Monday for KoB
Had to respond to a comment from KoB yesterday – was saving this for later in the week but the linked article is already dated by developments.
Welp, they’re getting their war materials from somewhere. A quick dive shows this is what they produce in country…
“The industrial sector is centred (sic) on crude oil production and petroleum refining, food processing, handicrafts, small-scale production of cotton textiles and leather goods, aluminum products, commercial ship repair, cement, and natural gas production.” Hmmm…no mention of weapons of any sort. Imagine that.
Problem is, their industrial sector is not selling weapons to anyone significant…they are USING them. No revenue, so not blipping the economic radar. I had happened to read another article shortly before I read this one by Howard Altman in The War Zone that made for one of those “rest of the story” moments. Timing is right, too, since SecState Rubio has designated the Houthis as a terrorist organization. Gee, after over a year of them shooting at anything floating in the Red Sea, ya think? CENTCOM on X
In response to these attacks, the U.S. and its allies have engaged numerous Houthi missiles and air and sea drones to protect commercial vessels as well as themselves.
“What I can tell about the Houthis is they iterate, and they’re pretty innovative,” the official explained. “So we see them putting together weapon systems and put them together in ways, give them a try, and a lot of times they fail. But the military talks about ‘failing forward’ and being innovative, and with a begrudging tip of the hat to the Houthis, they’re actually doing that.”
“We’ve been surprised at times with some of the things that we see them do, and it makes us scratch our head a little bit,” the official noted, adding that the Houthis are “not super technologically advanced, but we do think they’re pretty innovative.”
We know the Iranians have developed fairly sophisticated missiles, and it’s not even a question whether they supply the Houthis whether the mullahs deny it or not. But if they can manufacture missiles? Or modify surface to air missiles into ship-killers? I would tend to give them credit for being a bit more intelligently staffed than the old be-sandled goat herder image we might prefer.
While the extent of the Houthi weapons stocks is unknown, “we do think that they do a lot of production in-house,” the official told us. “Our assessment right now is that there’s likely some key components and other things that come from Iran or other places, but a lot of the actual production is in Yemen.” The official declined to say what components the Houthis have procured.
Yeah, another anonymous official who supposedly isn’t supposed to talk – more on that tomorrow – but he has some interesting info. Production in Yemen?
If they resume standoff attacks on Israel and shipping, it’s unknown how long the Yemen-based militant group can maintain such an operation as their seemingly resilient ability to construct the weapons used in those attacks remains something of a mystery.The War Zone
The article was written over a week ago, and it’s safe to say that they will probably respond with missiles to our strikes on them. But looking at the images above – I for one would not dismiss either their Iranian supply chain OR their manufacturing capabilities out of hand. Just some added info to round out the picture – hat tip to KoB for the genesis of it.
Category: Iran
KoB is going to need a smoke and a nap after this.
The smoke and the nap is easy to take care of, Odie. The big problem is the wet spot. Guess I better break out the Shop Vac. The heading picture is a depiction of what I REALLY want to help shore up The North Wall. Be still my beating heart.
Excellent breakdown and charts, David. I was being a little sarcastic in my comment in re of where Hootie was getting his toys and the Iranians denying any supply there of. I hark back to the John Wayne Green Beret Motion Picture (they had problems with The North Wall in that too) near the beginning where the old Master Sergeant was explaining to the reporter as to where Charlie and the NVA was getting their weapons from and he rattled off a list and showed the various weapons. The manufacture of sophisticated weapons requires knowledge AND facilities to do so. It ain’t like one can call up Amazon and have them shipped from in stock. A quick WikiLies dive shows a coupla things. (1) the yemeni economy is a drop in the bucket to the rest of the world and (2) they have been trying to disrupt trade and commerce in that region for 1000s of years. Best way to break up a “Supply Chain” is at it’s source. Problem…solution…results.
What you are missing is the Iranian supplied and modified “drones”, or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAS). Think of them as a slow moving cruise missile. The advantage of slow moving is radars tend to miss them, and they have a very small radar cross section to begin with.
““We’ve been surprised at times with some of the things that we see them do, and it makes us scratch our head a little bit,” the official noted, adding that the Houthis are “not super technologically advanced, but we do think they’re pretty innovative.””
I am impressed at how quickly the lessons from GWOT were forgotten.
“Lessons Learned” was replaced by “DEI”.
Why does Amy Coney Barrett align so frequently with the left?
Do they have something on her?
Did she decide it was better for her health and her family to align with the left?
Did she “evolve” her opinions and positions?
Why is it always the supposedly conservative Justices that “evolve”, and never the lefties?
The Left votes in block, regardless of the issue. They are reliable lefties. But the conservatives…
I think I had a subconscious warning the first time I heard her name. It sounded like “Amy Commie Bear”.
Yeah, she’s been a real disappointment