The U.S. Navy says it is working to reduce the growing costs of fighting Houthi drones launched from Yemen by placing two new experimental systems on destroyers that are slated to deploy later this summer.
“We’re going to be deploying the Ford strike group with two additional missile systems on our destroyers — the Roadrunner system and the Coyote system — both specifically designed to go after UAVs,”
Adm. Daryl Caudle, the commander of U.S. Fleet Forces, told reporters last week.
Ever since the Navy repelled its first wave of drone attacks from the Houthi rebels in October 2023, there has been a steady criticism over the fact that commanders were turning to multimillion-dollar missiles to down drones that cost fractions of that amount. The phenomenon became known as the “cost-curve problem.”
“Those two systems … are part of that attempt to get after the cost curve, give our commanding officers more options to engage the threat and ultimately be more effective in defending the high-value unit,”
Capt. Mark Lawrence, the commander of the destroyer squadron whose ships will employ the new systems, told reporters March 21.
Photo: RAYTHEON/ANDURIL/USN (COMPOSITE)
Source: Military.com; The War Zone