US long-range B-2 stealth bombers target underground bunkers of Yemen's Houthi rebels (apnews.com)
from MicroWave@lemmy.world to world@lemmy.world on 17 Oct 16:12
https://lemmy.world/post/20955874

The U.S. military unleashed B-2 stealth bombers to target underground bunkers used by Yemen’s Houthi rebels early Thursday, a major escalation in the American response to the rebels’ attacks on Mideast shipping lanes that appeared to be a warning to Iran as well. 

While it wasn’t immediately clear how much damage the strikes caused, the attack appeared to be the first use of the B-2 in combat in years and the first time the flying wing targeted sites in Yemen. 

In announcing the strikes against the Houthis, who have been attacking ships for months in the Red Sea corridor over the Israel-Hamas warin the Gaza Strip, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin made a point to offer a warning likely heard in Tehran as well.

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MediaBiasFactChecker@lemmy.world on 17 Oct 16:13 next collapse
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tal@lemmy.today on 17 Oct 16:31 collapse

Is this actually necessary? Like, the point of the B-2 is to be able to penetrate air defenses. Do the Houthis actually have much by way of air defenses?

kagis

This is from six years back, but apparently at the time, Iran was sending them air defense hardware, so that might be it.

washingtoninstitute.org/…/irans-support-houthi-ai…

According to the Gulf coalition and the internationally recognized Yemeni government, Iran has been violating the UN arms embargo by trying to provide Houthi rebels with advanced surface-to-air missile systems. The smuggling of Iranian-built Sayyad-2C SAMs and passive flight-tracking equipment could worsen the air-defense threat to U.S. allies such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, jeopardizing efforts to hammer out a peace settlement in the process.

Also from six years back, and more in-depth:

warisboring.com/the-houthis-do-it-yourself-air-de…

When the Saudi-led coalition intervened in Yemen’s civil war in 2015, it quickly neutralized most of the Houthis’ air defenses. Nearly all of the radars and launchers belonging to the Houthis’ five air-defense brigades were destroyed by mid-April 2015.

Elements of two air-defense brigades managed to recover and hide most of their equipment. Correspondingly, the air defenses of the Houthi-dominated coalition were limited to a miscellany of man-portable air-defense systems, light anti-aircraft cannons including U.S.-made Vulcan guns and various heavy machine guns.

Through 2015, such weapons were responsible for the losses of one Moroccan and one Bahraini F-16C, two Saudi AH-64As and up to a dozen various UAVs. However, the longer the war went on, the clearer it became that they weren’t enough to defend Houthi forces from the Saudis and their allies.

Indeed, the aircraft loss rate for the Saudi-led coalition decreased by an order of magnitude in 2016. While two different Saudi helicopters were written off during combat operations over Yemen, Houthi air defenses were responsible for the downing just one CH-4 Wing Loong UAV.

Understanding that more efficient measures were required, Yemeni engineers with the Missile Development & Research Command worked feverishly on repairing available air-defense equipment and improvising new ones. In January 2017, they announced they had repaired one S-75/SA-2 surface-to-air missile system.

And on Jan. 20, they went as far as to claim the downing of a Saudi F-15 over Sana’a. Actually, they achieved nothing, and the system in question was soon tracked down and destroyed by the Saudi-led coalition.

One of solutions developed by the MRDC was to take air-to-air missiles from stocks of the former Yemeni air force and attempt deploying them for air-defense purposes. This idea is not new. Back in 1999, the Serbs adapted Russian-made R-60/AA-8 and R-73/AA-1 air-to-air missiles for surface-to-air missions.

Furthermore, the Houthi-led coalition has enough experienced and skilled personnel to undertake such an adaptation on its own – and it’s in possession of significant stocks of air-to-air munitions at bases of the former Yemeni air force.

Yemen acquired a stock of Soviet-made R-60MK/AA-8 missiles back in 1980, together with MiG-21bis and Su-22 fighter-bombers. A small batch of R-73/AA-11 missiles was acquired by the former South Yemen in 1994 for deployment with MiG-29 interceptors. An even larger number of R-27/AA-10, R-73s, and R-77/AA-12s were acquired by Sana’a after 2001 together with up to 36 MiG-29SMs and UBs.

The challenge was adapting such weapons for deployment from the ground, and without the support of the fire-control systems in the aircraft that usually carry them.

Active radar-homing missiles such as the R-77 and semi-active radar-homing missiles such as the R-27R would require the adaptation of at least one of the N019MP radars and related fire-control systems delivered to Yemen together with the MiG-29SMs.

Not only was this a complex undertaking, but most of the necessary systems were destroyed early during the war when the Saudi-led coalition systematically tracked down and knocked out every single MiG it could find.

Instead, engineers at the MRDC opted to adapt infrared homing missiles as SAMs. That effort required the adaptation of APU-60 and P-12 launch rails — for the R-60 and R-73, respectively — on supports mounted on pick-up trucks plus a reliable supply of electric power and liquid nitrogen to cool the seeker heads.

The first such improvisations were deployed in combat in February 2017, and by June the Houthi-dominated coalition claimed the downing of five fighter-bomb

tal@lemmy.today on 17 Oct 16:40 next collapse

It looks like Iran was shipping these 358 missiles to the Houthis at least within the last four years. This shipment was interdicted by the US, but I assume that others have made it:

www.dia.mil/Portals/110/…/Seized_at_Sea.pdf

The Houthis’ Saqr surface-to-air missile (SAM) exhibits nearly identical features to a missile interdicted on a dhow headed to Yemen in 2020 as the Iranian 358 SAM displayed for Russian officials in Tehran in September 2023. The Saqr and 358 both have distinctive features, which include front-mounted fins (1) and rear-mounted fins (2) in an X-shaped orientation and the engine (3). The Houthis have used the Saqr to attack U.S. UAVs in Yemen. In addition to the Houthis, Iran proliferated the 358 to partners and proxies in Iraq and Lebanon.

FlyingSquid@lemmy.world on 17 Oct 17:02 next collapse

Necessary in what sense? Necessary to defeat the Houthis? Probably not. Necessary to tell Iran you can fuck with Israel but you better not fuck with the U.S.? Possibly.

tal@lemmy.today on 17 Oct 17:13 next collapse

Necessary to use the B-2s rather than a more-conventional delivery platform. It isn’t what I’d normally expect to be used in a conflict like this one.

FlyingSquid@lemmy.world on 17 Oct 17:17 collapse

The B-2 was the message, not the bombing.

tal@lemmy.today on 17 Oct 17:28 collapse

I suppose that could make some sense. There’s some symbolic value there.

FlyingSquid@lemmy.world on 17 Oct 17:36 collapse

Mind you, this is just me hypothesizing. But I can’t think of a better reason.

mkwt@lemmy.world on 17 Oct 17:43 collapse

If you think you want to be more prepared for a nearer-peer conflict, you might want to get your B2 crews some real combat sorties. Kind of like a college football rent-a-win game before the conference season starts.

It’s a risk because the Spirits are basically capital ships of the air, but it may be a worthwhile trade-off.

cubism_pitta@lemmy.world on 17 Oct 17:41 next collapse

These flew from US mainland into Yemen and bombed protected / hidden sites THEN flew back home.

The US gave warning of the attack and likely all the governments in the area saw were birds on their radar screens.

The B-2 was a great choice to deliver a quit messing with commerce message

tal@lemmy.today on 17 Oct 17:55 next collapse

These flew from US mainland into Yemen and bombed protected / hidden sites THEN flew back home.

That’s how the B-2s normally operate. I forget the name of the airbase (I think it starts with a “B”?) but it’s somewhere in the center of the US, and they do their missions straight out of the continental US.

kagis

No, not a “B”. Whiteman Air Force Base.

cubism_pitta@lemmy.world on 17 Oct 18:08 next collapse

It is, but thats an important detail about the capability of the B-2 that can be lost without pointing out.

postmateDumbass@lemmy.world on 18 Oct 00:09 collapse

No way the USA keeps their best weapons at a place called Blackman…

shalafi@lemmy.world on 18 Oct 01:27 collapse

quit messing with commerce message

Politics aside, that’s the message. Don’t care who you are, what you believe, what you’re fighting for, you cannot fuck with international commerce. That kinda BS hurts all of us, millions of us. That’s the idea behind treating pirates so harshly. Do not fuck with trade because every human society depends on it.

[deleted] on 17 Oct 18:40 next collapse
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Badeendje@lemmy.world on 17 Oct 20:26 next collapse

This was a message to Iran, nothing else.

The US has F35 and F22s in the neighborhood, but rolling out the spirit is meant to flex the global strike capability and remind everyone what they are capable of.

postmateDumbass@lemmy.world on 18 Oct 00:07 collapse

There are probably enemy watching those planes in the region, outside the base watching the planes take off and land.

Calling in the b2 retains suprise.

HK65@sopuli.xyz on 17 Oct 23:46 collapse

I would take a wild guess, but there is also the fact that the US knows a lot more about the vaunted S400 Russian air defence systems thanks to Ukraine, and is now more confident that it can not detect the B2 even if crews are given time to refine and experiment against a real target, and wanted to flex that point.

tal@lemmy.today on 18 Oct 00:12 collapse

I don’t think that the Houthis have S-400s (and I can’t imagine that Russia has been providing them to anyone in the last couple years, given as how they have a shortage themselves, and it’s probably one of the more-critical shortages that they face).

I can’t find any reference to the Houthis having them online, at any rate.

HK65@sopuli.xyz on 18 Oct 00:35 collapse

I think it’s more of a general confidence that there really is no system capable of detecting it. It flew halfway across the world, and radar systems usually have very high ranges. It wouldn’t necessarily need to be the Houthis that have the system.

If you remember, they didn’t let Turkey buy F-35s because they also had S-400s. They didn’t want it to be “public” knowledge how they match up. The US now knows, hence more confident stealth aircraft deployments.

It’s just my theory anyways.