The Red Sea battle fought by a U.S. warship years ago helped the Navy prepare for round two

• The USS Mason, a destroyer, was forced to defend against Houthi missile attacks in 2016.
• Years later, in 2023 and 2024, that same warship found itself fighting Iranian-backed rebels once again.
• The 2016 engagements helped the Navy prepare for its most recent fight, Mason’s commanding officer said.

When the USS Mason sailed into the Red Sea late last year, the American warship quickly found itself in a familiar situation: defending against Houthi missile attacks.

Unlike other ships, the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer fought the Houthis years before they began targeting merchant shipping lanes in what became a months-long campaign. Mason’s commander says that earlier combat helped the Navy prepare for its latest clash with the Iranian-backed rebels.

It’s not quite the same fight, the commander said. “They’re evolving their own tactics, techniques, and procedures, but we’re continuing to stay ahead of what they’re changing,” Commander Justin Smith told Business Insider in an interview last week.

The Mason recently returned to its homeport in Florida after a deployment to the Middle East as part of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group, which spent months defending merchant shipping lanes in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden against Houthi attacks.

During its grueling deployment, the Mason intercepted a number of Houthi drones and missiles, some of which were fired at the destroyer. But this was not the first time the warship had found itself in this extremely dangerous situation.

In October 2016, the Houthis launched several missile attacks against the destroyer Mason while it was operating in the Red Sea and around the Bab al-Mandeb Strait. Some of these threats were intercepted by the warship.

In November 2023, just over seven years later, the Houthis fired several missiles at the Mason, this time as it responded to an attempted hijacking of a merchant ship in the Gulf of Aden. The projectiles landed in the water several kilometers away.

Smith said the Navy learned a lot from Mason’s early engagements with the Houthis in 2016 and explained that investments the sea service has made since then — particularly in training and readiness initiatives — have “paid off” in recent deployments.

“We removed a lot of human performance factors from the performance of the crew members and the watch team in 2016, and the Navy has really looked at that to make sure that we will have that combat warrior mentality and mindset to be ready to deal with any type of threat or engagement that may be encountered,” Smith said.

Smith said sailors first develop that mindset during boot camp, but it became a lasting aspect of training and something he sought to continue aboard the destroyer to ensure the crew was prepared to face a sustained threat.

Smith said the Navy has invested heavily in human performance and that investment has been worth it. “Our Sailors remain the Navy’s most powerful weapons system,” he said. “If we didn’t have the proper training we have today, our readiness would suffer.”

Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group leaders have consistently stressed that the Navy will learn lessons from the ongoing anti-Houthi mission and apply them to future combat operations, and that process is already underway.

For example, Rear Adm. Marc Miguez, who spent months commanding the strike group, said in a reflection on the deployment that the Navy would benefit from more training scenarios focused on unmanned systems.

Another factor to consider is the threat posed by anti-ship ballistic missiles. While long present in various arsenals, these weapons had never been used in combat until the Houthis launched them in late 2023. During the ensuing fighting, the Eisenhower strike group intercepted a number of these missiles, providing the Navy with valuable information that would be useful in a future conflict—whether against the Houthis or another force.

“Everything is evolving and the threats are not stagnant,” Smith said, adding that the Navy is still working to “demonstrate to the Houthis that we will be able to challenge them now and move forward in the future.”