As the UK’s latest deployment of its periodic Carrier Strike Group (CSG) formation continues with its European leg of a deployment into the Asia-Pacific, attention has turned to the potential risks faced by HMS Prince of Wales when it leaves Europe for the Indian Ocean, a route that will see it transit the Bab El Mandeb strait.
When translating the Arabic name into English, the Gate of Tears carries a foreboding moniker. The Bab el Mandeb, measuring less than 30km width at its narrowest point, represents a first active risk for HMS Prince of Wales and the CSG 25 escorts, given the threat posed to shipping by the Ansar Allah movement, also known the Houthis, that occupies much of Yemen on the eastern seaboard of the straight.
Throughout 2024, the Houthis conducted a missile and drone campaign against international shipping transiting the strait and the Red Sea, forcing US, UK, and other international navies to send warships to intercept air and seaborne threats.
Now in 2025, the threat persists, highlighted by the release in April of video of a French frigate intercepting drones in the Red Sea.
More recently, the UK opted to join US airstrikes against the Houthis in Yemen, potentially targeting locations used to store or operate advanced Iranian-supplied anti-ship missiles and one-way attack drones.
The UK Ministry of Defence declined to comment regarding the outline threat profile faced by CSG25 in the Bab el Mandeb when contacted by Naval Technology.
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By GlobalDataBab el Mandeb: Houthi operations
The Houthi movement active in Yemen, controlling much of the country’s territory, announced in late-2023 in response to Israeli operations in Gaza that it would carry out attacks on shipping that was transiting the Bab el Mandeb it deemed to be in support of Israel.
This saw dozens of aerial and seaborne attacks from sites along the Yemeni coastline on shipping, using drones and anti-ship missiles. Virtually all of the military systems in the Houthi’s arsenal are provided by Iran.
An expansion of Houthi attacks saw it target shipping that was linked to the UK and US, with both countries the forced to send frigates and destroyers to the Red Sea to intercept Houthi missiles and drones. Numerous pictures circulated of warships carrying kill markings on their superstructure, a sign of the unseen but lethal warfare being conducted in the Red Sea.
Despite all the effort, commercial vessels were hit on numerous occasions, severely impacting commercial trade through one of the world’s busiest routes. According to Lloyd’s List Intelligence, shipping transits through the Suez Canal dropped by more than 50% from late-2023 to late-2024, as companies sought the safer, but longer, route around Africa.
However, a concerted aerial campaign by primarily US and Israeli, but also recently UK, aircraft has degraded the Houthi’s military capability, whose arsenal is not infinite, despite the support it receives from Tehran.
What is the current security situation?
In early May 2025, US President Donald Trump brought a halt to combat operations against Houthi targets, clearly content that the threat to shipping has been neutralised. This announcement followed mediation talks involving the parties with the assistance of the Sultanate of Oman, which neighbours Yemen, and is a key UK and US ally.
Perhaps crucially, seen in a comment posted on X on 6 May by Omani Foreign Minister Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidi, was a cessation of attacks in regional waters, enabling shipping to operate without fear of being targeted.
“They will no longer target each other, ensuring freedom of navigation for international commercial shipping in the Red Sea,” Al Busaidi wrote.
However, the chance for Iran, via its proxy, to inflict a damaging blow against a UK aircraft carrier will likely have been previously wargamed by Tehran and the Houthi’s. Given the known capabilities of the Houthis, the UK’s CSG25 will have to be prepared to protect its key asset, given the recent threat picture.
CSG 25: air defence capabilities
It is a timely coincidence that the Type 23 frigate attached to CSG25, HMS Richmond, was the same vessel deployed to the Red Sea in 2024 to intercept Houthi drones and missiles.
As part of its work-up for CSG25, HMS Richmond undertook what UK defence prime Babcock described as an “extensive and intricate preparation period”, which included systems upgrades, structural repairs, and “capability insertions” of “first-in-class fits”.
Crucially, this refers to the Link 16 Crypto Modernised system, which improves the ship’s ability to share tactical situational awareness with other units, according to the Royal Navy. This will be particularly important in sending threat data through to non-UK vessels in the CSG.
The vessel’s 32-cell Sea Ceptor surface-to-air missile system, firing the CAMM missiles, has an engagement range of at least 25km, and potentially further. The Type 997 Artisan 3D radar system, installed throughout the class in the 2010s, enables detection of airborne threats out to around 180km.
The only other UK surface escort in CSG25 is HMS Dauntless, a Type 45 air defence destroyer that spent its workup to deployment undergoing exercises against massed drone threats, indicative of the type of threats previously posed by Houthi operations in the Red Sea.
The Type 45 features the S1850M 3D air surveillance radar, which can reportedly track up to 1,000 targets at range of up to 400km. As well as the 24-cell Sea Ceptor CAMM aid defence system, the Type 45s operate the 48-cell SYLVER vertical launch system, fitted with Aster 30 missiles, which can intercept threats to a probable range of beyond 120km.
In addition, non-UK air defence capabilities within CSG25 include the Spanish F100-class frigate Méndez Núñez, a highly capable platform equipped with the Lockheed Martin AN/SPY-1D 3-D multifunction radar and Standard SM-2MR Block IIIA medium-range surface-to-air missiles thought able to intercept out to 140km.
The AN/SPY-1D 3-D radar is a component of the US Navy’s Aegis capability and is able to track ballistic missile threats to a rumoured range of 300km.
Other international vessels include the Norwegian frigate HNoMS Roald Amundsen of the Fridtjof Nansen class, which is equipped with the F version of the AN/SPY-1 radar and the RIM-162 ESSM missile, capable of ranges of around 50km. The final non-UK surface escort is old Canadian Halifax-class frigate, HMCS Ville de Québec, which also carries the RIM-162 missile.
At some point after 11 May, when HMS Prince of Wales and its carrier strike group concludes Operation Med Strike, the collection of warships will transit the Suez Canal and head into the Red Sea, bound for the Indian Ocean, through the Bab el Mandeb.
