in shots on said incoming vampires, and if so was it from her 57mm gun, her Sea-Ram, or her embarked MH-60 from HSC 28. It was also recently detailed that a Seahawk downed a Houthi drone via its 7.62mm door gun last month, so that’s a possibility.
“What this team of amazing Americans achieved over the course of this deployment will pay dividends in the maintenance planning and tactics development arenas for years to come,” said Cmdr. Matthew Arndt, USS Indianapolis’ Commanding Officer. “As the workhorse of the Arabian Gulf, Indy executed the lower tier missions necessary to maintaining good diplomatic relations in the Middle East which allowed Standard Missile shooters to reposition to deal with bad actors in the Red Sea. I think it’s pretty special that we were able to provide the 5th Fleet commander with more tools and options to aid in the free flow of commerce through a contested waterway.”