The Telegraph: British warships lack the firepower to attack land targets in Yemen
The Telegraph newspaper said that British warships cannot attack land targets in Yemen because they lack firepower, a situation that former defense leaders described as a “scandal”.
The Telegraph added that none of the Royal Navy’s destroyers or frigates have the ability to launch missiles at ground targets, leaving the United States to carry out the majority of strikes on targets in Yemen with the support of British Royal Air Force aircraft stationed 1,500 miles away.
Tobias Ellwood, former chairman of the Commons Defense Committee, warned that “the situation is unsustainable… We cannot continue to do this with a surface fleet that is too small to fire on land from long range”.
A former senior defense minister said that “it’s shameful that naval ships aren’t currently equipped with surface-to-surface missiles,” describing it as “a scandal and completely unsatisfactory,” noting that “the United Kingdom must now send RAF aircraft thousands of miles to with the mission that a surface-to-surface missile can do”.
The United States and Britain, in cooperation with several other countries, are launching attacks against Yemen, which was renewed several times during the past days, amid an acknowledgment of the failure of the attempt to deter the Yemeni armed forces, while the latter affirms that the attacks won’t remain without response and punishment.
