U.S. warship destroys Houthi missile with Navy’s ‘last line of defense’
The destruction of a Houthi missile by a U.S. warship in the Red Sea this week marks the first time an advanced weapons system dubbed the Navy’s “last line of defense” has been used in this conflict.
The Navy destroyer USS Gravely deployed the Phalanx Close-In System (CWIS) on Tuesday night against what US officials said was a cruise missile that came within 1.6 km of the ship, and therefore He was seconds away from impact.
The Phalanx automated system features Gatling cannons that can fire up to 4,500 20-millimeter projectiles per minute, hitting projectiles or other targets at extremely close range.
American warships have defeated dozens of previous Houthi missile attacks using longer-range defenses, likely the Standard SM-2, Standard SM-6, and Evolved Sea Sparrow missiles, according to analysts. But on Tuesday night that did not happen for reasons that have not been disclosed.
“When you’re going at a good speed, 1.6 km translates into a short amount of time,” said Tom Karako, director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Analyst Carl Schuster, a former U.S. Navy captain, said the Houthi missile, traveling at about 600 mph, was probably about 4 seconds away from hitting the U.S. warship when it was destroyed by what was likely a blast of rockets.
He noted that destroying an incoming missile at a distance of 1.6 km does not necessarily prevent warships from being hit by debris.
In the case of a subsonic cruise missile like the one Gravely encountered on Tuesday, “depending on whether the warhead detonates, the size of the debris, the flight angle of the missile, and the altitude at the time of its destruction, around 2% of the debris could reach the ship,” he said.
Even with these caveats, the Phalanx is an important weapon for the Navy.
Since its introduction in 1980, it has been installed on all Navy surface ships, and at least 24 US allies also use it, according to Raytheon, which notes that the land version has seen combat before.
It remains to be seen whether it will be used in the current hostilities in the Red Sea. But the Iran-backed Houthis show no signs of slowing down their attacks on commercial shipping and warships in the waters around their base in Yemen, which they say are retaliation against Israel for its war in Gaza.
A day after the Gravely attack, US Central Command reported that another US destroyer, the USS Carney, had shot down anti-ship missiles and drones. And on Thursday, U.S. forces shot down a Houthi drone over the Gulf of Aden and destroyed a surface drone in the Red Sea, he said.
Meanwhile, two ballistic missiles launched from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen missed targets in the Red Sea, Central Command said.