British warships have inadequate firepower to deal with Houthis

 Telegraph:

Britain’s warships cannot attack Houthi targets on land because they lack the firepower, in a situation described by former defence chiefs as a “scandal”.

None of the Royal Navy’s destroyers or frigates have the ability to fire missiles at targets on land, leaving the US to carry out the majority of strikes on Houthi targets with support from RAF planes based 1,500 miles away.

A British defence source said HMS Diamond, the destroyer stationed in the Red Sea, had not joined retaliatory strikes on Houthi targets because it did not have “the capability to fire to land targets”. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) said it had instead been “directly involved in successfully destroying Houthi drones targeting shipping in the Red Sea”.

This weekend, a British-linked container ship caught fire after becoming the latest vessel targeted by Houthi rebels.

One former rear admiral suggested that Britain’s inability to strike the Iran-backed Houthi movement’s bases from warships highlighted how the Navy would be unable to “go toe to toe” with Chinese and Russian warships.

Currently, the only weapons on destroyers that can fire at other ships or land are artillery guns at the front of each vessel. While US destroyers can fire Tomahawk guided missiles at land targets, the UK’s only options for such strikes are deploying planes or submarines, five of which were reported to be unavailable at one point in the autumn.
...

They apparently need to bring some of their old battleships out of mothballs.  This look slike a serious design flaw in their modern warships. 

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