Red Sea intercepts push scaled, layered defenses at sea

This week’s pattern in the Red Sea

The updates feel routine now: another attempted strike from the Houthis, another stack of intercepts by coalition ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. The specifics vary, the rhythm does not. One-way attack drones. Cruise and anti-ship ballistic missiles. Allied destroyers and frigates engaging across the spectrum, from long-range missiles to close-in weapons.

The pattern is teaching navies the same lesson on repeat. Traditional interceptors work. They also vanish fast and cost a lot. The cost curve favors the attacker when a million-dollar missile swats a drone made from catalog parts. The answer that is forming at sea is not a single new silver bullet. It is a layered system of many cheaper shots, backed by smarter software and stronger ship utilities. The new bottlenecks are not guidance or accuracy. The new bottlenecks are power, cooling, and magazine depth.

The pivot: from scarce interceptors to abundant effectors

The old picture of naval air defense was a few expensive arrows in a shared quiver. You save them for the worst targets and pray the quiver holds. The new picture is a toolbox crowded with screwdrivers. None is perfect. Together, they change the math.

Missiles: Long-range surface-to-air missiles still swat cruise missiles and some ballistic threats. They remain the top of the pyramid. The fleet will keep them.
Mid-layer guns: 57 mm and 76 mm naval guns with smart fuses can fill the air with fragments at a cue point. 30 mm mounts with programmable airburst rounds can shred small drones inside a few kilometers. These rounds cost less by orders of magnitude than a missile.
Close-in missiles and guns: RAM or SeaRAM, Phalanx, and similar systems finish leakers. Their advantage is quick reaction and autonomy. Their drawback is still finite magazines.
Soft-kill EW: Jamming a drone’s GPS or datalink, or spoofing its seeker, can end an attack without a single piece of shrapnel. Soft-kill is the quiet workhorse and remains underused.
Lasers: Beam weapons have finally crossed from demo to limited deployment. In clear air within a few kilometers, they can disable sensors or burn through control surfaces on small drones. A laser shot costs fuel, not a million dollars. But a laser is hungry for power and cooling, and less effective in haze, salt spray, or heavy rain.

Abundance is the point. Swarms stretch magazines. Abundant effectors create depth where it was missing.

The new bottlenecks: power, cooling, magazines

A modern destroyer can generate many megawatts of electrical power, but not all power is equally available or clean enough for high-energy weapons. Cooling is even harder, since every kilowatt of laser light comes with several kilowatts of heat that must go somewhere. Magazines are the last, stubborn limit. You cannot reload vertical launch cells at sea. You can feed guns and lasers, but only if you built the ship for it.

Power: Lasers in the 50 to 150 kW class ask for a steady draw and a fast response. That means dedicated converters and, often, extra generators or energy storage to smooth spikes. Older ships have little spare capacity. Amphibs and auxiliaries have a bit more.
Cooling: Salt water is a giant chiller, but the path from seawater to laser head runs through pumps, heat exchangers, and chilled water loops. That takes space. It also adds failure points that need maintenance in a corrosive environment.
Magazine depth: VLS cells do not refill between battles. Guns can carry thousands of rounds, but that is still a few minutes of sustained fire. Lasers have no physical magazine, yet they are limited by fuel, generator output, and thermal soak. The real magazine is the ship’s endurance and its ability to dissipate heat.

This is why navies are putting as much effort into ship utilities and combat software as they are into the weapons themselves. The smartest fire control in the world is no help if the breaker trips.

What can change in 12 months

A lot of progress does not require a new hull or a new physics breakthrough. It requires small, stackable upgrades and disciplined integration.

Software-first: AI-enabled sensing and fire control

Sensor fusion that elevates small targets: Teach radars and electro-optical sensors to hold tiny, low radar cross-section drones against sea clutter. This is a software update problem and a training data problem. The Red Sea is supplying data daily.
Aided target recognition: Camera feeds and IR sensors can classify drones by shape and behavior. This cuts false alarms and speeds assignments to the right weapon.
Cost-aware shot doctrine: Build a rules engine that always starts with soft-kill, then cheap guns, then lasers, then missiles. Humans stay on the loop. The software proposes, the watch team disposes.
Cross-deck coordination: Share tracks and shot status across ships in a convoy so two ships do not waste rounds on the same drone. This uses existing data links, but needs updated playbooks.

Guns that matter more

30 mm with programmable airburst: Many ships already carry 25 or 30 mm remote weapon stations. Upgrading to programmable airburst rounds creates a lethal curtain for small drones out to a few kilometers. It is one of the fastest, lowest-risk improvements.
Better mounts and directors: Add stabilized electro-optical directors tied to the combat system so 30 mm fire is cued and corrected by the same tracks that guide missiles. Accuracy turns cheap rounds into real defense.
Lots of ammo, ready to feed: Stock multiple ready-use lockers near the mount, standardize reload drills, and pre-stage mixed belts with airburst and armor piercing. Seconds matter.

Soft-kill kits that scale

RF jammers and spoofers: Shipboard EW can be tuned for common drone control links and satellite navigation bands. Containerized C-UAS kits can be placed on flight decks and superstructures without big refits.
Decoy drones and emitters: Cheap quadcopters that mimic ship signatures or throw off seekers buy time and absorb attention. They are expendable by design.
Navigation resiliency for the convoy: If you jam GPS in a box around the convoy, give merchant ships an alternative. Pre-briefed inertial updates, radar-ranging cross fixes, and differential corrections from the escorts keep the traffic line tight while EW is active.

Lasers in limited but real roles

Expand from demos to a small fleet: A few hulls already host medium-power lasers. Over the next year, navies can add a handful more on ships with spare power and space for cooling skids. Amphibs and auxiliaries are good candidates.
Use lasers as cleaners, not saviors: Assign lasers to pick off slow, exposed drones and to blind sensors on more complex threats. Do not ask them to carry the whole fight in poor weather. They are a magazine extender, not a missile replacement.
Pre-plumb power and cooling: Even if the laser arrives later, install the power converters, cable runs, and chilled water tees now. That cuts months from later installs.

Power and cooling fast-follows

Containerized generator sets: Park diesel gensets on mission decks or well decks to create a dedicated power island for C-UAS. Route temporary cables with quick-disconnects.
Add chilled water booster skids: These are palletized units that pump and dump heat to the ship’s seawater system. They turn a warm laser into a continuous laser.
Thermal storage tanks: A simple insulated tank and a plate heat exchanger can soak peaks in laser use, then cool off slowly. It is low-tech and effective.

Small, immediate shooters

Deck teams with MANPADS: Shoulder-fired missiles are not a primary defense, but they are a last-chance tool that costs little to field.
Ship-launched interceptors for drones: Short-range C-UAS interceptors that fire from light launchers can cover the 1 to 5 km band. Several systems are ready for sea trials and limited operational use without deep integration.

Offboard pickets

Tethered quadcopters and balloons: A 100-meter-high perch for a small radar or EO sensor doubles horizon range for small targets. Tethered systems draw power from the ship and stay aloft for hours.
Uncrewed surface boats as decoy-jammers: A few rigid-hull inflatables or USVs with emitters can sit as the outer ring and force drones to split attention. If a drone goes after a decoy boat, that is a win.

None of these items requires inventing new science. They require test cards, safety reviews, cables, and checklists. That is the work of months, not decades.

How the layered fight looks on a convoy day

Imagine a convoy of eight merchant ships escorted by two destroyers and a replenishment ship equipped with extra power and a containerized C-UAS kit. The replenishment ship carries a medium-power laser and soft-kill gear, plus two small USVs acting as decoy-jammers. Tethered drones lift optical sensors 100 meters above the escorts.

Early warning: The elevated sensors catch small drones coming in low at 12 km that the mast radars might have held only at 8 km. The convoy’s combat system assigns soft-kill first. Jammers light up navigation bands outside a box around the convoy. Escorts pass GPS corrections to the merchants inside the box.
First layer: The lead destroyer uses a 57 mm gun with time-fuzed rounds to fill a volume in front of the drones. One drone breaks apart. The rest wiggle as their autopilots fight the jamming.
Second layer: The replenishment ship’s laser shoots at the stragglers. Clear air helps. Two drones lose lift surfaces and fall short.
Third layer: A pair of drones dart low and press on. The aft destroyer uses 30 mm airburst to rip one apart at 2 km. A leaker forces the RAM launcher to fire. The missile kills it at a safe range.
The cost ledger: Most of the work was done with gun rounds and electricity. One expensive missile was saved for the leaker, and it was worth it. Magazines are still healthy. The convoy keeps speed and spacing.

This is the philosophy: soak, sand, and shear the attack with abundant tools, then save missiles for the few targets that truly demand them.

Economics without hand-waving

We do not need exact prices to see the point. A long-range naval surface-to-air missile often costs in the millions. A close-in missile can be hundreds of thousands to over a million. A 30 mm programmable airburst round is in the hundreds to low thousands. A laser shot consumes fuel and maintenance, but the marginal cost is tiny by comparison. When a day’s attack is handled by guns and beams, a task force can sail another day without begging for a VLS reload in a distant port. That operational freedom is the real savings.

There is no free lunch. Guns run out. Barrels heat. Lasers sag in dusty air. Jammers can spill over and upset civilian traffic. But the blended stack lets commanders choose the cheapest effective shot at each moment. That choice compounds over weeks into preserved readiness.

Physics and the sea’s personality

Lasers dislike aerosol and turbulence. The Red Sea has salt spray, haze, and thermal shimmer. Beam directors need clean windows and careful alignment. Expect a laser to be great at noon in clear air and underwhelming in a salty mist. This is fine. Use lasers when the weather says yes and guns when it says no.

Guns love clean tracking. Drones love to skim. The sea background clutter is real. That is why AI-enabled tracking and optical cueing matter. Programmable airburst rounds work by placing a small cloud of fragments in the right cube of space. The key is getting the cube right. Good tracks make cheap rounds lethal.

EW likes to be directional and smart. Broad jamming is blunt. Focused jamming with nulls pointed at your merchants is surgical. That requires updated antenna patterns and solid modeling of the convoy’s own navigation and communications. If you plan the RF picture, you can fight in it.

How task forces will change

More escorts with more small mounts: A single Aegis ship with a big missile magazine is not the only answer. Two or three smaller escorts, each with serious 30 mm and soft-kill, can carry the close fight.
Auxiliaries as power barges: Replenishment ships and amphibs have deck space and spare displacement for generators, cooling skids, and containerized C-UAS. They can host lasers and jammers that free destroyers to focus on long-range threats.
Offboard sensors as standard: Expect tethered drones and small USVs to be part of the default package, not a special experiment.
Convoys trained for EW: Merchant captains and pilots will get briefed on EM plans. Bridge crews will rehearse GPS-denied sailing with convoy corrections. Training is a faster upgrade than steel.

Within 12 months, a coalition can field a handful of laser-equipped hosts, dozens of escorts with improved 30 mm and airburst ammo, soft-kill kits spread across the force, and software updates that change who shoots what and when. That is enough to bend the curve.

Risks and honest trade-offs

Fratricide and deconfliction: Gun bursts and decoys add clutter. Fire control must track every fragment cloud and keep weapons clear of friendlies. This is software and discipline.
Civilian spillover: EW that blinds drone GPS can also blind fishing boats. Tight beams, careful timing, and pre-briefed corridors reduce the side effects.
Maintenance load: Lasers and cooling skids compete with every other system for sailors’ time. If the shipyard does not add access panels and spare parts, the kit will sit idle.
Weather: No one should sell lasers as all-weather magic. They are a tool, not a shield. The doctrine must reflect that.

The near horizon

The Red Sea is a live-fire lab. Every week of intercepts produces data, and data produces better software and smarter shot discipline. Guns with airburst ammo, soft-kill kits, and a few more operational lasers can arrive in months. Power and cooling retrofits can happen pier-side between patrols. The math can shift fast when the work is dull and practical.

If this sounds less glamorous than new hypersonic interceptors, that is because it is. It is also how navies win long campaigns. You do not meet a swarm with a speech. You meet it with racks of 30 mm, a clean chilled water loop, and a combat system that knows the cheapest way to erase a dot.

Takeaways

Layered defense is shifting from rare missiles to abundant effectors. The winners will be soft-kill, guided guns, and medium-power lasers, all coordinated by AI-enabled fire control.
Power, cooling, and magazines are now the constraints that matter. Pre-plumb ships for power and chilled water, stock airburst ammo, and plan EW so the convoy can live inside it.
Real gains are available in 12 months with software updates, airburst ammo for existing guns, containerized EW and C-UAS, limited laser deployments on ships with spare utilities, and the use of auxiliaries as power hosts.
Convoy design is changing. More small mounts across more hulls, offboard sensors as standard, and auxiliaries carrying the utility-intensive gear.

What to watch next

Additional laser installs on amphibs and auxiliaries, and whether they come with pre-plumbed power and cooling that can scale.
Widespread fielding of 30 mm programmable airburst ammo and improved directors on existing mounts.
Containerized C-UAS kits showing up on replenishment ships and merchant charters, not just combatants.
Software releases that add AI-assisted classification and cost-aware shot doctrine across a task group.
Trials of tethered sensors and USV decoy-jammers as a default convoy ring.
Exercises that rehearse GPS-denied convoy procedures with merchant crews, not just warships.

The Red Sea will keep testing these ideas. The navies that treat utilities and software as weapons in their own right will get more defense per dollar, and more days at sea before they must reload. That is the pivot already underway.