How The Houthis’ Rickety Air Defenses Threaten Even The F-35

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How The Houthis’ Rickety Air Defenses Threaten Even The F-35

Though details remain limited, the Houthis got worryingly close to downing a U.S. F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, and reportedly several American F-16 Vipers, during a surge in airstrikes on targets in Yemen this spring. Houthi air defense capabilities are largely rudimentary, but this also makes them a unique and vexing challenge for American combat aircraft. Made up of mainly mobile systems, they can appear virtually anywhere, disrupting carefully laid mission plans. Many of them are also improvised, leveraging non-traditional passive infrared sensors and jury-rigged air-to-air missiles that provide little to no early warning of a threat, let alone an incoming attack.

“The Houthis and the Iranians went electro-optical, because it is a completely passive system, It’s hard to hunt those things down because they don’t really have any signature before launch.”

Mobile systems, including the 2K12/SA-6, are understood to make up the majority of the Houthis’ air defense capabilities, making it easier for them to ‘pop up’ suddenly in unexpected locations, which presents even more challenges. In addition, this makes it more difficult to target them proactively and plan the most effective and safest mission routes. For the F-35, this reduces the advantages the stealthy jet otherwise has, in part thanks to advanced mission planning support used to devise optimal routes based on detailed data about hostile defenses and other recent intelligence, while also taking into account the aircraft’s signature, defensive capabilities, and more. All of these elements are factored into a ‘blue line’ route that is calculated as the best path for survivability and overall mission success. This route will have lower efficacy when road-mobile surface-to-air missiles and improvised infrared threat systems are present.

twz.com/air/how-the-houthis-rickety-air-defenses-can-threaten-the-stealthy-f-35

Anon Babble trannies and Instagram niggers made you believe f35 is a superjet from marvel but in reality any AA radar can see it and shoot it down if it's close enough to engagement radius of the AA

Its time countries look to others for defense. Its clear USA is a paper tiger

For the F-35, this reduces the advantages the stealthy jet otherwise has, in part thanks to advanced mission planning support used to devise optimal routes based on detailed data about hostile defenses and other recent intelligence

Well, you see, stealth is ackshually about mission planning.

Bump

LOL. Yes, it's stealthy until someone uses a basic anti-aircraft system that can detect it.
What are its chances against more advanced systems from Russia or China?

and jury-rigged air-to-air missiles

wtf is that even supposed to mean. you can't shoot a bottle rocket or anything that does not have some lock on homing capabilities at jet aircraft and shoot them down. so how the fuck would they be rudimentary or "Jerry-rigged"

Let me guess, Houthis used modified facial recognition tech to have their missiles lock onto "stealth" jets, compleatly bypassing the radar deflecting skin of the f35?
Predicted that over 15 years ago.

I thought you retards already learned this lesson in afghanistan but apparently 20 years of war can't fix stupid

This website is not well written.

if you have an anti aircraft machine gun and you have a visual sighting of an F35 all the high tech on the F35 won't stop machine gun fire

How can one of the poorest countries in the world challenge a global superpower`?

From Russia probably. Two can play the proxy war game.

Its time countries look to others for defense

I approve of this. Fuck every country on earth. We should be more like best Korea.

So the f35 easily wrecked the houthis but somehow they were threatened? Sounds like clickbait.

because america isn't a superpower

There’s only one way to settle this once and for all.

Give the jeets the f35 and lets see if it survives flying into paki air space or if it gets knockout punched like the Rafale.

This is the only true test

.

You really can't fight F-35s with machine guns. Ricocheting bullets, and the element of surprise destroys that possibility.

The Houthis took down three F-18s and nine Reapers during the last bombing campaign over the past four weeks or so. Then, the US signed a ceasefire deal with them - but excluding Israel. I wonder what conclusions we can draw from that

stealthy jet

Yeah I mean who'd have thought thousands of cubic feet per second rocketing out the back at superheated temperatures could possibly be an issue with that huh.

wtf is that even supposed to mean

Instead of having traditional radar tracking stations they have guys with cellphones on hills, if a jet flies above them they call a guy with a 2k12 or SA-6 propped up by some boards and hooked up to a car battery telling them "A jet is flying in your direction, in about 40 seconds". The missile guy fires the missile when the jet is in front of the missile, which acquires the target.

Ikr what a worthless bit to write out

No they didnt. They got wrecked in a week by orange man and now after they have surrendered shitskins are coping how they won or something. How they could have done damage maybe in some alternate history. Why are shitskins taking their defeat by israel so bad? Did they expect to win?

Western man began their superiority in 1521 during the fall of tenochitlan. Northern-Western European man began their superiority in 1648 peace of Westphalia. It ended in 2025 when America got cucked by Houthi missiles that ganked 4 F18’s and nearly struck a F35 and two F16 and probably nearly wrecked her B2’s and F22’s. And let’s not forget her aircraft carriers began struck constantly. It’s over.

1521-2025 = 504 years
1648-2025 = 377 years

400-500 years of western and northwestern man’s superiority just came to an end this year.

losing 10x F18’s and 20x reapers vs. unarmed sand villagers

Kek

they're still attacking ships going to israel which is why you went there in the first place, they just agreed not to attack your ships.

They haven't attacked any ships at all in months.

Worst, they are using a naval battle against an enemy without a navy
So Israeli and israeli-affiliated ships can traverse the red sea safely now, is that what you are saying?

*losing

Yes american ships can and do traverse the red sea safely now. You do realize israel has like 2 ships right? You can look at marine traffic right now. Israels ports are full of ships and none are israeli ships.

probably firing IR seeker missiles, same way Ukraine popped a russian jet with a sidewinder strapped to a sea drone

And this shitty "technologically advanced" aircraft can't even deploy a missile or ordnance without opening its bomb bay doors and losing it stealth characteristics.
Look back at the Kosovo war in the late 1990s. The first time the US sent in a "stealthy" F-117 on a hot zone mission without dedicated EW support it was shot down. A second F-117 was later hit but the USAF kept it under cover.

Needs updating
amp.cnn.com/cnn/2025/05/06/politics/second-us-navy-jet-is-lost-at-sea

Why does the number of Israeli ships even matter? The whole point was that the Houthis were targeting Israeli vessels - then the US. intervened, achieved no real strategic gain, and ultimately walked away, leaving Israel to fend for itself. In the end, nothing has actually changed. Oh, besides exposing US as a paper tiger and exposing the stealth meme, I guess.

Also

Israels ports are full of ships and none are israeli ships.

Yeah, and guess which route they are taking lmao

You asked anon. What ships do you think are carrying weapons to israel? Russian ships? The Houthis have never attacked and israeli ship. Israel doesn't even have many ships. Its a small shithole country. Not some massive trading nation.

I thought europoors prided themselves ofg geographic knowledge. Ask yourself what route a ship carrying bombs from the US to Israel needs to take? Now ask youself what route some german ship need to take to import chinkslop? The houthis only fucked you anon.

There are differences between the couple of ships that fly the Flag of Israel, and the many many Merchant ships owned by Israel flying various flags.

nope. they made you believe it. that's why you think a jet successfully maneuvering an AA missile is a win for you somehow.

we shot down 3 f-18s

may we see them?

no real strategic gain

every attack against the US is a learning experience. they will take what they learned and integrate that knowledge into future actions.

he isn't a "real" German, anon. Do you not understand how completely filled to the brim Germany is with shitskins?

And we spent how long and how much money on making this fucking thing? We could've built 20 Reaper drones for every one of those we've made. Could've blotted out the sun instead of putting blots of red ink in our ledger.

It's called throwing those poor goat fuckers a bone after absolutely decimating them in one fucking month

stealth is ackshually about mission planning.

Stealth is leverage that you use when planning a mission, in the same way stealth cruise missiles rely on prior knowledge of known and predicted SAM sites to be truly effective.
It's not an "I WIN" button, it's a bet with your ISR that you shorten the gap between detection and mission completion.

visual sighting of an F35 all the high tech on the F35 won't stop machine gun fire

No you cant. AA like that doesnt work on modern jets. Its at 30k and flying faster than your aa can even go.

What is funnier, the fact they couldnt shoot down a 50 year old cold war aircraft, or that they almost shot down a multibillion dollar “stealth” fighter?

I'm just passing by to call you a big and fat boomer faggot LMAO

That plane was smoking and flying

If you have a visual sighting of tye f35 then the f35 isn't already doing that good or it just wants to play with you a little

All that rust taking its toll?

Can one honestly describe air defences as "rickety" if they're performing well enough to ward off 5th gen fighters?

Kek. Greatest fighting force in the world vs. People who aren't famers in flipflops armed with rusted AKs and pipe bombs. Noooo you can just fire chink missiles at us.

we didn't know it was invisible

Its at 30k and flying faster than your aa can even go.

You have no idea what you're talking about. Why even comment?

You could have at least tried to look less retarded and read an article, ANY article to find out what people were talking about before you shit all over the discussion. The F35s in question were flying low to the earth trying to be 'sneaky' and it turns out that a jet flying over a bunch of guys with cell phones is not sneaky.

Defeated again by Arab nomads... how do they do it...

Did they fuck up the same way they did in Serbia and Vietnam, where they kept flying the same fucking routes over and over and over and over again, because the commanders or whoever wanted to justify the purchase and use of thousands of aircraft? When they do that shit, even a retard could hit it with flak.

Any stealth can be defeated with enough data

This article is just fluff and filler for the publication. The several f-16s were weasels. They're supposed to get locked on by enemy SAMs. That's literally their job. The article doesn't even write a single instance of an f-35 being shot at. It just said that the houthi systems have a strength and f-35s are in the area.. that's it. There's no details about an f-35 almost getting shot down. Taking down several drones and having a few f-18s fall off a carrier isn't a tactical victory no matter how much this board wants to posture that it is.

In the entire thread, no one knew a single military secret on this matter.

Really? I thought the news in the Western world was probably deeper than I had.

I think it's funny how the DoD is so high on their own farts they think their information is actually valuable. Like its gonna be some super secret mega CUI Top Secret stuff that their aircraft shows up on a radar screen and generates a heat signature so that a missile can hit it. Wow guys... who would have known... omg...

Honestly that's the best case scenario, if they are actually so weak as to have women, niggers and fags crewing and gaslighting their peers about operations and therefore are genuinely dropping aircraft off of carriers/friendly fire instead of getting shot down. Then they are absolutely lost.

If this is all some 5D brainlet chess to get russia or china to fuck around, well... Russians are white niggers and the chinese don't even have testes.

If you guys were fighting israel it might matter because those jews would be relentless. But you are fighting Houthi's and your own muttniggers.

Says the parasitic growth that exists solely to siphon money and resources from us.

If Houthi's are manually firing rockets we deserve to get hit. Madness.

All the mil secrets that arn't yes queen posting in signal chats are 40 years old and nobody has the patience to read them.

Simple solution. Saturate their sensors. Throw a nuke on the land in front of the heat sensor. You guys always over complicate.

lol

So I'll tell you. That's because There is a Chinese military base near the strait. It was behind the American fleet. As opposed to Yemen lol And you have no doubts that they are able to target their planes and ships so accurately.

a "rickety" air defense can repell F35s and B2 stealth bombers

When they pack it with payload like a christmass tree any radar can see it. The record breaking 1 trillion US military budget with an alcoholic grunt in charge will make sure that Lockheed and Boeing will be busy replacing the lost hardware. 3 F/A 18 lost to water so far.

That would be a first