There is an intense war that is now less and less talked about, the one between Houthi rebels and Western armed forces. In the Red Sea the actions continue and it is from 14 July last the news that the EA-18G Growler, ground attack and electronic warfare aircraft, have carried out air-to-air missions towards missiles and drones launched against military and civilian ships.
The U.S. Navy said that during a nine-month deployment of Electronic Attack Squadron 130 (VAQ-130), aboard the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D Eisenhower, which has been cruising in the southern Red Sea region, it conducted seven interdiction campaigns into Houthi-controlled territory in Yemen totaling nearly 700 combat sorties aimed at reducing the rebels’ ability to threaten naval traffic. The U.S. Navy, which has 159 EA-18G strike aircraft out of a total of 575 F/A-18s, said: “VAQ-130 was also the first Growler squadron in Navy history to engage in air-to-air combat.” And while no target type was stated, video footage released by the Pentagon during the long deployment showed multiple aircraft with the silhouettes of downed targets painted on their fuselage, and these take the form of drones and cruise missiles. The Boeing-built EA-18G Growler is based on the successful F/A-18F Super Hornet strike fighter (and itself the Hornet), but has a larger payload capacity and can be equipped with many more types of weapons than its predecessors.
Carl Ellsworth, commander of VAQ-130, told Defence News: “I can’t remember the last time the Navy has undertaken such a demanding deployment, the recent mission in the Red Sea was probably the most dynamic action at sea since World War II and the four strike groups aboard the aircraft carrier Eisenhower have completed more than 30,000 flight hours”.
In addition to air-to-air attacks, the Growlers of his wing have achieved another historic first, becoming the first fighter squadron to employ the Northrop Grumman Agm-88E anti-radiation guided missile in combat. This is a device that searches for radio frequency emissions typical of radars and drone command and control systems, as well as signals from attack coordination centers. The same missile had also been evaluated by our Air Force in 2018, on Tornado aircraft. In the case of the Red Sea operations, the Growlers equipped with advanced electronic warfare pods and radar-detected air-to-surface guided missiles, such as the Agm-88e, identify and destroy enemy air defense systems. Although this is not an aircraft for dogfights, in order to meet such a high operational rhythm, the flight group commanders had to equip the airplanes with medium-range Raytheon Aim-120 air-to-air missiles, which proved effective even against very slow targets such as drones. In the meantime, on July 14, the Uss Dwight Eisenhower returned to Norfolk, Virginia, for the scheduled handover, after a long mission lasting 245 days in various areas of the world, from the Pacific Ocean to the Red Sea.
Here about a month ago, the Houthi rebels had declared, through their spokesman Yahya Saree, quoted by the Tass agency, that they had attacked and hit the aircraft carrier with several missiles and rockets that reached their target. However, the US Navy denied these claims, claiming that no damage had been caused by any attack. Currently in the area of the Yemeni rebel attacks, the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt is stationed from the Sea of Japan; in the meantime, the sister ship USS Abraham Lincoln left the port of San Diego on Thursday to head towards the area of operations in support of Taiwan in the Pacific, where the Roosevelt was previously deployed.
