Asymmetrical Warfare/rev II

Photo Credit: French navy France's Aquitaine-class FREMM frigate Alsace

Yours truly has waxed poetic about asymmetrical warfare with the poster child of cheap drones leading the way to changing the course of war forever as inexpensive tech can be produced by the thousands while expensive hardware used to combat said tech cannot. 

To whit

France's Aquitaine-class FREMM frigate Alsace has turned tail from the Red Sea after running out of missiles and munitions repelling attacks from the Yemeni armed forces, according to its commander, Jerome Henry.

“We didn’t necessarily expect this level of threat. There was an uninhibited violence that was quite surprising and very significant. [The Yemenis] do not hesitate to use drones that fly at water level, to explode them on commercial ships, and to fire ballistic missiles,” Henry told French news outlet Le Figaro in an exclusive interview published on 11 April.

“We had to carry out at least half a dozen assistances following [Yemeni] strikes,” he added.

The commander of the Alsace also revealed that, after a 71-day deployment, all combat equipment was depleted.

“From the Aster missile to the 7.62 machine gun of the helicopter, including the 12.7mm, 20mm, or 76mm cannon, we dealt with three ballistic missiles and half a dozen drones,” Henry adds.

According to the French commander, the Franco–Italian Aster missile – each carrying a price tag of up to $2 million – “was pushed to its limits” by the Yemeni armed forces, as the Alsace had to use it “on targets that we did not necessarily imagine at the start.”)

Any questions?