# Houthi Rebels and Shipping **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 11, 2024, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houthi-rebels-and-shipping/995980 "2024-01-11T23:15:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![JacobSwan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a6a055/32.png) [@JacobSwan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JacobSwan)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2024, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houthi-rebels-and-shipping/995980/41 "2024-02-14T20:20:20Z")
More reason to drink Yorkshire Tea. (My neighbour still thinks it’s grown in fields somewhere near Leeds.) ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2024, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houthi-rebels-and-shipping/995980/42 "2024-02-14T20:24:16Z")
If nothing else, it’s nice to see that Aegis and CIWS does in fact perform in combat as advertised. ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2024, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houthi-rebels-and-shipping/995980/43 "2024-02-14T21:21:34Z")
> [@JacobSwan](#): > > More reason to drink Yorkshire Tea. (My neighbour still thinks it’s grown in fields somewhere near Leeds.) Nonsense! Everyone knows it’s grown near [Harrogate.](https://www.englishteastore.com/yorkshire-gold-tea-bags-80-count.html) ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2024, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houthi-rebels-and-shipping/995980/44 "2024-02-15T19:00:42Z")
Question - and I know we have Navy Dopers here - how are the Houthis acquiring targets and doing missile guidance? My impression was that having a missile in your possession was only a small part of the overall kill chain needed. For the destruction of, say, a civilian or military ship near Yemen, don’t the Houthis need something like airborne reconnaissance to first spot the ship, then the missile has to be guided there and then also recognize which ship to kill? Unless these antiship missiles are on some sort of pitbull-mode where they are just told to fly to a certain area and kill the first ship it sees? Do they need drones to spot the ships? ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2024, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houthi-rebels-and-shipping/995980/45 "2024-02-15T19:12:27Z")
Aren’t most shipping vessels running around with transponders broadcasting their location? Answering my own question, I just looked at VesselFinder, a free AIS tracking site, and it looks like AIS is turned off at the straits entering the Red Sea. So, the Houthis can’t just open up an AIS tracking site to find targets at least. ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2024, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houthi-rebels-and-shipping/995980/46 "2024-02-15T19:17:10Z")
Given the Houthi are backed by Iran, it isn’t much of a stretch to postulate that Iran is helping with reconnassiance. ---
**Author:** ![OldOlds](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a3d4f5/32.png) [@OldOlds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldOlds)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2024, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houthi-rebels-and-shipping/995980/47 "2024-02-15T19:37:42Z")
I don’t know anything about them, but I believe that some of what’s being used are $20,000 drones supplied by Iran. It seems to me that these could easily be piloted manually, by remote control. You know about where a ship is an essentially kamikaze it, flying by visual or crude radar. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2024, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houthi-rebels-and-shipping/995980/48 "2024-02-20T19:45:37Z")
As Shelby Foote once said, “Anyone who takes on the U.S. Navy has got to be crazy.” [https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/14/politics/us-navy-houthi-fight-red-sea/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/14/politics/us-navy-houthi-fight-red-sea/index.html) ---
**Author:** ![Dorjan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dorjan/32/12440_2.png) [@Dorjan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dorjan)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2024, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houthi-rebels-and-shipping/995980/49 "2024-02-20T20:05:44Z")
> [@EddyTeddyFreddy](#): > > Given the Houthi are backed by Iran, it isn’t much of a stretch to postulate that Iran is helping with reconnassiance. They are definitely getting coordinates from the Iranian navy, which has ships in the area that have been tracked to be close enough to the shipping targets to acquire the necessary info and then conveniently scurry away when the attacks commence and the US/French/Indian Navy responds. Honestly I’m surprised this has not been proven and the Iranian ships dealt with. What are they going to do about it except be mad and funnel money and support to terrorist groups, which they are already doing? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houthi-rebels-and-shipping/995980.md?page=2)