(Dan Tri) – After many warnings, US and British forces have realized their threat to retaliate against Houthi forces in Yemen for the group’s attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea.
US warships fire Tomahawk cruise missiles (Photo: Breakingdefense).
This morning, January 12, in the dark of night, from the air and sea, the US and UK launched missiles and bombed targets of the Houthi forces in Yemen.
Tomahawk missile
The US Navy’s Tomahawk (TLAM) is a low-flying cruise missile capable of carrying a conventional warhead weighing more than 450kg, flying 1,600km to attack targets deep inland in Yemen.
According to the US Navy, launched from a surface ship or submarine, the Tomahawk flies at subsonic speeds at extremely low altitudes and can bypass air defense systems using a modern navigation system and has
The United States first used Tomahawks in combat in 1991 during Operation Desert Storm in Iraq, after which they were widely used in several other conflicts.
Guided missile submarine USS Florida
This is one of four nuclear-powered guided missile submarines (SSGN) of the US Navy.
Initially, USS Florida was one of 18 Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines, carrying nuclear warheads.
The relatively large size and power of the SSGN submarine allows it to carry 154 Tomahawks, 50% more than US destroyers and nearly 4 times more than the country’s newest attack submarines.
The submarine USS Florida moves through the Suez Canal in Egypt on April 7, 2023 (Photo: Reuters).
Carl Schuster, a former Navy captain and director of operations at the US Pacific Command’s Joint Intelligence Center, said in 2021: `The SSGN can provide a lot of firepower very quickly… 154
Instead of having to gather and mobilize many destroyers at the same time to launch missiles in large numbers, just one Ohio-class submarine – as an independent unit, difficult to detect – can launch
Expert Martin said: `SSGN is still the platform with the greatest capability to fire conventional missile salvos. The importance of a large-scale strike was demonstrated in March 2011, when the USS Florida fired close
The ship is equipped with a nuclear reactor that gives it an `unlimited` range of operations underwater and is limited only by the need to replenish food supplies for the crew.
US Navy guided missile destroyer
The Pentagon said that in addition to the Florida submarine, US surface ships also launched Tomahawk missiles to attack the Houthi forces.
The backbone of the US Navy’s surface fleet is the Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer, with nearly 70 in operation.
Displacing up to 9,700 tons, the Burke-class destroyer carries a variety of weapons, both defensive and offensive.
Destroyers deploy Tomahawk cruise missiles using a vertical launch system (VLS), each ship has 90 to 96 VLS tubes, depending on when it was built.
The Pentagon has not said which specific destroyers were involved in the attack on Houthi forces in Yemen, but several warships have been in the Red Sea in the past two months to protect commercial ships from foreign invaders.
British Typhoon fighter aircraft
Eurofighter Typhoon is currently the `backbone` of the British Royal Air Force.
The multi-role fighter line was jointly researched by the Eurofighter GmbH joint venture (including the German-Spanish EADS Group, British BAE System and Italian Aleni Aeronautica).
Typhoon is a delta-winged fighter aircraft with canards, providing high flexibility, low drag and increased lift with dimensions: 15.96m long, 10.95m wingspan, 5.28m height and
Typhoon’s maximum speed is about Mach 2 and its flight ceiling can be up to 19km, its combat radius is 1,390km and it has a climbing speed of 315m/s.
Eurofighter Typhoon fighter (Photo: Eurofighter).
The British Ministry of Defense said that four aircraft of this type participated in the attack on Houthi targets this morning to drop Paveway IV guided bombs.
The Paveway IV bomb has a length of 3.1m, a diameter of 0.27m, a wingspan when the wings are spread 0.42m, weighs 225kg, uses inertial guidance (with or without the aid of GPS) and semi-laser.
Bombs can detonate in the air (at different heights), detonate or detonate after penetration.
The British Typhoons were supported by a Voyager aerial tanker, allowing the jet fighters to fly longer distances.
The British Ministry of Defense did not say where the plane took off from, however, a video posted by Defense Secretary Grant Shapps showed a Typhoon taking off at night from a land runway.
