British warships lack firepower to attack Houthi land targets

[Timber Rattler]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/27/british-warships-lack-firepower-attacks-houthi-red-sea/

Britain’s warships cannot attack Houthi targets on land because they lack the firepower, in a situation described by former defence chiefs as a “scandal”.

None of the Royal Navy’s destroyers or frigates have the ability to fire missiles at targets on land, leaving the US to carry out the majority of strikes on Houthi targets with support from RAF planes based 1,500 miles away.

A British defence source said HMS Diamond, the destroyer stationed in the Red Sea, had not joined retaliatory strikes on Houthi targets because it did not have “the capability to fire to land targets”. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) said it had instead been “directly involved in successfully destroying Houthi drones targeting shipping in the Red Sea”.

This weekend, a British-linked container ship caught fire after becoming the latest vessel targeted by Houthi rebels.

EXCERPT

Kinda analogous to the U.S. Navy in the mid-1960s.  It had been so traumatized by the Japanese kamikaze attacks of World War II that most of its warships that were subsequently built in the 1950s were so heavily armed with defensive weaponry that they had little or no capability to hit targets inland.  That became a big problem early in the Vietnam War when the Navy was unable to carry out shore bombardments against the North Vietnamese.  That's when they pulled the Iowa-class battleships out of mothballs and recalled sailors from retirement who actually knew how to fire those big 16-inch guns to quick-fix that deficiency.

[PeteS in CA]

Actually, all USN destroyer classes of the 40s, 50s, and 60s had 5"/54 guns (except for a single ship, USS Norfolk), which had a range about half that of the Iowa class' 16"/50 guns, but about 8,500 yards farther than the 5"/38 guns of pre-war and WW2 vintage destroyers and the Iowas' AA suite, and a much higher firing rate than the 5"/38.

[Timber Rattler]

Actually, all USN destroyer classes of the 40s, 50s, and 60s had 5"/54 guns (except for a single ship, USS Norfolk), which had a range about half that of the Iowa class' 16"/50 guns, but about 8,500 yards farther than the 5"/38 guns of pre-war and WW2 vintage destroyers and the Iowas' AA suite, and a much higher firing rate than the 5"/38.

Right but the focus was primarily AA at the time instead of anti-ship and shore bombardment...missiles were supposed to be the end-all/be-all for just about everything, or at least that's what Bob McNamara thought.

[PeteS in CA]

5"/38s were dual purpose - AA and surface/shore.

5"/54s were dual purpose - AA and surface/shore, with ~8500-yard greater range and about twice the firing rate. IOW, the 5"/54 guns on late 40s, 50s, and 60s destroyers were better for shore bombardment than WW2 and pre-war 5"/38s.

[Timber Rattler]

5"/38s were dual purpose - AA and surface/shore.

5"/54s were dual purpose - AA and surface/shore, with ~8500-yard greater range and about twice the firing rate. IOW, the 5"/54 guns on late 40s, 50s, and 60s destroyers were better for shore bombardment than WW2 and pre-war 5"/38s.

After some early shore bombardments of North Vietnam in 1964 and 1965, there's a famous quote from Isaac "Ike" Kidd Jr., who said that "the Navy couldn't hit a bull in the ass with a shovel!"

See page 132 here:

https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA524340.pdf

Also the ballisticians at the Dahlgren Naval Proving Ground and Laboratory found that:

"It turned out that for too many years the exercises at sea were organized for attaining high scores in anti-air missile firings. So much effort was put into these self-defense monsters that shipboard training with guns for attack purposes was given short shrift. As a result, the crews really were unprepared. Moreover, because the guns were not exercised as they should have been, their defects and idiosyncrasies were unknown and showed up only in a real fight."