[sudosysgen]

Saudi Arabia also attempted to stop the Houthis from bombing Saudi industry, and failed. It's difficult to bomb guided missiles, because they are typically only stored 1-4 at a time in a highly mobile and disguised manner, for example inside a truck, and are only going to be exposed as they're being fired. It's a really difficult task, unfortunately. As far as I known it's never been successfully done without a ground invasion.

[JumpCrisscross]

> it's never been successfully done without a ground invasion

Counter-battery fire is tremendously precedented and always done at standoff. You can also start hitting arms stores, port infrastructure, training and C3 facilities.

The beauty of this is it’s cruelly win-win-win. The Houthis can use the bombing to strengthen their domestic image, maybe even boost recruitment. Iran can piggyback on that. And America can claim it cleared the Strait. As long as everyone stays in their lane (literally), it’s a stable conclusion.

[greedo]

Counter-battery fire really only applies to gun-based artillery, since it has nearby ammo (or stored ammunition on the vehicle) and the counter-battery radar is sited to detect and calculate the ballistic trajectory instantly.

When it comes to missile (whether drone, cruise missiles, or ballistic missiles), it's much more difficult. The US had a hard time countering the SCUD missiles in 1991. And that was with a huge military, with the best ISR the world has ever seen. A 6-pack of Shaheds can be launched from a trailer that looks all the world like a normal flatbed style semi. A cruise missile can be fired and navigate a course that obfuscates its launch point. Ballistic missiles can fire, then drive away to hide in a city.

The only way to win this fight is to blockade the country from receiving shipments from Iran. Air blockade and naval blockade, combined with strikes to hit known depots etc. This is called war. Not a presence mission, not a "response," but the literal definition of war. The US has no stomach for this entanglement, and hopes that the problem goes away. It won't, but the pain level is relatively low, and the USN is getting some great practice in fighting a LIC in the littoral regions.

[sudosysgen]

Counter battery fire simply does not work. These missiles are not stored nor fired in central locations, there are only a couple at a time. You can fire at the launch spot all you want, there's going to be no one and nothing of value there. It's the same tactics the US itself copied for the HIMARS, and despite thousand of airstrikes Russia hasn't been able to destroy them.

Training and top level command is most likely not even in Yemen. You could hit the ports, that wouldn't stop the import of these missiles - they are shipped in small boats as a kit, assembled wherever, and then kept in a cave somewhere or in a car, ready to be fired. No port or infrastructure needed.

These tactics have been used since the 80s, and no solution short of a ground invasion can stop them. Israel couldn't even stop Hamas and the PIJ from firing guided rockets from Gaza - at the end of the day when the IDF bomb houses that rockets were fired from, it's just theater: they never store more than a dozen munitions, and by the time counter battery fire arrives, they've likely fired all munitions already. This is a tiny 2.4sqm strip fully blockaded, I don't see how you can stop it in Yemen.

[JumpCrisscross]

> can fire at the launch spot all you want, there's going to be no one and nothing of value there

This is blind counter-battery. You use the shot to place loiters. That then trains your fire.

[sudosysgen]

They're not going to be returning to the firing spot. There's no point doing it. It's been tried, there isn't much to do short of an invasion.

Despite much media ado about destroying the launchers, those are typically just welded pipe or wooden catapults. There's no value in them and no point in ever coming back there.

[paganel]

> arms stores,

Those arms stores do not exist as such, they're most probably highly dispersed and only at the limit can one call them "stores", and if gathered in one place that place is most probably located underground, where aerial bombings would have close to no effects.

Just look at how difficult it is right now for Israel to take out Hamas's weapons cashes in Gaza, and we're talking about a much concentrated operation in terms of space and most probably Israel knows a lot more about Hamas's weapons caches than the US would be able to ever know about where the Houthis store their weapons.

[r00fus]

> And America can claim it cleared the Strait.

See the thing is, if shipping companies don't trust the waters they simply won't send ships there - claims don't matter one whit.

[JumpCrisscross]

> if shipping companies don't trust the waters they simply won't send ships there - claims don't matter one whit

What part of removing long-range precision strike capability suggests an empty claim?

[bluGill]

Counter battery only works if you know where to fire. If your first clue is they just launched their entire storage of missiles there is nothing to do. If you are fast enough maybe you can get the now-empty launcher, but modern military practice is shoot and scout so odds are against that.

Getting information on where things are stored is hard. It needs boots/spies on the ground (satellites can only get limited information and are easily fooled). As pointed out elsewhere, modern best practice is to not have a large warehouse that is easy to find and destroy, instead you scatter this stuff around in small units.

[JumpCrisscross]

> just launched their entire storage of missiles

If they launched their entire stockpile, it’s no longer an issue. The question was using one launch to take out a couple missiles, maybe a launcher and those operating it. Done repeatedly, this will degrade a static force. (Additional levers would need to be pulled on resupply.)

[bluGill]

They will then ro to the next stockpile and launch again

[tgsovlerkhgsel]

What I don't understand: The Houthis seem to have virtually no air defense and high-value assets like helicopters that are hard to hide. At the same time, they seem to be involved in constant fighting with someone, so those assets are presumably valuable to them outside of their use to sabotage international shipping.

So if hitting the launchers is hard, how about destroying one of those assets every time they attack shipping?