A view shows Barbados-flagged bulk carrier vessel True Confidence, in Ravenna, Italy March 10, 2022. Dario Bonazza/via REUTERS
“British Embassy in Sanaa has confirmed two fatalities from the Houthis’ attack on the MV True Confidence, marking the first fatalities since the Iranian-backed Houthis began attacking merchant ships in November…Four mariners were severely burned and three missing after a missile hit a cargo ship off Yemen on Wednesday, a shipping source said, the first report of serious injuries since Yemen’s Houthi movement began attacking shipping…”
This should not come as a surprise. The only surprise is that it did not happen earlier.
Of the 23 on board, there were “15 Filipinos, four Vietnamese, two Sri Lankans, an Indian and a Nepali national.” All innocent, not an Israeli in the bunch.
Time for those who support the Palestinians, to call out the Houthi leadership. This criminal behavior is not helping. This is distracting from the situation in Palestine, and if anything, is hurting the Palestinian cause.
Chuck Hill's CG Blog 
The ability of the Houthi to strike commercial shipping with ballistic missiles would seem to mean that an escort vessel, even a second tier escort, is going to require something like Standard Missile 2, and the radar to adequately use it. Building an escort vessel on the cheap with just ESSM and a relatively small and inexpensive radar isnt going to get the job done.
Am I right? Or am I missing something?
Hell we don’t even have ESSM on the NSC’s or RAM’s either!
Much less the radar systems or fire control.
Depends on the environment. If we are talking about ships under threat from China’s Anti-Ship Ballistic Missiles (ASBM) and air launched cruise missiles, then something like the FFG or a DDG escort is required, but we may still need more ASW escorts than AAW escorts because of the nature of ASW.
If we are talking about escorting ships from the US Coast to the outer edge of that ASBM danger zone, thousands of miles, then the air threat is submarine launched anti-ship cruise missiles, and very few submarines are going to carry an overwhelming number of them. Torpedoes are still a submarines primary weapon. Again, an escort might include an AAW ship and ASW ships with some self-defense AAW systems. ESSM is likely to be sufficient if the escort(s) and the protected ships are not too far apart.
I hear you, there are different threats. I do think the fact that the fact a non state proxy force has been able to use ballistic missiles accurately enough to hit moving ships is a game changer though. ESSM and RAM have no capability against ballistic missiles as far as I know.
Frigates that don’t have ballistic missile defense are going to be obsolete in short order, where just a few years ago I think ESSM or equivalent would have been considered adequate for light to medium frigates. (I’m thinking of ships like the Nansen Class.)
@James, sooner or later submarines may have the capabiity to fire anti-ship ballistic missiles, but right now they don’t and given the limited range of targeting available to submarines they may not want them until their access to targeting info improves. Also launching ballistic missile from a submarine gives away its position much more quickly than launching a torpedo or cruise missile.
Frankly torpedoes are generally a better weapon for subs than ASCMs or ASBMs most of the time because modern torpedoes can have a range of up to 60 miles, which is just about the limit of a submarines ability to find targets. Torpedoes are generally not detected until they are well away from the submarine so they don’t give away the sub’s position. One torpedo is likely to sink a ship while a single ASCM or ASBM is unlikely to sink a ship. And of course torpedoes can be used against other subs while ASCMs and ASBMs cannot.
Submarines generally have limited magazine size so they have hard choices determining the optimum mix. Until recently US subs did not carry cruise missiles by choice. They do not, but I think they are more for land attack than for attacking ships.
From the surface side, even if the task force has to have an anti-ballistic missile capability, it does not mean ever escort has to have that capability, or that adding escorts with ASW capability but limited AAW self-defense is not a good thing.
There is also the fact that an escort with VLS that can support various types of standard missile and is equipped with Cooperative Engagement Capability can act as an auxiliary magazine for an anti-ballistic capable escort even if they themselves don’t have that capability.