On the USS Eisenhower, 4 months of combat at sea facing Houthi missiles and a new sea threat

ABOARD THE USS DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER (AP) — Sailors aboard the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and its accompanying warships have spent four months straight at sea defending against ballistic missiles and flying attack drones fired by Iranian-backed Houthis, and are now more regularly also defending against a new threat — fast unmanned vessels that are fired at them through the water.

While the Houthis have launched unmanned surface vessels, or USVs, in the past against Saudi coalition forces that have intervened in Yemen’s civil war, they were used for the first time against U.S. military and commercial in the Red Sea on Jan. 4. In the weeks since, the Navy has had to intercept and destroy multiple USVs.

It’s “more of an unknown threat that we don’t have a lot of intel on, that could be extremely lethal — an unmanned surface vessel,” said Rear Adm. Marc Miguez, commander of Carrier Strike Group Two, of which the Eisenhower is the flagship. The Houthis “have ways of obviously controlling them just like they do the (unmanned aerial vehicles), and we have very little little fidelity as to all the stockpiles of what they have USV-wise,” Miguez said.

The Houthis began firing on U.S. military and commercial vessels after a deadly blast at the Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza on Oct. 17, a few days after the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war. The rebels have said they will continue firing on commercial and military vessels transiting the region until Israel ceases its military operations inside Gaza.

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