A few billion dollars and ten years late, but that's defense spending for you
/New Navy chief 'regrets' costly missile interceptors against Houthis, pushes for cheaper Red Sea defense
'I had not been thoughtful enough to think about the UAV threat where I think a much lesser-powered weapon would have done what we needed it to do,' says Adm James Kilby
“UAV” — that’s military speak for “Unmanned Aerial Vehicle” — a drone, to you and me; you know, the ones you can buy from Amazon?
New acting Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Adm. James Kilby said he regrets the Navy’s reliance on expensive, high-powered missile interceptors to counter the Houthi threat in the Red Sea and pledged to push for cheaper, more efficient solutions.
Speaking to reporters at the Sea Air Space conference in National Harbor, Maryland, Kilby said he was "not concerned" about the Navy’s ability to protect its people – such as the 350 sailors aboard the USS Carney missile destroyer – or its ability to safeguard commercial shipping.
He is concerned, however, about "not having better ways to more economically attrit the threat."
In his former role as deputy commander of Fleet Forces Command, Kilby said he was "focused on a high-end laser – 500kW to one megawatt – and I have regret for that."
"I had not been thoughtful enough to think about the UAV threat, where I think a much lesser-powered weapon would have done what we needed it to do," Kilby said.
He promised the Navy was now working to overhaul its costly defense tactics with "much more cost-effective" technologies to counter autonomous vehicles in the Red Sea, as he called on the defense industry to more quickly produce munitions for the mission.
"We have to get after our industrial base or munitions industrial base the same way we have to get after our shipbuilding industrial base," said Kilby.
Onlookers have long decried the disproportionate cost of taking on the Yemeni rebels. Naval missiles that run around $2 million a shot have been used to take out drones that cost the Houthis no more than $2,000. Since the March 15 offensive began, the Houthis have also downed three MQ-9 Reaper drones — each worth about $30 million.
The Ukrainian war exercises have shown what cheap, disposable drones can do against Russian tanks and ships; we shouldn’t have needed the primitive Houthis to drive the lesson home.