The repeated attacks in Bab Al Mandeb could serve as a study case on the limit of the modern navy's ability to protect shipping. Like it or not, the main tasks of a navy is always the securing of sea lanes. But modern shipbuilding and navy design tends to forget this. Ships are getting bigger, more powerful but the number of hulls Navy could afford has been steadily dwindling.
You could have a fleet of state-of-the-art destroyers with the latest in sensors and equipment, but if there are only 3 of them, not much can be done to protect shipping.
Back during the "first happy times", German U-Boats would sink a grand total of 280+ ships totaling 1490000 tons in a span 5 months, considering the ballooning size of modern container ships, and considering just how fast modern ISR can detect and track objects and also considering how deadly and accuarte a modern weapon can be, those numbers could be achieved with way less ship and in a lot less time. A Modern ULCS class ship is around 235000 tons in weight, which means the combined weight of just around 6 of these:
MSC Loreto 235000 tons, 24600+ TEU
Will be enough to match the numbers of German U-Boat commanders strived to achieve with great difficulties in WW2 during the first happy times. Because back then Germany doesn't have access to MarineTraffic.com cargo ships tended to be this size:
Iran (or any actor that wish harm to shipping) could easily supply tons of anti-ship missile/torpedo/USV to actors like Houthis and tell them to wreak havoc.
A hit from one or two Mk-48 class Torpedo is enough to break the keel of even the largest container ship, potentially sinking it or if not damaging it beyond repair. A hit from a missile meanwhile could burn the ship and its cargo
The solutions to this is of course the reintroducing of 21st century convoy system, but Western shipbuilding aren't up to the job and their navy doesn't prioritize guard ships anymore. The Arleigh Burkes for example now is more a missile defense ship than an escort ship.
This makes the West now ironically emulating what the Japanese did before WW2, prioritizing heavily armed ships while underestimating the role of smaller guard ships.
Several examples illustrate the major losses suffered by Japanese transport vessels.
warfarehistorynetwork.com