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A Quora - In 2016 several SSMs used against USS Mason

Nathanael Murdoch
Studies Aerospace and Aeronautical Engineering at University of
California, San Diego (Expected 2027)Updated Apr 22

With Moskwa sunk or abandoned, the Belgrano and the Eliat, is this a
clear sign that huge naval surface units have become basically useless?
All the other answers here are great, but I’d like to add the story of
one more extraordinary ship that proved that antishipping missiles can
be defended against. What is this ship? It’s not the HMS Gloucester,
though you could be forgiven for thinking that. It’s actually this:


This is the USS Mason, DDG-87, not to be confused with the WW2 USS
Mason, which is an equally interesting story for another time. On paper,
the USS Mason is virtually identical to the 46 other flight IIA Burke destroyers in service today. Take that as you may, given the following
story. However, what distinguishes the Mason from every other flight IIA Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, and for that matter, any other warship in current service, is the professionalism and quick thinking of her crew
under fire. On the 3rd of October, 2016, the USS Mason and another Burke
class, USS Nitze sailed into the Red Sea to protect shipping in
international waters. The Mason and Nitze were no strangers to these
waters; they’d been there on piracy patrols twice before. This time,
however, the threat would be far more dangerous than some pirates with speedboats and AK-74s

the 9th of October 2016, the USS Mason was fired on without warning by
the Houthi rebels using Chinese-made C-802 transonic cruise missiles.
These missiles flew at 1100km/h and gave the Mason just 120 seconds to identify, engage, and destroy. The USS Mason fired 2 standards and 1 sea sparrow missile, striking one C-802 and jamming the other. Neither made
it within 10 kilometers of the ship.

On the 12th of October, the USS Mason once again found herself under
attack by a pair of Houthi C-802s, fired near the city of Al-Hudaydah
Once again, more SM-2s were fired. Both missiles were intercepted at a
range of 13km and fell harmlessly into the sea.

At this point, President Obama finally grew a pair and ordered the USS
Mason and USS Nitze to tomahawk the radar sites that were being used to
guide the missiles in. Thus, on the 13th of October, the two ships
launched several Tomahawk missiles at Houthi radar sites in the south of
the country, successfully destroying them. However, it didn’t seem like
the Houthi’s got the memo, because on the 15th of October, they launched
the largest missile attack so far attempted on any warship to date. Five
C-802 missiles were fired at the Mason. However, the surprise factor had
more than worn off, and both ships were prepared for the attack. One was decoyed by a Nulka launched from the Nitze further offshore. The others
were intercepted by a series of SM2 launches. Once again, the Mason
escaped unscathed.

There are several lessons that could be learned from the story of the
Mason. Perhaps the most relevant to this question is that the Mason
proved that it’s possible to intercept large numbers of low flying, high speed, anti ship cruise missiles at standoff distances. It also speaks
to the importance of a well trained, alert crew, and good detection
systems that can identify, track, and accurately target threats as far
out as possible in order to give a ship the maximum window of engagement.


The USS Mason and the USS Nitze are currently in port, being prepared
for yet another sortie into the Eastern Mediterranean and the gulf of
Aden. It’ll a pretty difficult environment, but for some reason, I think she’ll be okay.

I hope that you found my answer informative. Since I am not, of course,
an expert in this field, all of the sources I used to write this answer
are below:

Missile interception from Yemen to the South China Sea
Ship attacks near Yemen last October have implications for missile
defence from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from Romania to Japan. https://theconversation.com/missile-interception-from-yemen-to-the-south-china-sea-84676
Top Stories 2017: Navy Operations - USNI News
In 2017 the Navy and Marine Corps forces conducted land-attack and air
warfare not seen in years, while others provided desperately needed humanitarian aid. https://news.usni.org/2017/12/26/top-stories-2017-navy-operations
U.S. to Respond in ‘Appropriate Manner’ After New Attack on USS Mason Pentagon officials are pledging a response to a second guided missile
attack on USS Mason by suspected Houthi rebels from Yemen. https://news.usni.org/2016/10/12/pentagon-respond-appropriate-manner-new-missile-attack-uss-mason-yemen
USS Mason fired on again off coast of Yemen: Officials
At least one missile was fired at the destroyer, but the ship deployed countermeasures and was not struck. It was targeted twice earlier this week. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/uss-mason-fired-again-coast-yemen-officials-n666971
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Posted by
Aaron Davis

Apr 22
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95 comments from
Jay Tee
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Jay Tee
· Apr 21
And this isn’t even a one-on-one comparison. As a major flagship, the
Moskva should have been better protected than the Mason, not less.

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Nathanael Murdoch
· Apr 21
She should have been, but of course, it’s been shown she wasn’t. Apparently, she was sailing in a column of 4 ships (although it’s
unknown how many were landing ships and how many were guided missile
craft capable of engaging the Ukrainian missiles.)

Another interesting thing to mention is that the Admiral Essen, a
Grigorovitch class missile frigate, was apparently hit and damaged by a Ukrainian Neptune anti-shipping missile on April 3rd, and has so far yet
to make a reappearance in port or on satellite imagery since then
(though both the Ukrainians and Russians reported her as being engaged
in combat operations as recently as April 12th)


David Lowrey
· Apr 21
There was also a large Russia coastal patrol ship that was lured into a
grid square by two small Ukrainian patrol boats and then hit by a rocket barrage from BM-21 Grads.


N M
· Apr 23
Aegis is a more capable system, not least of all for its ability to
track and engage multiple threats from a 360 radius. It was designed to
shoot down anti ship missiles, not aircraft.


Tham Wai Keong
· Apr 22
The Russian Slava ships do not have the computerized Aegis systems on
Arleigh Burke and Ticonderoga ships, which were designed to track,
target and take down mass attacks (easily 50 or more) of 13,000 pound
AS-4 Kitchen missiles diving in at Mach 3.5.

Their missile defenses -

First line, SA-10B Grumble (S300F), antiques which cannot engage
seaskimmers.

Second line, amtique SA-8 Geckos (Osa), optically-guided point defense
missiles made in 1972, cannot lock on to seaskimmers either.

Last line, six AK630M Gatlings, easily capable of taking down just two seaskimmers, but I think failed to get radar lock when the Neptunes came in.

They also had radar jammers, but not active at that time.


David Rendahl
· Apr 20
Also worth pointing out the fairly poor success rate in the Falklands:

First pair of Exocet fired by Etendards, one hit and made a constructive
loss of Sheffield, the other was either decoyed or ran out of fuel.

Second pair fired were by Etendards, both decoyed from original target (Ambuscade a frigate) and hit an undefended merchant ship without
decoys, Atlantic Conveyor, who had insufficient damage control to stop
the fires which began to cook off stores munitions, causing her to be abandoned.

Third launch was a single Exocet from a coastal launcher, it either
failed to acquire the target, HMS Avenger, or was decoyed.

Fourth launch was from Etendards made against a warship at sea, Avenger
again, and was either shot down or decoyed into the sea.

Fifth launch, from the coast, hit a destroyer, Glamorgan, did
considerable damage to her helicopter and Sea Slug weapons systems but
she survived and was still on operations the following day.

So seven missiles launched, five were successfully decoyed away, four of
them hit three targets. All three ships hit either failed to launch
decoys in time or didn’t have them to deploy. I would argue that decoys
work from these examples.


Elio Di Claudio
· Apr 20
From numbers and damage, it was a gross defence failure (7 true
launches, 4 hits): even in an Ukrainian video you will see an helicopter deceiving an Igla toward a colleague…


Paul Hill
· Apr 20
Re HMS Avenger it was a single attack with 2 Exocet, followed in by 4
Skyhawks with bombs, one Excocet exploded, believed to have been hit by
the 4.5” gun, the second was decoyed. Of the 4 Skyhawks 1 was destroyed,
by its own bomb which bounced back off the water and hit the plane,
before it had armed. This attack was reported as being against the
Invincible, and that she was sunk.

both missiles were picked up on our EW system UAA1,

At the time we were acting as an aircraft warning picket well to the
west, the two carriers were kept out of aircraft range well to the east


David Rendahl
· Apr 21
No it was only a single Exocet, their fifth and final air launched one.
HMS Exeter took out two Skyhawk with Sea Dart and the exact end of the
missile -shot down with 4.5”, ran out of fuel or maintenance failure -
has never been ascertained.

Paul Hill
· Apr 21
It was Two, I was there.

David Rendahl
Every account, British and Argentinian have a single

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