At 6:30 a. m. local time, two US Navy MH60 Romeo Seahawks from the USS Eisenhower and USS Graali were providing top cover for a naval task force as it patrolled the volatile waters of the southern Red Sea.
While the patrol had been relatively quiet so far, everything was about to change in a matter of seconds. Unknown to the Seahawk pilots, a formation of hoodie fast attack boats operating near Hoda had the commercial escort and its highv value assets in their sights and they let loose a salvo of guided rockets and bursts of machine gun fire on the Singapore flag container ship Mars Kongo as it steamed through the southern Red Sea about 55 nautical miles southwest of Alheda Yemen. The Hoodi plan was simple.
swarm the cargo ship, board her quickly, and seize control before her crew could send a distress signal. But there was just one problem. Two US Navy MH60 Romeo Seahawk helicopters were already airborne and closing fast.
Launched from the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and USS Graly, the Seahawks were call signs Lancer 71 and Lancer 72. Their job was to perform maritime security overwatch and investigate any suspiciousl looking surface contacts.
Pretty easy, right? Well, what they encountered instead was a full-scale hostile boarding attempt underway against a US escorted commercial vessel. The Mars Kongo had requested assistance the moment the boats closed within visual range.
The ship had onboard security contractors with Trident Group. And as soon as the Hoodi small boats began closing within six nautical miles, they took up defensive positions. Only armed with M4 rifles and an M240 machine gun, their firepower was no match for what the Hoodies were packing.
On board, the Hoodies had rockets, RPGs with thermmoaric warheads, and beltfed PKMs that all outranged and outgunned what the merchant vessel had. Within the next few minutes, the small boats will have closed the distance and be right alongside trying to board her. The Seahawks responded immediately to the distress call.
Within seconds of receiving clearance, both helicopters accelerated at a speed of 160 knots to close the 26 nautical mile gap between them and the vessel. But time was not on their side. With that closure rate, it would take 9 minutes to get there, about 5 minutes too late to stop the hoodies.
So, the pilots had to devise a plan fast that hit the hoodies hard before they could scramble over the merchant's side. At 6:31 a. m.
, the Romeos picked up four Iranian supplied boghammer style fast attack boats on radar. Each boat was 7 to 10 meters long, closing on the Mars Kong Xho at 50 knots in a tight converging formation. On board each boghammer were three to four hoodie militants armed with PKM machine guns, RPGs, and AK-47 rifles.
A pair of them called thermmoaric Taba 14 RPGs. These weapons can penetrate up to 300 mm of rolled homogeneous armor. The average hole of merchant ships like the Mars Kong Xho is just 25 mm thick, which meant these RPGs could easily slice through the ship.
Making matters worse was that every boat was rigged with Starlink terminals, relaying real-time data to command elements in Hata about what was going on. The use of Starlink was no coincidence. These terminals allow the hoodies to accurately coordinate boat swarm tactics, receiving real-time imagery from overhead drones, coastal spotters, and command nodes.
This wasn't just a raid. It was a coordinated strike built off Iranian asymmetric naval doctrine. The Maris Kongzo, while itself unarmed, wasn't defenseless.
At a range of 1,800 m, her embarked security team opened fire with M240 Bravo machine guns mounted on hardened positions along the stern and port side. They managed to damage one of the boats, but couldn't stop all four. In 47 seconds, the fast boats were now at 600 meters and would soon be within RPG range.
And it soon came. Though their suppressive fire knocked out one of the attackers rudder assemblies, the RPG gunner fired a round from boat 2 that came within 3 m of the ship's super structure, which is the part of the ship that sticks up above the main deck where the crew controls the ship. Taking this out would mean the ship would lose its ability to run away or coordinate a defense.
At this moment, it was clear the security detail was moments away from being overrun. And that's when the Seahawks arrived. Due to the dog defense of the ship security team, the boghammers were standing fast at around 600 m so they could pummel them with RPGs before boarding.
This delay gave the Lancer 71 and 72 enough time to close the gap so that by 639 they were just a mile away. With the Romeo's cleared to engage, the only thing left was to identify which ones to take out first. Located here under the nose of the aircraft is the ANPS 153V radar.
While the radar had picked up all four boats while still 42 km out, due to dense sea clutter, it needed more data to get an accurate course speed and profile of each attack craft. The radar was tracking 32 separate contacts in the area at the time, but the pilot soon adjusted it to narrow pulse mode. In this configuration, the radar sent out energy at 0.
5 to 1 microscond intervals to get the highfidelity data needed to make a beline for the hoodie boats. But this system just helped get the Romeo's vetored in the right direction. Thanks to these two functions of its radar, it gets right over the top of the hoodie boats.
This APS 153 radar uses a special mode called moving target indicator or MTI to help track the targets. And it is pretty ingenious how it does it. As the contact moves, the MTI exploits Doppler shifts caused by the relative motion between the radar and different parts of the target.
Think of it like hearing a motorcycle roar past you on the street. As it gets closer, the pitch changes. That's the Doppler effect.
The radar does the same thing with radio waves. And by analyzing those shifts, it can tell if there's something solid in the water or just another wave. Once the MTI confirms there is something there, the pilots can use an inverse synthetic aperture radar or ISAR to construct a detailed image of the target using the same Doppler shifts.
With confirmation of a moving target and highresolution images in real time, the pilots now know for sure they have the Hoody boats in their sights. And now it's time to let loose. Each Seahawk was armed with two GAU 21 50 caliber cruerve machine guns on either side.
These beasts fire up to 1,100 rounds per minute with a maximum effective range of 1,850 m. The rounds were a mix of armor-piercing incendiary and tracer rounds designed to help puncture the thin skinned boats, but it was the Hoodies who got in the first shots. At 640, the Hoody boats opened fire on the helicopters.
PKM machine gun tracers flashed past the Seahawks with some rounds passing within 15 m. This was the last mistake they ever made. The Seahawks immediately descended to 150 ft to engage.
At the same time, they began dispensing countermeasures as a precaution. Each aircraft dropped 12 MJU68B flares and 24 RR180 chaff bundles that formed an infrared and radar reflective cloud behind the helicopters in case the hoodies fired an IRG guided missile at them. Once deployed, these flares reached up to 2,200° C and burned for nearly 2.
5 seconds, more than enough to lure off any heat-seeking man pads or shoulder fired missiles. While no missile launch was detected, the pilots weren't taking any chances. Then all hell broke loose.
At 641, Lancer 71 locked onto boat one. The door gunner sent three bursts of 50 caliber rounds its way. The rounds punched through the engine block and ignited the fuel cell.
A fireball soon erupted and sent debris skyward as the boat sank within 45 seconds. Before the first boat had even sunk, Lancer 71 swung left and lined up boat 2. A quick burst disabled the rudder.
The gunner followed up with a full 3second spray, and the boat lost steering completely. It listed hard, filled with water, and capsized at 642. Both helicopters then shifted to boat three, which got a double dose as it took fire from both helicopters.
Within seconds, dozens of armor-piercing rounds punched holes below the boat's water line. The crew attempted to bail, but the boat slipped beneath the surface by 644. After sinking the third boat, both helicopters began taking turns firing at boat 4.
However, after seeing all their buddies delivered to Davy Jones locker, the fourth boat had already turned tail to run away. The boat retreated northwest in a trail of smoke as rounds continued peppering its hole. The Seahawks did not pursue it since they had to stay with the merchant.
In less than 7 minutes, the two helicopters had sunk three boghammers and fired roughly 1,800 rounds of ammunition. But unfortunately for the Hoodies, this would not be the end of the US response in retaliation for this unprovoked attack. US Central Command decided destroying a couple of boats wouldn't be enough punishment for the Hoodies, and they needed to take stronger measures to teach them a lesson.
Within eight hours of the attack, the USS Grali opened fire on known Hoodi coastal radar sites used to give data to Hoodi attack boats with its 5-in Mark 45 Mod 4 naval gun. The ship fired a total of 92 rounds of high explosive and air burst rounds. These 70 lb projectiles have a max range of about 9 mi and a speed of around 2,600 ft per second.
The grally steamed up and down the Yemeni coast with impunity as it bombarded one radar installation after another. In total, three coastal radar installations at Jabal Alter, Almoka, and Ross Isisa were all taken out before sundown. The Hoodies had been using each of these sites to track coalition ships in the Red Sea over the past 2 weeks.
Their destruction degraded Hoodi maritime surveillance capabilities by at least 60% according to post strike battle damage assessments by drones. And the retaliation wasn't over yet. On January 1st, additional follow-up air strikes began.
Four FA18E Super Hornets from VFA131 aboard the Eisenhower took off armed with AGM 154C joint standoff weapons, JSOW. Their target, the Aldura missile warehouse. Each JC carried a 500lb brooch warhead capable of penetrating 3.
7 m of reinforced concrete with a molten metal jet that moves at 14 km/s. At 6:43 p. m.
local time, four missiles impacted the target complex and created numerous secondary explosions. Intercepts of Hoodi radio traffic confirmed the destruction of 18 CASF drones, four Nor anti-hship missiles, multiple missile guidance kits, and the elimination of two Iranian advisers and 12 Hoodi operators. This strike demonstrated that the US response to Hoodi aggression was changing.
Not only would US units defend themselves and others at the moment, but after the engagement was over, the US would continue retalatory strikes to prevent the Hoodies from ever waging war again. Bye for now.
