\u201cI never imagined I was going to be doing this when we launched,\u201d said Captain Earl Ehrhart of U.S. Marine attack squadron VMA-231 (\u201cAce of Spades\u201d) aboard the Marine landing ship Bataan<\/em> (LHD-5). The vessel\u2019s crew had been looking forward to the end of their deployment when Hamas made its mass incursion from Gaza into Israel on October 7, 2023, slaughtering about 1,200 civilians and kidnapping 253. <\/p>\n With that, Bataan<\/em>\u2019s deployment was extended and the ship dispatched to the eastern Mediterranean while Israel Defense Forces launched a draconian counterattack into Gaza. Shortly afterward, Houthi rebels, a Yemeni militant group armed by Iran, began launching Iranian-produced Shahed <\/em>(\u201cwitness\u201d) 136 explosive drones at every cargo ship they regarded as being owned or associated with Israel or the United States that entered the Red Sea via the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. (However, on February 12, 2024, the militants targeted Star Iris, <\/em>a Marshall Islands-flagged bulk carrier full of corn bound for Iran, for all intents and purposes making the Houthis\u2019 show of solidarity with the Palestinian refugees in Gaza a declaration of war against the world.) In reaction, the Bataan<\/em> transferred to the Red Sea to use its AV-8B Harrier II vertical-takeoff-and-landing fighter-bombers in defense of the endangered merchantmen. <\/p>\n For Earl Ehrhart V in particular, things were about to get controversial. In a BBC interview on February 12, 2024, Ehrhart stated that since December 2023 he had personally destroyed seven drones before they could strike. \u201cThe Houthis were launching a lot of suicide attack drones,\u201d he said. \u201cWe took a Harrier jet and modified it for air defense. We loaded it up with missiles and that way, we were able to respond to their drone attacks.\u201d Ehrhart\u2019s claim of seven Shaheds revived a debate of sorts that has been going on since World War I: should this kind of aerial victory be equal to the downing of a manned airplane? And if so, does downing more than five of them make Earl Ehrhart the first American ace since 1972?<\/p>\n Although the Harrier\u2019s primary mission involves ground attack and troop support, its British predecessor, the British Aerospace Sea Harrier<\/a>, had demonstrated its air-to-air capabilities during the 1982 Falklands War, shooting down at least 20 Argentine fighter-bombers without loss. This astounding kill-to-loss ratio was primarily due to the Argentines\u2019 lack of an airbase between their home bases and the Falkland Islands, depriving them of the loiter time to engage the British fighters and limiting their options to attacking the British ships before hightailing it for home. Being remotely controlled unmanned aircraft, the Shahed-136s were likewise unable to fight back against intercepting fighters and had the added handicap of a maximum speed of 115 mph. They also cost only $20,000 apiece and could be produced in great numbers and dispatched en masse. To deal with them, Ehrhart and his VMA-231 colleagues were often guided to their targets by the radar of accompanying warships and attacked the drones with AIM-120 AMRAAMs (advanced medium range air-to-air missiles) or AIM-9M Sidewinder heat-seeking missiles. In spite of the inherent disparity between a piloted fighter and an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), the low altitudes at which the UAVs could fly over the water could make them difficult targets for the Sidewinders. The more sophisticated AMRAAM was far more likely to score a hit, but at a monetary cost many times that of a Shahed. (The AV-8B could also carry a 25mm GAU-12\/U Equalizer automatic cannon and 300 rounds.)<\/p>\n Airplanes have been shooting down other airplanes since 1914, and by 1916 lighter-than-air craft, such as kite balloons<\/a> and Zeppelin airships, were added to the \u201cfair game\u201d menu. By observing the front and directing artillery fire, balloons became tactically viable targets. Attacking one could be dangerous, too\u2014they may have lacked their own armament, but they were encircled by anti-aircraft guns and located far behind enemy lines. The Zeppelins bombing British cities were armed, although they relied more on high-altitude climbing to escape interception. <\/p>\n Another aspect of air-to-air combat that was generally settled upon was that a victory scored by more than one airplane would be shared by all involved and go down as a whole victory in each pilot\u2019s logbook. The main exceptions to this were the Germans, who generally stuck to one pilot, one victory, while British policy on the matter followed an inconsistent course. Also during World War I, a victory scored by a two-seater reconnaissance plane or bomber would be shared between the pilot and his observer, who was usually manning a machine gun or two of his own. <\/p>\n While one-on-one combat ending in a crash or an adversary in flames makes exciting fodder for the movies, a high percentage of \u201ckills\u201d in aerial combat were \u201cmoral victories\u201d involving an enemy going down OOC (out of control) or being FTL (forced to land). More aircraft since World War I were \u201cshot up\u201d than \u201cshot down,\u201d but still counted in good faith as a victory. Postwar access to enemy records usually reveals that their real losses were only a fraction of what their adversaries had reported. Aces with complete matches to their claims have always been exceptions to the rule, known examples being Americans Douglas Campbell<\/a> (six in World War I) and Steve Ritchie <\/a>(five over Vietnam) and North Vietnamese aces Nguyen Tien Sam (five) and Nguyen Duc Soat (six). <\/p>\n By World War II the warplane had matured considerably, and single combat had largely given way to sprawling air battles, which added a few more variations to the tallying process. Some, like Britain, the United States and Finland, logged each pilot\u2019s victory in fractions if more than one were involved in a shoot-down. As Allied bombing raids became an increasing threat to the Axis war effort, Germany, Romania and Bulgaria introduced a point system to encourage their fighters to brave the huge bomber wings. Pilots received one point for a single-engine airplane, two for twin-engines and three for four or more. Many fighter pilots from those three air arms kept tally of separate scores, realizing that the point system was a way to get medals but also likely to invite post-war skepticism over claims.<\/p>\n![\"av-8b-marine-harrier\"](\"https:\/\/www.historynet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/harrier-usaf-scaled-1024x520.jpg\")
\n (U.S. Marine Corps\/Sgt. Matthew Romonoyske-Bean)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n![\"shahed_136_rendering\"](\"https:\/\/www.historynet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/shahed_136_rendering-1024x522.jpg\")
\n (HistoryNet Archives)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
![\"iran-shahed-drones-stacked-launcher\"](\"https:\/\/www.historynet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/iran-shahed-136-drones-stacked-on-a-launcher-before-an-exercise-by-the-Iranian-Army-1024x576.jpg\")