The U.S. Navy has used more missiles for air defense since combat operations in the Red Sea began in October 2023 than the service used in all the years since Operation Desert Storm in the 1990s, said retired Navy Cmdr. Bryan Clark, of the Hudson Institute.
Over that 15-month-period, which ran from Oct. 19, 2023 to Jan. 19, 2025, the Navy saw the most combat at sea since World War II, Clark told Task & Purpose.
“It’s kind of amazing how the Navy has held up with no losses, but the cost has been pretty enormous,” Clark said. “The estimates are the Navy has used up $1 billion-plus worth of interceptors to shoot down these drone and missile threats.”
For now, the conflict appears to be on pause, possibly due to the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that was announced on Jan. 19. But the Navy will need years to replenish its supply of missiles, and that puts the service in a bad position if the United States and China went to war today, Clark said.
“I think most estimates are within a few days of combat, if there was an invasion of Taiwan, that the U.S. — the Navy in particular — would run out of weapons,” Clark said. “That’s the problem: The weapons we’ve designed are too difficult to build for the industrial base, because they’re too specialized; they have too bespoke a supply chain, and they’re manufactured by hand, at low-rate productions.”
‘We had never done anything like this before’
Shortly after Hamas launched its Oct. 7, 2023 terror attack on Israel, Houthi rebels in Yemen began attacking ships in the Red Sea with cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, drones, and unmanned boats. On Oct. 19, 2023, the destroyer USS Carney spent 10 hours shooting down 15 Houthi drones and four cruise missiles in what the Navy described as “the most intense combat engagement by a U.S. Navy warship since WWII.”
Fire Controlman (AEGIS) 2nd Class Justin Parker later recalled that he and other members of the ship’s crew were in their berthing when they heard an announcement over the Carney’s intercom system: “Clear the weatherdecks.” Soon, they heard the Carney fire missiles along with its main gun. They instantly knew this was not a drill.
“We had never done anything like this before — we had only trained to it,” Gunner’s Mate 1st Class Charles Currie said in a Navy News release. “There was a lot of adrenaline going on. This was real-world now.”
This was the start of the undeclared shooting war against the Houthis. The Carney would go on to face a total of 51 engagements during its deployment. The ship’s entire crew received the Combat Action Ribbon when it returned to its homeport.
“Every single training experience we did before deployment — that’s what we fell back on,” said Lt. j.g. Haven Vickers said in the Navy news release.
The Red Sea boils over
The situation in the Red Sea quickly escalated as the Houthis ramped up their attacks against commercial vessels and warships and Iran launched two attacks against Israel. But the Navy came to stay for the fight.
In December 2023, the Defense Department announced that the Navy would be part of Operation Prosperity Guardian, an international effort to protect commercial shipping in the Red Sea.
Separately, U.S. and British forces began air and missile strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen the following month. Eventually, these strikes involved B-2 Spirit bombers and Marine Corps F-35C Joint Strike Fighters. In November 2024, the Houthis attacked two Navy destroyers, USS Stockdale and USS Spruance, with drones, ballistic missiles, and cruise missiles. Neither ship was damaged, and no sailors were hurt.
The Navy also helped shoot down Iranian missiles fired at Israel in April, and the destroyers USS Cole and USS Bulkeley fired interceptors in October when Iran again launched missiles at Israel.
Then, in late January, the Houthis announced a partial halt to attacks in the Red Sea following the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. U.S. Central Command’s last announcement of strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen was on Jan. 8. A defense official had nothing to add to the news release when Task & Purpose asked if there had been any further airstrikes against Houthi targets, or if U.S. Navy ships have destroyed Houthi missiles, drones, or boats since then.
Too close for missiles, switching to guns
The Navy also revealed in January that it had fired 160 rounds from ships’ five-inch main guns as part of combat operations in the Red Sea. Those main gun rounds have been used to destroy Houthi drones, Clark said.
“They have been using guns to shoot down drones lately, especially the Hypervelocity Projectile,” Clark said. “The Navy built all those Hypervelocity Projectiles originally as part of the rail gun program. I think they’ve used about 50 for air defense.”
Hypervelocity Projectiles are designed to hit the target, while other 5-inch rounds explode near the target, showering it with shrapnel, he said.
Not only are the 5-inch rounds less expensive than missiles, but the Houthi drones often fly too low or too close to the ship to be hit with missiles, Clark said.
“What often happens is these really small drones get close enough to where the missile can’t really engage in time, because the missile has a minimum range, also,” Clark said.
‘Dangerously low level’ of munitions
The combat operations in the Red Sea have pitted U.S. Navy ships and sailors against an unprecedented number of enemy drone attacks. “Absolutely nobody thought they might see unmanned [threats] at this scale,” Rear Adm Kavon Hakimzadeh, then commander of US Carrier Strike Group 2, told Janes, an open-source defense intelligence provider, for a November 2024 news story.
In January, the Navy revealed that it had fired nearly 400 munitions since October 2023 as part of combat operations in the Red Sea, including 120 SM-2 missiles, 80 SM-6 missiles, and a combined total of 20 Evolved Sea Sparrow Missiles (ESSM) and SM-3 missiles. The per unit cost for these missiles is between $12.5 and $28.7 million for SM-3s, about $4.3 million per SM-6, and up to $2.5 million per SM-2, according to The War Zone.
But by mid 2024, the Navy shifted to using less expensive Sidewinders and Hellfire missiles to shoot down Houthi drones, according to Janes. Each of the Sidewinder and Hellfire typically cost about half a million dollars and about $150,000 respectively.
During his confirmation hearing to serve as Navy secretary, John Phelan acknowledged that the Navy faces a shortage of munitions.
“So, if confirmed, I intend to focus on this very quickly and get that resolved because I think we’re at a dangerously low level from a stockpile perspective, and as well as new,” Phelan said at the Feb. 27 hearing.
In written answers to lawmakers’ questions submitted prior to the hearing, Phelan also vowed to give commanding officers more options to defend their ships “including guns, directed energy, loitering munitions, and other innovative technologies.”
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