Navy

A perfect storm involving three U.S. Navy aircraft carriers highlights the strain on the fleet amid an ongoing war in the Middle East and tensions in Asia. One of the carriers was damaged by a fire, another just saw its service life extended for the second time, while a third had its delivery pushed back until 2027. Though a Navy official told The War Zone there is no connection between the fire and service life extension, taken in concert these events show how difficult it is to build, operate and maintain the huge and expensive nuclear warships, especially when their deployments or service lives are pushed past anticipated timelines.

On March 12, a fire broke out in the laundry area of the USS Gerald R. Ford while underway in the Middle East, injuring two sailors. Though officials initially said the damage was minor, the vessel is now heading to Souda Bay in Crete for repairs, according to USNI, taking it out of war against Iran. On Monday, The New York Times reported that the fire took more than 30 hours to extinguish and left more than 600 sailors “bunking down on floors and tables.”

It is unclear how long the Ford’s repairs will take, but it leaves only one carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln, on station as the war drags into its 18th day with no immediate end in sight.

The fire was the latest of the Ford’s woes during what has become a 10-month-long deployment that has twice been extended and would set a post-Vietnam War record by mid-April unless it is sent out of theater. The previous record, at 294 days, was set by the USS Abraham Lincoln in 2020. However, a military official told the Times that the Pentagon recognizes that the Ford is reaching the limits of its deployment length. He added that the USS George H.W. Bush is preparing to deploy to the Middle East and will probably relieve the Ford. CENTCOM declined to comment when we asked for additional details.

As we previously reported, the Ford experienced sewage issues prior to deploying to the Middle East from the Caribbean, the latter of which is where it played a big role in the capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro. Even before that, Adm. Daryl Caudle, the Chief of Naval Operations, was so concerned in January about the condition of the ship and its crew and the scheduled repairs it would miss that he said he would “push back” on any order to extend its deployment.

Typical carrier deployments last about six to eight months, a period designed to ensure the ships can maintain readiness and the crews do not get worn out. When that doesn’t happen, it creates a cascading series of problems that affect not just the ships and crews, but the facilities that have scheduled repairs and lined up workers to make them happen.

The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, the last carrier to make an extended deployment, has seen its planned maintenance extended for a half year and counting as a result of the additional strain of being away from its home port for so long. The Navy’s Fiscal Year 2026 budget shows that work on the ship was supposed to have been completed last July, but it is still unfinished. The lack of availability reverberates across the rest of the fleet. That in turn limits the options commanders have when planning or preparing for contingencies and puts the overall carrier availability plan out of whack.

The Ford already was going to require an extended refurbishment before the fire, now that could be extended much longer. You can read much more about the problems created by deferred carrier maintenance via extended deployments in our deep dive into the issue here.

Meanwhile, the aircraft USS Nimitz, the Navy’s oldest operational carrier, has seen its service life extended for the second time.

“USS Nimitz‘ (CVN 68) service life has since been extended to March 2027,” the Navy said in a statement. “Accordingly, the U.S. Navy plans to inactivate the ship in 2027.”

On March 13, the Navy signed a $95.7 million contract with Huntington Ingalls Inc. “for advance planning and long-lead-time material procurement to prepare and make ready for the accomplishment of the inactivation and defueling of USS Nimitz (CVN 68). Work will be performed in Newport News, Virginia, and is expected to be completed by March 2027.”

The news of the extension broke after the carrier departed Naval Base Kitsap in Bremerton, Washington on March 7 to head to Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia as part of a scheduled homeport shift prior to decommissioning, according to Breaking Defense, the first to report the change in the Nimitz’s plans. The Nimitz was initially scheduled to be taken out of service in April of 2025, but that was extended to May of 2026.

It is unclear if the Nimitz will deploy before it will be finally inactivated, but it is no longer assigned an air wing.

However, the decision to keep the ship in service until 2027 coincides with the delivery of the future USS John F. Kennedy, the second Ford class carrier, being pushed back until then. 

The Kennedy’s “delivery date shifted from July 2025 to March 2027 (preliminary acceptance TBD) to support completion of Advanced Arresting Gear (AAG) certification and continued Advanced Weapons,” a Navy official told us in December.

Federal law requires the Navy to keep at least 11 carriers in the fleet. We’ve asked the Navy if there is a connection between the Nimitz extension and the Kennedy’s delivery delay and will update this story wtih any pertinent information provided.

The Navy announced that the Kennedy completed Builder’s Sea Trials (BST) at Newport News Shipbuilding (NNS), a division of HII, in Newport News, Virginia, Feb. 4. BSTs provide an opportunity to test ship systems and components at sea for the first time, and make required adjustments prior to additional underway testing.

The current status of the Ford, Nimitz and Kennedy shows the jenga-like nature of trying to meet the needs of commanders while maintaining the condition of ships and crews and adhering to federal law. All of this, of course, is in flux. Given that America is in a new war with an uncertain future, there could be further shockwaves to the Navy’s plans for its carrier fleet.

Contact the author: howard@thewarzone.com

The U.S. Navy Independence class Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) USS Tulsa and USS Santa Barbara, which are configured for minesweeping duties, have appeared in port in Malaysia. Both of these ships were last known to be forward-deployed in the Middle East, having arrived in Bahrain in the past year or so to take the place of a group of now-decommissioned Avenger class mine hunters. Now, as Iranian attacks on commercial ships have caused a virtual halt to maritime traffic through the highly strategic Strait of Hormuz, these ships have emerged thousands of miles away. The extent to which Iran has seeded naval mines in the Strait already is unclear, but this remains a huge threat to the future security of the waterway and will have to be taken into account in any future effort to reopen this critical waterway.

A spotter in Malaysia posted pictures of the USS Tulsa and USS Santa Barbara, which are said to have been taken today at the North Butterworth Container Terminal (NBCT) in the Port of Penang. Mike Yeo, an Australia-based defense and aviation reporter, was among the first to call attention to the particular significance of the images. TWZ has reached out for more information.

USS Tulsa and USS Santa Barbara are among a select number of Independence class LCSs fitted with a mine countermeasures mission package, or “module.” In its current form, the package includes towed mine-hunting sonar for the ships, Common Unmanned Surface Vehicles (CUSV) with mine-sweeping gear, and mine detection and neutralization systems carried by embarked MH-60 Sea Hawk helicopters. We will come back to this configuration later on.

CUSV®

Airborne Laser Mine Detection System (ALMDS) Video

When it comes to why the ships are now in Malaysia, TWZ also reached out to U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), which directed us to the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet. We were then directed by Fifth Fleet back to CENTCOM. CENTCOM is the top U.S. military command for operations in the Middle East. Fifth Fleet is the Navy’s numbered fleet in the Middle East, with its commander dual-hatted as head of Naval Forces Central Command (NAVCENT). Fifth Fleet and NAVCENT are headquartered in Manama, Bahrain, in the Persian Gulf.

We have reached out to the U.S. Navy and U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM), as well.

Pictures available through the U.S. military’s Defense Visual Information Distribution Service (DVIDS) show USS Tulsa was in port in Bahrain at least as of February 9. Separate images also show USS Santa Barbara operating in the Persian Gulf on January 30. The current disposition of a third Independence class LCS, the USS Canberra, which had also been forward-deployed in the Middle East at least as of January, is unknown. Whether any other mine countermeasures ships may not be headed to the Middle East is also not known.

A review of satellite imagery in Planet Labs’ commercial archive shows no evidence of any U.S. warships being in port in Mamana since February 23. The United States and Israel launched their joint operation against Iran on February 28.

Moving U.S. warships out of port in Bahrain ahead of the current conflict was a prudent security measure. The Gulf state is well within range of Iranian missiles and long-range kamikaze drones, and U.S. military facilities in Manama did subsequently come under attack. The U.S. military’s own strikes on Iranian naval vessels in port have underscored the vulnerability of ships sitting pierside.

Why the decision was made to then send the USS Tulsa and USS Santa Barbara thousands of miles to the east is unknown. A host of factors may have come into play, including the availability of suitable friendly ports and diplomatic considerations.

Regardless, at least two-thirds of the warships intended to be available for tasking for mine countermeasures missions in the Middle East are presently in a completely different part of the world. As noted, USS Tulsa, USS Santa Barbara, and USS Canberra, were forward-deployed to the region in the first place explicitly to fill gaps left by the decommissioning of four Avenger class mine hunters last year. The former USS Devastator, USS Dextrous, USS Gladiator, and USS Sentry left the region for good aboard a heavy lift ship in January. There are only four Avenger class ships left in active Navy service, all of which are forward-deployed in Japan, and are also slated to be decommissioned in the coming years.

How many of the Navy’s Independence class LCSs, in total, have been configured for the mine-clearing mission to date is unknown. In addition to USS Tulsa, USS Santa Barbara, and the USS Canberra, the USS Kansas City was at least being fitted out with this mission module as of last year.

The Independence class LCS is a far more advanced ship than the Avenger class mine hunter, and does offer new standoff mine countermeasures capabilities, including aforementioned CUSV drone boats and helicopter-borne systems. Still, questions continue to be raised about whether metal-hulled LCSs with mine countermeasures packages are adequate replacements for ships purpose-built for this mission. As TWZ previously wrote back in January:

The [Avenger class] ships themselves have fiberglass-coated wooden hulls to reduce their own vulnerability, particularly to mines that detect targets by their magnetic signature.

The Navy has long intended to replace the Avenger class ships with LCSs configured for the mine countermeasures duties. However, delays with the LCS mine countermeasures and other mission packages, or “modules,” as well as other persistent issues with both subclasses of those ships, repeatedly delayed those plans. The LCS program had also originally envisioned it being possible to readily reconfigure the ships for different mission sets by swapping out modules. However, the Navy is now deploying LCSs in largely fixed configurations.

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Questions and criticism about the suitability of metal-hulled LCSs to take on the mine countermeasures mission have come up in the past. Both subclasses of LCS are also much larger than the Avenger class design, which could impose limits on how close they can get to mined or potentially mined areas. LCSs are better able to defend themselves against other threats than the Avengers, but they still have relatively limited firepower, which has been a separate source of criticism for years now. There would still be a significant need for tertiary support to protect LCSs during mine-clearing operations, which are slow and complex, and carry significant risks, even in benign environments.

In May 2025, a top U.S. Navy mine warfare officer gave an unclassified briefing detailing significant ongoing issues with the LCS mine countermeasures, according to a story published just this past week by Hunterbrook Media. Copies of the briefing slides that the outlet published say that employing the CUSV requires hours of prep time, and that the drone boat’s sonar sometimes has trouble spotting threats, but that the operators may have no indication of this until data is assessed after a mission. Visual confirmation of mines using the AN/AQS-20 mine-hunting system has also proven challenging “even [in] the relatively benign turbidity of SoCal [Southern California] waters,” another slide explains. The briefing also highlighted a number of potential “single-point failures” both in terms of mine countermeasures systems included in the module, and the equipment required to deploy and recover them.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, one of the briefing slides noted that “LCS was designed as a multi-mission platform” and “all of these other missions reduce time for the ship and Minemen to gain proficiency in MCM [mine countermeasures].” To reiterate, the Avenger class ships were purpose-built for this mission set and had crews trained to match. Mine-clearing operations are slow and complex, and carry significant risks, even when carried out by experienced personnel in benign environments.

In the context of the current conflict, there have been reports in the past week or so saying Iran has at least attempted to lay mines in and around the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. military also says it has been actively targeting mine-laying assets. At the same time, Iran has laid mines in and around the Persian Gulf in the past, and this remains a real point of concern. Iranian anti-ship cruise and ballistic missiles, kamikaze drones, and uncrewed explosive-laden boats further complicate the threat picture for commercial vessels and any warships attempting to help clear the way.

The U.S. military has been using M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) to strike Iranian ships as part of Operation Epic Fury. Since the current conflict erupted, the only munitions those launchers have been seen firing are Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) and Precision Strike Missile (PrSM) short-range ballistic missiles. PrSM has made its combat debut against Iran, and the newly disclosed operational details raise the question of whether an anti-ship version has been fielded.

Over the first 10 days of Operation Epic Fury, American forces destroyed 50 Iranian naval vessels “using a combination of artillery, fighters, bombers, and sea-launched missiles,” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff U.S. Air Force Gen. Dan “Razin” Caine said at a press conference at the Pentagon this morning. U.S. officials have consistently stressed that the neutralization of Iran’s naval capabilities is a core objective of the ongoing campaign against Iran.

TWZ subsequently reached out for further clarification about what Caine was referring to here when he said “artillery” and for any additional information about the use of those assets against the Iranian Navy. A U.S. official told TWZ that HIMARS were used against Iranian Navy ships, but would not comment on what type of munitions they had fired or which ships were attacked that way.

However, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) has released several videos and pictures showing HIMARS operating in support of Operation Epic Fury. As noted, that imagery has only shown them firing ATACMS and PrSM ballistic missiles. CENTCOM has also now explicitly touted the first-ever combat use of PrSM in the current conflict. U.S. officials have yet to confirm where specifically ATACMS or PrSM missiles are being fired from.

Imagery also began circulating on social media yesterday that is said to show an empty ATACMS ammunition ‘pod’ in Kuwait discovered by locals in the midst of ongoing operations against Iran. Wheeled HIMARS launchers, as well as tracked M270 Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS), fire ATACMS, PrSM, and 227mm guided artillery from pods with standardized dimensions. ATACMS are loaded one to a pod, while pods for PrSM contain two missiles.

A video also emerged online this past weekend showing two HIMARS being employed from a beach in Bahrain. When the footage was captured is unknown. What munitions they see are also unclear.

No evidence has emerged so far that HIMARS are being used to fire 227mm guided artillery rockets, which come six to a pod, in support of Operation Epic Fury. Even new extended-range variants of these rockets can only fly out to around 93 miles (150 kilometers) away, severely limiting the areas in and around Iran they could reach from available launch points in the region, to begin with. For example, the shortest distance between Bahrain and Iranian soil across the Persian Gulf is around 120 miles. The longest ranged variants of ATACMS can hit targets out to around 186 miles (300 kilometers), with PrSM’s maximum range at least 310 miles (500 kilometers).

It should also be noted that there is no known operational variant of ATACMS capable of engaging moving targets, meaning that it would have to be used against stationary ships. This is very possible, as we’ve seen multiple examples of Iranian ships struck in port or while appearing to be at anchor offshore already.

The U.S. Army had pursued an anti-ship version of ATACMS in the past, which would have been capable of targeting vessels on the move. That effort looks to have been subsumed by the development of a ship-killing variant of PrSM featuring an additional seeker, also known as Increment 2.

There have been indications that the U.S. Army has already begun to field PrSMs that can hit ships on the move, though it is unclear if this represents the full planned Increment 2 capability. In 2024, the service announced it had successfully hit a moving vessel with an unspecified version of PrSM in a test exercise in the Pacific. In a report released in 2025, the Pentagon’s Office of the Director of Test and Evaluation (DOT&E) disclosed that the Army had actually “shot two PrSM EOC [early operational capability] missiles at a maritime target in June 2024.” At that time, the service was only known to have reached early operational capability with the baseline version of PrSM, also known as Increment 1.

It is possible that the Army has begun to field Increment 2 PrSMs, at least on a limited level, as well. The Army announced that it had begun initial flight testing of the new seeker system in 2023. Whether or not Increment 1 missiles can be readily converted into Increment 2 versions is also unknown. Like ATACMS, PrSMs without a moving target capability could still be fired at ships that are stationary, as well.

Regardless, Operation Epic Fury looks to be the first known instance of the U.S. military using ballistic missiles to target ships, at anchor and/or on the move, in real combat.

In general, ballistic missiles are especially well-suited to long-range standoff strikes against time-sensitive and well-defended high-value targets based on the speed at which they fly. They also reach especially high velocity as they come down in the terminal phase of flight. This all, in turn, creates additional challenges for enemy defenders attempting to intercept them compared to other kinds of missiles, including some subsonic air-breathing cruise missiles, and compresses the overall time available to react in any way. That speed also gives ballistic missiles an inherent ability to burrow more deeply into hardened targets. This could be particularly valuable when engaging larger and better-armored warships.

The U.S. military has been playing catch-up for some time now when it comes to the development and fielding of anti-ship ballistic missiles, especially compared to the investments that China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has made in this arena. The use now of ballistic missiles against Iranian ships is, in turn, a sign of things to come in other future U.S. operations. PrSM is often discussed as a particularly important new capability in the context of any future high-end fight against China in the Pacific, just on account of its extended range compared to ATACMS. That extra reach would be valuable for engaging targets on land and at sea. TWZ previously highlighted how the use of PrSM in strikes on Iranian targets, in general, could also send signals to other American opponents well beyond the Middle East.

Interestingly, Iran has also spent considerable time and resources developing an array of shorter-range anti-ship ballistic missiles, capabilities that were then proliferated to its Houthi proxies in Yemen. The Houthis became the first in the world to fire anti-ship ballistic missiles in anger in 2023, as part of a campaign against commercial vessels and foreign warships in and around the Red Sea that ultimately stretched into 2025. So far, Iran does not look to have brought these capabilities to bear itself in the current conflict.

If nothing else, HIMARS has now been used in real combat to target enemy naval vessels, very likely with ballistic missiles. In doing so, experience is gained that could be very relevant beyond the current conflict with Iran.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

The U.S. Navy has conducted at least one new round of live-fire tests of its prototype electromagnetic railgun at the White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) in New Mexico. The service had shelved its railgun effort in the early 2020s, at least publicly, after work that had shown promise ran into technical hurdles. A railgun is now set to be a key feature on the future Trump class “battleships.”

A brief mention of the new railgun testing is included in a document highlighting achievements by the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Port Hueneme Division (NSWC PHD) in 2025. NSWC PHD, which is part of Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA), primarily operates from Port Hueneme in California, but it also maintains a detachment at White Sands. The U.S. Army manages the WSMR, which other branches of the U.S. military also use for a wide variety of research and development and test and evaluation activities.

The “WSD [White Sands Detachment] tested a railgun to collect critical information about high-velocity firing during a three-day campaign at White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) in New Mexico,” the year-in-review document says. “The testing in February [2025] was a joint effort between WSD and NSWC Dahlgren Division in Virginia and conducted for Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA)’s Joint Hypersonics Transition Office.”

The railgun had originally been installed at a land-based test site belonging to NSWC Dahlgren in Virginia. The Navy announced in 2019 that it had moved the weapon to the WSMR. Plans to conduct at-sea testing of the weapon were repeatedly delayed and never materialized.

TWZ has reached out to NAVSEA for more information about the three-day test campaign last year and its objectives, and to ask whether any other live-fire testing of the prototype railgun at WSMR has occurred since 2021. That year, the Navy had announced its intention to close out work on the railgun and effectively put what was left of the program into storage.

“Railgun hardware will be realigned to maximize its sustainability to facilitate potential future use,” the Navy had said at the time. However, there do not appear to have been any disclosures of further testing of the weapon before now.

The video below shows the prototype railgun being fired at the test site in Virginia in 2016.

Electromagnetic Railgun – First shot at Dahlgren’s new Terminal Range

Without more information, it is hard to say what the purpose of the February 2025 tests may have been. That the testing was done in support of the Joint Hypersonics Transition Office (JHTO) could point to the railgun having been used for work unrelated to the weapon itself. Established in 2020, the JHTO is broadly tasked to facilitate the development of new hypersonic technologies and help transition that work into formats that could lead to operational capabilities. As a pure test asset, the railgun might offer an additional way to launch suitably sized payloads at extremely high speeds, but there are other ways available to do that kind of work, and it is not clear that using the weapon in this way makes sense. The U.S. military has been working to expand various aspects of its hypersonic test infrastructure, in general, in recent years amid a surge in new development efforts in that space.

At the same time, as noted, the Trump class “battleship” effort, also known as BBG(X), has also now breathed new life into the prospect of an operational U.S. naval railgun. President Donald Trump rolled out plans for new large surface combatants, which are expected to displace around 35,000 tons and also be armed with a mix of missiles (including hypersonic types), traditional 5-inch guns, and laser directed energy weapons, as you can read more about here.

Whether the Navy has any plans to pick up where it left off with the railgun prototype currently at WSMR, which was developed by BAE Systems, or pursue a new design, is unclear. General Atomics, which has done railgun development work for the U.S. Army in the past, has expressed interest in being involved in helping arm the Trump class warships. Construction of the lead ship in the Trump class, to be named USS Defiant, is not expected to begin until the early 2030s.

General Atomics – Multi-Mission Medium Range Railgun Weapon System [1080p]

Railguns, which use electromagnets rather than chemical propellants to fire their projectiles at very high velocities, have historically presented significant technological challenges. They have significant power and cooling requirements, especially if the intent is to be able to fire multiple shots in relatively rapid succession. This, in turn, has generally meant that railgun installations are physically bulky due to the need for large energy storage batteries and cooling systems. Firing projectiles at very high speeds at any kind of sustained rate also imparts significant wear on the barrel. A worn-out barrel reduces range and accuracy, and creates potential safety hazards.

Electromagnetic Railgun Firing Hypervelocity Projectile @ Mach 7

At the same time, a practical operational electromagnetic railgun offers the promise of a very capable and flexible weapon that can be employed against a wide variety of targets at sea, on land, and even in the air, and do so at considerable range. This includes being able to intercept incoming threats, including ones that may themselves be moving at hypersonic speeds. A railgun also offers magazine depth and cost benefits compared to traditional surface-to-air and surface-to-surface missiles, given the smaller size and unit price of its rounds.

As an aside, just in the past year, Japan has announced significant progress with its naval railgun program, including the first known instance of a railgun mounted on a ship being fired at sea at a real target vessel. In 2024, it was reported that Japanese authorities had met with U.S. Navy representatives to discuss leveraging the latter’s previous railgun work, which raised the possibility of further collaboration in the future. Japan’s Acquisition Technology & Logistics Agency (ALTA) also has a formal agreement with the Franco-German Research Institute of Saint-Louis (ISL) to cooperate on the development of railgun-related technologies.

The ATLA video below shows previous live-fire testing of a prototype railgun at a facility on land.

試作レールガンの射撃

Other countries have also been pursuing railguns, particularly for naval use. A prototype railgun mounted in a large turret notably appeared on a People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) ship in 2018, though the exact status of that program is now unclear. There has also been a very public naval railgun development program underway in Turkey in recent years.

Turkish electromagnetic railgun unveiled to experts – Anadolu Agency

If nothing else, the test firing of the Navy’s prototype railgun at the WSMR last year shows that it remains functional, at least to a degree, as the service now looks ahead to fielding an operational weapon of this type on the Trump class.

Special thanks to user @lfx160219 on X for bringing the railgun entry in the NSWC PHD 2025-year-in-review document to our attention.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

The U.S. Navy is not yet ready to escort oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, but it will happen. This is the synopsis provided by U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright in an interview with CNBC. The development comes as Iran continues to pummel international shipping in and around the critical channel, which the new Iranian supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, vows to keep closed.

“It’ll happen relatively soon, but it can’t happen now,” Wright said, of the planned naval escort mission. “We’re simply not ready. All of our military assets right now are focused on destroying Iran’s offensive capabilities and the manufacturing industry that supplies their offensive capabilities.” Wright added that the Navy should be able to escort tankers through the strait by the end of this month.

Khamenei, it appears, is also resolute in his plan to keep the strait closed to all maritime traffic, reportedly having turned down approaches from several countries that were seeking an end to the attacks.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on March 3 that “the United States Navy will begin escorting tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, as soon as possible.”

Putting a date of the end of this month on the escort mission is certain to trouble markets that are already feeling the pressure of the conflict. At the very least, this is an indicator that the war or its hostile aftermath will continue for weeks to come.

Equally pessimistically, there have been reports from analysts suggesting that fully reopening the strait may require some kind of ground operation to seize the Iranian coastline adjacent to it.

“Strategic priorities, like opening the Strait of Hormuz and securing what remains of Iran’s nuclear stockpile, will likely require some ground troops if no diplomatic options are pursued,” Brian Katulis, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, told The Wall Street Journal. “What we are looking at is potentially a very messy situation.”

Even without boots on the ground, which now seems like a remote prospect, running a tanker-escort mission, which would involve convoys protected by warships and accompanied by mine-clearing assets, is fraught with difficulty. Military unwillingness to take on missions of this kind is an issue we have explored in the past at TWZ.

The warships involved in any such endeavor would also be at extreme risk, especially from Iranian ground-mobile anti-ship missiles, which are relatively small and can be easily disguised in utility trucks. Eliminating that threat is one potential driver for a ground operation along the coast of the strait.

The U.S. military has made extensive efforts in recent days to remove the Iranian minelaying capability, but, according to the U.K. Defense Secretary, there are now increasing signs that Iran may have started mining the strait.

The Ambrey maritime security firm told us that a Malta-flagged crude oil tanker and another merchant vessel were targeted in an attack in Al Basrah Anchorage, Iraq. One fatality was reported. At least 38 individuals were rescued from both vessels according to the Iraq Port Authority, with further search and rescue operations ongoing as of this morning.

Video footage of the incident shows a vessel engulfed in fire with a large plume of smoke rising from the area of impact. Fire can also be seen in the water as a result of the oil spill.

Unverified reports state that the two tankers were struck by uncrewed surface vehicles (USVs).

Iraq’s State Organization for Marketing of Oil identified the two vessels as crude oil tanker Safesea Vishnu and the combined chemical and oil tanker Zefyros. While the Zefyros is Malta-flagged, the Safesea Vishnu is owned by a U.S. company but was sailing under the Marshall Islands flag. A dramatic video has appeared that is said to show the moment of the explosion that targeted the Safesea Vishnu.

In a statement, the IRGC said that it considered the Safesea Vishnu as an asset of the U.S. military and claims that it was struck after ignoring repeated warnings and alerts from the IRGC Navy.

Ambrey also reports that a container vessel was struck by an unknown projectile 38 nautical miles north-northeast of Jebel Ali, United Arab Emirates. The strike was reported to have caused a small fire on board the vessel, and the crew was reported to be safe.

Another vessel, the Japanese-flagged container ship One Majesty, was reportedly also damaged while anchored in the Persian Gulf. The damage was only discovered later, around 60 miles from the Strait of Hormuz. There were no reports of casualties.

The vessel seen burning in the video below, from the perspective of crew members who evacuated on a liferaft, is the Thai-flagged cargo vessel, Mayuree Naree Bangkok, which was attacked near the Strait of Hormuz yesterday.

March 10 (UPI) — President Donald Trump posted on social media that the United States has destroyed 10 inactive mine-laying vessels on the Strait of Hormuz while the White House cleared up a claim by another administration official.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday that the U.S. Navy did not escort an oil tanker through the Strait of Hormuz after Energy Secretary Chris Wright claimed it did on social media.

Leavitt said President Donald Trump may consider using Navy escorts for oil tankers on the strait but that has not happened yet.

“The U.S. Navy has not escorted a tanker or vessel at this time,” Leavitt told reporters during a press briefing Tuesday.

Earlier in the day, Wright posted that the U.S. Navy “successfully escorted an oil tanker through the Strait of Hormuz to ensure oil remains flowing to global markets.”

Leavitt said she was “made aware of this post,” but had not spoken with Wright about it.

The post was later taken down.

The price of crude oil fell below $80 per barrel briefly following Wright’s post. It climbed again after the post was deleted.

Iran has taken measures to close the Strait of Hormuz, a critical oil trade route, since the United States and Israel launched strikes on Feb. 28.

To combat the impact the military conflict with Iran will have on the global oil market, the United States has discussed plans to escort oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz. However, retaliatory strikes by Iran have demanded more military resources, Wright previously said.

Today’s sinking of an Iranian warship by a U.S. Navy nuclear attack submarine is a hugely significant event in the annals of military history. After all, you have to go back to the final days of World War II to find the last time a U.S. submarine sank an enemy vessel. Since then, however, submarines under the flags of different navies have sunk vessels in combat.

You can catch up with our coverage of the sinking of the Iranian warship here.

In fact, there are some varying accounts as to which U.S. Navy submarine was the last to sink an enemy vessel. The situation at sea as World War II was drawing to a close in the Pacific was a chaotic one, with an increasingly deadly U.S. Navy submarine force tearing through the remnants of Japanese shipping, with subs racking up multiple victories in a short space of time.

With the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) in disarray and with Japan still reeling from the two atomic bombs dropped on it, what was left of its seagoing force provided relatively easy pickings for U.S. submarine commanders.

As such, it was on VJ-Day, or Victory over Japan Day, that U.S. subs claimed their last victims before today’s action.

According to available records, on August 14, 1945, the same day that saw President Harry S. Truman announce Japan’s unconditional surrender, two U.S. submarines sank three Japanese warships.

The first victim — a Japanese submarine — appears to have fallen to the USS Spikefish (SS-404).

Commissioned in June 1944, the Spikefish was a Balao class submarine, the Navy’s largest submarine class, with 120 boats completed. With a surfaced displacement of 1,526 tons, the Balao was around 311 feet long and had a speed of 20 knots surfaced, reduced to 8.75 knots submerged. Moving on the surface at a speed of 10 knots, the boats could cover 11,000 nautical miles.

As of the night of August 13, 1945, the IJN transport submarine I-373 was surfaced in the East China Sea, southeast of Shanghai. Transport submarines of this type were used by the Japanese to transport troops and supplies between mainland Japan and remote islands. Spikefish sighted the Japanese sub on its radar at 8:10 p.m. and also detected emissions from its air-search radar. Spikefish got closer before losing visual contact, after which the I-373 disappeared below the waves. Just after midnight, Spikefish regained radar contact. At 4:24 a.m., Spikefish fired a spread of six Mk 14 torpedoes at a range of 1,300 yards. Two of the torpedoes hit I-373, sinking it. Spikefish surfaced and found five survivors in the water, all of whom refused rescue, a grim reflection of the bitter fighting at this late stage of the Pacific conflict. One IJN crew member was forcibly brought aboard the U.S. sub; his 84 compatriots died.

In previous days, the USS Torsk, a Tench class submarine, commissioned in December 1944, had been marauding in and around the Tsushima Strait, which lies between Korea and Japan. Here, the boat had been picking off Japanese merchant vessels and warships.

The Tench class was essentially an improvement of the earlier Balao and Gato classes, moderately bigger but more strongly built and with more fuel. These boats had a surfaced displacement of 1,570 tons, were also around 311 feet long, and had similar surfaced and submerged speeds to the Balao. Thanks to their additional fuel capacity, the Tench boats had a range of around 16,000 nautical miles.

On August 14, Torsk encountered a medium-sized Japanese cargo ship accompanied by the Japanese Type C escort vessel CD-47, off Maizuru in the Sea of Japan. At 10:35 a.m., Torsk launched a Mk 28 torpedo, an experimental type with acoustic homing. The torpedo smashed a hole in the stern of the escort, which quickly went below the waves. An attempt was made to sink the cargo ship, too, as it entered harbor, but the torpedoes missed.

At around midday, a second Type C escort vessel, CD-13, arrived, apparently in pursuit of Torsk. After firing off a Mk 28 torpedo, Torsk dived for safety. From a depth of 400 feet, Torsk launched a Mk 27 torpedo, a weapon known as “CUTIE,” this time with passive homing. The hydrophone operator on the Torsk then detected a large explosion, indicating the Mk 28 had found its target. The Mk 27 impacted moments later.

While the timings are not entirely clear, CD-13 is widely identified as being the last Japanese warship to be sunk in World War II, and therefore the last enemy vessel to have been sunk by a U.S. submarine until today.

The war still wasn’t over for Torsk, however. With more patrol vessels arriving, plus patrol aircraft, the submarine had to remain submerged for more than seven hours after CD-13 went under. After this date, other Japanese vessels would continue to be sunk by mines that had been laid earlier, including by submarines.

Torsk received two battle stars for its World War II service and is today preserved in the Historic Ships collection in Baltimore.

At a press conference today, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said that the sinking of an Iranian warship by an as-yet unidentified U.S. submarine marked the “first sinking of an enemy ship by a torpedo since World War II.”

This is not true.

The Torsk may have been the last U.S. submarine to have sunk an enemy ship prior to today, but other navies have achieved the same feat.

Back in 1971, during the Indo-Pakistan War, the Indian Navy frigate INS Khukri was sunk by the Pakistan Navy submarine PNS Hangor. The Khukri, with a displacement of around 1,200 tons, became the first warship anywhere to fall prey to a submarine since the end of World War II.

The Falklands War, fought in the South Atlantic in 1982, between the United Kingdom and Argentina, saw the first instance of a nuclear-powered submarine sinking an enemy vessel.

On May 2, 1982, in a somewhat controversial incident, the Argentine Navy cruiser ARA General Belgrano was sunk by a torpedo launched by the British nuclear-powered attack submarine HMS Conqueror, with the loss of over 300 crew.

The controversy around the incident centers upon the fact that General Belgrano was targeted when it was outside a so-called ‘total exclusion zone,’ covering a 200-nautical-mile radius from the Falklands. While there were subsequent protests about the legality of the action, the fact remains that the British had previously warned Argentina that any ships that posed a potential threat to its own task force would be sunk.

Until the sinking of the Russian Navy’s Slava class cruiser Moskva by Ukrainian anti-ship missiles in 2022, the sinking of the General Belgrano was the last time a cruiser was fully destroyed by enemy action.

Another disputed incident occurred in 2010, with the sinking of the South Korean warship ROKS Cheonan.

On March 26, 2010, the Cheonan, a Pohang class corvette, sank in the Yellow Sea, off the country’s west coast, killing 46 of the 104 personnel on board. Exactly why the warship sank remains a matter of conjecture, although a South Korean-led investigation concluded that the vessel was sunk by a North Korean torpedo fired by a midget submarine. The U.S. Navy also stated that the sinking was caused by a non-contact homing torpedo that exploded near the ship. North Korea denied responsibility.

The manner of the sinking certainly appears consistent with a torpedo hit, with an explosion reported near the stern of the ship that caused it to break in half soon afterward.

Since then, the closest we have come to seeing submarines destroying other vessels has been sinking exercises (SINKEX) and similar tests. At times, these have also provided a rare glimpse into the effects of potential adversaries’ submarine weapons capabilities. Case in point, the sinking of a decommissioned Chinese amphibious landing ship by a People’s Liberation Army Navy submarine, seen in the video below: 

The cloak-and-dagger nature of submarine operations means that many details about their use in combat remain closely guarded secrets. In the case of the Cheonan, we may never exactly know what happened to it. For the time being, we also await more information about today’s sinking of the Iranian frigate. What is certain, however, is that this was an unprecedented event, at least as far as the modern U.S. Navy is concerned, and a truly rare action by any standards.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

U.S. Navy could soon be escorting commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz, where maritime traffic has effectively stopped due to the current conflict with Iran, according to President Donald Trump. Doing so would demand that American naval vessels transit through the Strait, shifting them away from other duties. More importantly, it would also mean putting them right in a super weapons engagement zone full of Iranian threats that could include cruise and ballistic missiles, one-way-attack drones, explosive-laden kamikaze boats, and naval mines.

“If necessary, the United States Navy will begin escorting tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, as soon as possible,” President Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social social media network.

“Effective IMMEDIATELY, I have ordered the United States Development Finance Corporation (DFC) to provide, at a very reasonable price, political risk insurance and guarantees for the Financial Security of ALL Maritime Trade, especially Energy, traveling through the Gulf,” he also wrote. “This will be available to all Shipping Lines.”

“No matter what, the United States will ensure the FREE FLOW of ENERGY to the WORLD. The United States’ ECONOMIC and MILITARY MIGHT is the GREATEST ON EARTH,” he added. “More actions to come.”

U.S. Central Command declined to comment when reached for more details. TWZ has also reached out to the White House.

The Strait of Hormuz, which links the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, is just 20 nautical miles across at its narrowest point. A significant portion of the waterway falls within Iran’s national waters, which also overlap with those of Oman to the south. Under normal conditions, maritime traffic flows in and out through a pair of established two-mile-wide shipping lanes. Each year, roughly one-fifth of all global oil shipments, and an even higher percentage of seaborne shipments, pass through this one waterway. It is also a major conduit for liquid natural gas exports. Some 3,000 ships, including tankers and container ships, pass through each month.

Politico had earlier reported that President Trump’s administration was considering both of these courses of action, citing unnamed sources.

“It’s becoming a growing concern that the energy markets could face pressures in the coming days as the military campaign intensifies and expands in geographic scope,” one individual said to be familiar with the discussions told that outlet. “Access to the Straits [sic] of Hormuz is obviously vital for both natural gas and crude oil shipments, especially from Qatar and Saudi [Arabia].”

Lloyd’s List has also reported that Trump’s announcement came “less than 24 hours after Navy officials told shipping industry representatives that there was ‘no chance’ of escorts happening any time soon.”

Several civilian vessels have already suffered attacks in and around the Strait since the United States and Israel launched their joint operation against Iran this past weekend. Though American officials insist that Iranian forces have been unable to seal off the highly strategic waterway, maritime traffic through it has now come to a near halt amid the ongoing fighting. Some ships appear to be making the transit with the transporters turned off to reduce the chance of being targeted. The real danger of attack has been compounded by insurers cancelling war risk policies ahead of what are expected to be major rate hikes.

Iranian retaliatory attacks have also been hitting port facilities, as well as energy infrastructure, in multiple Gulf Arab states. As noted, if this situation persists, the potential knock-on effects on global oil and natural gas markets could quickly become severe. Since Iranian authorities have repeatedly threatened to blockade the Strait of Hormuz in the event of a major crisis that threatens the regime, TWZ has explored all of this in detail in the past.

Iranian attack drones struck oil storage infrastructure in Fujairah, UAE, this morning, causing a large fire.

Notably, Fujairah is the only major oil export terminal in the UAE that avoids the now-closed Strait of Hormuz. pic.twitter.com/DdAbVOyRoc

— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) March 3, 2026

This is not the first time that the United States has been faced with this predicament or decided to start escorting commercial vessels through the region as a result. The U.S. Navy did just this in the late 1980s during the Tanker War sideshow to the Iran-Iraq War. At the same time, that experience underscores the immense amount of resources such a campaign could require, as well as the risks.

At the peak of those operations, there were some 30 American warships escorting commercial vessels to and from the Persian Gulf. Aircraft, special operations forces, and other assets were also deployed in support. The risks to American service members, as well as the ships they were tasked to safeguard, were very real.

Shortly before the escort mission began in 1987, the Oliver Hazard Perry class frigate USS Stark was struck by two French-made Exocet anti-ship cruise missiles fired from an Iraqi aircraft as it sailed in the Persian Gulf. The government of Iraq, then led by Saddam Hussein, apologized, claiming they had mistaken the Americans for an Iranian tanker. In the end, 37 U.S. Navy personnel died, and 21 more were wounded.

In 1988, the USS Samuel B. Roberts, another Oliver Hazard Perry class frigate, was severely damaged after hitting an Iranian naval mine in the Persian Gulf while supporting the escort mission. 10 sailors were injured, but there were thankfully no fatalities.

In the course of the Tanker War, 450 commercial ships also came under attack, and many were damaged or even sunk by missiles, mines, and other threats.

More recently, the U.S. military, as well as the European Union, have established naval task forces to help ensure the free flow of maritime commerce through the Strait of Hormuz, as well as elsewhere in the Middle East. When it comes to Iran, those forces have primarily been called on to respond to attempts to seize ships or otherwise harass them. In the past decade or so, outright Iranian attacks on ships in and around the Persian Gulf have generally been covert and sporadic.

U.S. fires warning shots at Iranian fast boats.

The U.S. Navy released the video below in 2019 in relation to an Iranian covert limpet mine attack on a commercial ship in the Gulf of Oman.

Limpet Mine Attack in the Gulf of Oman: JUNE 13, 2019

Escorting commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz now would involve U.S. Navy warships sailing right into an extremely high-threat zone in the midst of a conflict that has already taken on a regional character.

In general, the U.S. Navy, as well as commercial shipping companies, have loathed convoy operations despite the benefits they offer. As already noted, these missions can be very resource-intensive, as well as risky. Ships tasked with these missions are then also not available for other duties, including striking targets ashore or helping defend other assets. It can also be very time-consuming to assemble maritime convoys and then escort them to their destination. You can read more about all this in a past TWZ feature here.

For all the lessons the U.S. military learned during the Tanker War, Iran has also significantly expanded the scale and scope of anti-ship capabilities since then, as we regularly highlight. Iran’s missile, drone, and naval forces have been degraded just in the past few days of intensive U.S.-Israeli strikes. How much Iran was able to reconstitute missile and other capabilities in the aftermath of losses during the 12 Day War with Israel last year is also unclear.

Two days ago, the Iranian regime had 11 ships in the Gulf of Oman, today they have ZERO. The Iranian regime has harassed and attacked international shipping in the Gulf of Oman for decades. Those days are over. Freedom of maritime navigation has underpinned American and global… pic.twitter.com/nzdkMVMqZC

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) March 2, 2026

The Iranian regime’s killer drones have been a menace in the Middle East for years. These drones are no longer a tolerable risk. pic.twitter.com/76yhDKI6OW

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) March 3, 2026

At the same time, much of Iran’s shorter-range missile and drone arsenal is understood to be untouched, as well as dispersed, making interdiction now more challenging. Yesterday, U.S. Secretary of State and acting National Security Advisor Marco Rubio highlighted these threats and the dangers they pose.

SECRETARY RUBIO: The United States is conducting an operation to eliminate the threat of Iran’s short range ballistic missiles and the threat posed by their navy, particularly to naval assets.

That is what the U.S. is focused on right now and is doing quite successfully. pic.twitter.com/zWKBOLVstH

— Department of State (@StateDept) March 2, 2026

Iranian-backed Houthi militants in Yemen were able to cause massive disruptions in maritime traffic in and around the Red Sea between late 2023 and early 2025 using just a portion of what Iran itself could still potentially bring to bear. The U.S. response to Houthi attacks, which included naval deployments to help safeguard commercial shipping, did provide additional valuable lessons learned. It also underscored very real risks to naval assets in environments full of missile and drone threats, as well as to aircraft, including stealth types, flying overhead.

The narrowness of the Strait of Hormuz, as well as the insular nature of the Persian Gulf, creates additional challenges and risks compared to operations in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden because there is simply less space to maneuver. Iranian anti-ship cruise and ballistic missiles, as well as one-way-attack drones, can be fired from road-mobile launchers, including ones disguised as civilian trucks, making it even more difficult to find and fix threats in advance. Proximity in the littoral zone to these threats only further reduces the time available to react.

The Iranian regime is using mobile launchers to indiscriminately fire missiles in an attempt to inflict maximum harm across the region. U.S. forces are hunting these threats down and without apology or hesitation, we are taking them out. pic.twitter.com/gv1SfKCrk4

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) March 3, 2026

Escort operations mean that American warships would need to transit through the highest threat areas repeatedly, as well, which would only give Iranian forces more engagement opportunities. There is a reason why U.S. naval vessels are currently operating well away from the Persian Gulf in the Arabian Sea, as well as the Eastern Mediterranean.

U.S. naval facilities, as well as civilian ports, on the opposite side of the Persian Gulf have also come under Iranian attack in the past few days, and would not be guaranteed sanctuaries to shelter in. Iranian retaliatory attacks across the Middle East are already showing the limits of some of the most modern air defense capabilities on Earth, especially when faced with large volumes and/or complex mixtures of disparate incoming threats.

An Iranian one-way attack drone, likely a Shahed-136, filmed scoring a direct hit earlier Saturday on the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet Headquarters at Naval Support Activity Bahrain in Juffair, located in Manama, the capital of Bahrain. pic.twitter.com/O9AVD7DmzC

— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) February 28, 2026

It is possible that U.S. allies and partners could help bolster an operation to protect regional shipping that is sufficiently separate from U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran. The United Kingdom and France are already conducting defense missions to intercept incoming Iranian threats around the Persian Gulf, as well as in the Eastern Mediterranean. Both of those countries, among others, are also sending more forces to bolster defenses around the region. As already made clear, a protracted upending of oil and natural gas exports from the Arabian Peninsula, as well as Iran itself, will reverberate globally.

TWZ has pointed to this reality in the past as raising key questions about whether the Iranian regime would have the political will, let alone the materiel capacity, to blockade the Strait of Hormuz. For now, though, as we wrote just this morning:

“Increased targeting of Gulf Arab States’ oil and natural gas production is part of a clear Iranian strategy to put pressure on those countries to, in turn, create complications for the United States. As the economic pressure builds, the idea is that these countries will seek to end the conflict, and/or that relations with the U.S. will sour. The prospect of major, long-term disruptions in energy exports from the region has global ramifications, as well, which could bring immense external pressure to end the conflict. There is also the aspect of drawing Arab countries into the conflict, which would complicate it politically and militarily. In addition, some energy targets are not as well defended as U.S. bases in the region, for instance, and scoring hits with the now finite weapons Iran has on hand becomes easier.”

How this will continue to play out, especially if more countries begin to take ostensibly defensive action against Iranian threats, is unknown. There is a very real potential for Iran’s strategy to backfire if the crisis begins to take a toll economically well beyond the Middle East.

U.S. Navy warships escorting commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz could help soften those impacts, but not without major risks, as well as the expenditure of significant resources. Risks would remain for shipping companies too, who could still be reluctant to make the transit, especially with uncertain insurance guarantees.

Overall, it remains to be seen how a U.S. mission to get oil and gas flowing again through the Strait of Hormuz might materialize.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

The U.S. Navy is exploring options for a new long-range anti-radiation missile designed to home in on radars to help neutralize enemy air defense networks. The capabilities the service wants for this Advanced Emission Suppression Missile (AESM) sound curiously similar to the ones it is already working to acquire through the AGM-88G Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile-Extended Range (AARGM-ER). There is one crucial difference: the AESM needs to be able to engage targets in the air, as well as on the ground. This would give the Navy a single missile it could use to attack critical airborne early warning and control planes, as well as potentially other aerial targets, and air defenses down below.

Naval Air Systems Command’s (NAVAIR) Program Executive Office for Unmanned Aviation and Strike Weapons (PEO U&W) recently put out a contracting notice regarding the AESM.

NAVAIR is “conducting market research to identify potential sources capable of providing an advanced, anti-radiation guided missile weapon system, or key subsystems thereof, with a longer range than existing in the Navy’s current inventory, including associated engineering, manufacturing, testing, and logistics support,” the notice explains. “This All Up Round (AUR) must be compatible with existing launch platforms (e.g. F-18, F-35) and infrastructure currently supporting the Navy and Air Force’s existing inventory of anti-radiation guided missiles.”

The notice later elaborates that AESM needs to be compatible, at least, with the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, EA-18G Growler, and F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. It is unclear whether “existing inventory of anti-radiation guided missiles” includes the AARGM-ER, which is a substantial new evolution of the AGM-88 design and is still under development. TWZ has reached out to NAVAIR for more information.

“NAVAIR is seeking to enhance its capabilities to suppress and neutralize enemy air defenses in contested environments,” the AESM notice adds. “This effort aims to identify and potentially acquire a weapon system that provides similar or improved capabilities compared to its current weapons inventory, focusing on extended range, advanced targeting, counter-countermeasures, and integration with existing and future platforms.”

No specific range requirement is included in the notice beyond that AESM needs to be capable of “engaging targets at significant standoff distances.” The missile also needs to have an “advanced anti-radiation seeker with broad frequency coverage,” the “ability to target modern and advanced radar systems,” a “precision navigation and guidance system (e.g., GPS/INS with anti-jamming capabilities),” and the “potential for pre-emptive targeting capabilities.”

Much of this sounds, at least in broad strokes, like the requirements for the AGM-88G. “The AARGM-ER incorporates hardware and software modifications to improve AGM-88E AARGM capabilities to include extended range, survivability and effectiveness against future threats,” according to NAVAIR’s own website.

However, as noted, the requirements laid out in the AESM notice notably differ from those for AARGM-ER in one key respect: the explicit call for anti-air engagement capability. Prospective offers are required to “describe ability to engage air-to-air and air-to-ground targets.”

AESM also needs to have “robust ECCM [electronic counter-countermeasures] capabilities to defeat enemy countermeasures, including chaff, flares, jamming and anti-ARM [anti-radiation missile] techniques.” This might also point further to emphasis on the air-to-air role. Radar blinding chaff and infrared decoy flares are countermeasures typically associated with the air and naval domains.

U.S. military interest in very-long-range air-to-air capable anti-radiation missiles traces all the way back to the Cold War, primarily as a means for engaging enemy airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) planes. Anti-air weapons designed around this role are often colloquially referred to as ‘AWACS killers,’ a reference to the U.S. E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft. A very-long-range air-to-air missile could be used against other aerial targets, as well.

This is also not the first time the Navy, as well as the U.S. Air Force, has pursued an air-launched weapon that would blend together traditional anti-radiation and air-to-air capabilities. Starting in the mid-2000s, the two services worked together on a single missile to replace the AGM-88 and the AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM) dubbed the Joint Dual-Role Air Dominance Missile (JDRADM), which then evolved into the Next Generation Missile (NGM). The NGM effort came to an end, at least publicly, in 2013, ostensibly over high costs. A more secretive parallel development effort, called the Triple Target Terminator (T-3), continued for at least some time afterward. A possible successor to T-3, called the Long Range Engagement Weapon (LREW), emerged in 2017. How far the LREW effort subsequently progressed, and what its current status might be, are unclear.

All that being said, the value of an ‘AWACS killer’ missile is clear-cut. AEW&C are critical surveillance and battle management assets. Shooting them down deprives an opponent of those capabilities, inherently reducing their ability to effectively maneuver air assets and share important information, including with other nodes on the ground or at sea, as well as in the air. Knocking out these flying radar stations, which can be especially well-suited to spotting lower flying threats from their high perches, just hampers an enemy’s overall situational awareness.

The issue, of course, is that AEW&C planes typically orbit well behind the front edges of a conflict, creating additional challenges for targeting them. This is where something like AESM could come into play. A weapon of this type could engage other aerial targets by zeroing in on the radiofrequency emissions they pump out. This could include electronic warfare aircraft, and potentially other aerial targets. AESM might be able to take on a more general anti-air role with the addition of an active radar and/or imaging infrared seeker, as well as datalinks allowing for the use of networked targeting data. AARGM and AARGM-ER both feature an active millimeter-wave radar seeker to enable them to hit fleeing ground targets, but a similar concept could be adapted for air-to-air use.

AARGM F-18

For the Navy, as well as other branches of the U.S. military, this is all particularly relevant in the context of a potential future high-end fight with China, which has made major investments in its fleets of AEW&C and electronic warfare planes. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has also been pursuing ever-longer-ranged anti-air missiles, including types that could be used to target American AEW&C platforms, as well as other key support aircraft.

TWZ has previously highlighted much of this in a past feature discussing the use cases for the Navy’s new AIM-174B air-launched version of the Standard Missile 6 (SM-6), which was officially unveiled in 2024. Navy officials have previously hinted at further long-range air-to-air capabilities to come when talking about the AIM-174B.

How The Navy’s New Very Long-Range AIM-174 Will Pierce China’s Anti-Access Bubble

“Clearly we recognize that we’ve got to find opportunities to increase reach and range for our weapons,” Navy Rear Adm. Michael “Buzz” Donnelly, then director of the Air Warfare Division (N98) within the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, said at the Navy League’s annual Sea Air Space symposium in April 2025. “We’re doing it in air-to-air. We just recently fielded the air-launched SM-6, or the AIM-174, that we’re capable of carrying off the F-18 Super Hornet. And we’ll look at increasing range and incrementing beyond that.”

“That’s [the AIM-174B] an operational capability. And, as you can see, that one being revealed and shown into the area, there are many more behind [it], things that we’re doing there, making sure that we are staying ahead of the conflict, making sure that we’re prepared for the fight that’s going on,” Navy Rear Adm. Keith Hash, head of NAVAIR’s Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division (NAWCWD), also said during a panel discussion at the WEST 2025 conference in January 2025. “And those activities and that development is active and strong.”

In addition, the Navy is now working together with the U.S. Air Force on the development of the AIM-260 Joint Advanced Tactical Missile. The AIM-260 is intended as a longer-range and otherwise more capable direct successor to the AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM).

As described now, AESM would also offer air-to-surface capabilities in line with a traditional anti-radiation missile in the same package. Even in a future missile ecosystem that also includes the AGM-88G, AIM-174B, and AIM-260, having a single hybrid anti-air/anti-radiation missile would offer extremely useful additional flexibility, especially for addressing threats that might appear unexpectedly in the course of a mission.

One missile capable of being used in those disparate roles could also offer valuable magazine depth benefits, particularly if it has a form factor that allows it to be carried internally by various stealthy crewed aircraft, such as the F-35, and/or advanced combat drones. There had been some speculation that the aforementioned LREW effort, and possibly one or more of its predecessors, had been aiming for a missile that could serve in the anti-radiation and air-to-air roles, and fit inside F-22 and F-35 weapon bays. At the same time, a missile designed to be carried externally could help maximize range, which would be an important consideration for AESM. As an aside, scalable missile concepts have been raised in the past as a way to readily adapt a core design for internal or external carriage.

Altgoether, there is a possibility that AESM requirements could be met by a further variation on the AARGM-ER design. The U.S. Air Force is also already acquiring a more general high-speed strike derivative of that missile called the Stand-In Attack Weapon (SiAW). Prime contractor Northrop Grumman has also proposed a surface-to-surface version called the Advanced Reactive Strike Missile (AReS).

The “market research” the Navy is doing now is intended to see what other options might be available. The AESM contracting also highlights the possibility of a weapon that could be further exported to allies and partners. Additional customers could help defray development and acquisition costs, and support production at scale.

Much is still to be learned about the Navy’s plans for AESM, but the Navy certainly seems to have kicked off a new hunt for an ‘AWACS killer’ type missile that could also be used against other targets in the air and on the surface.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com