US Military Used Explosive Drone Boats in Combat for the First Time
On the night of July 12, three unmanned sea drones destroyed an Iranian submarine and a naval maintenance facility. America had never used this kind of weapon in a real attack before.
Key points
- On July 12, 2025, US Central Command deployed three one-way attack surface drones, unmanned boats loaded with explosives that steer themselves into a target and detonate, against Iranian military assets.
- The strikes hit a Ghadir-class midget submarine (a small, short-range submarine designed for coastal patrols) and a ship maintenance facility at Iran's Bandar Abbas Naval Base.
- US Central Command confirmed this was the first time American forces had ever used sea drones in live combat.
- Iran and Houthi forces in Yemen had already demonstrated similar weapons roughly a decade earlier, making the US a late but now active user of the technology.
Three small boats, packed with explosives and no crew, crossed the water toward Iran's Bandar Abbas Naval Base on the night of July 12. They did not turn back.
US Central Command, the American military command that oversees operations across the Middle East, confirmed the attack in a public post and released video footage of the explosions. It called the strikes the "first time American forces have employed sea drones in combat operations." These drones are one-way weapons: they approach a target slowly, then explode on contact, functioning like a naval version of a kamikaze aircraft.
One target was a Ghadir-class midget submarine, a small, short-range vessel Iran uses for coastal operations. The submarine was not in the water. It was suspended above the dock by a gantry, a large overhead crane frame used for maintenance, when the drone hit it. The second target was the maintenance facility itself.
According to reporting first published by USNI News, a news service run by the nonprofit US Naval Institute, the drones made a "low-speed, uncontested approach" to both targets. Nothing intercepted them.
Iran and Houthi forces in Yemen had been fielding similar explosive drone boats for close to a decade. Houthi groups used them against shipping in the Red Sea with notable effect. The US watched all of that. Now it has crossed into the same territory.
What does this mean for people outside the military?
For most readers, the immediate effect is indirect. Bandar Abbas sits at the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow channel through which roughly 20 percent of the world's oil supply travels. Any escalation in that area can push fuel prices upward, so what happens in that strait has a way of reaching the petrol pump. Beyond that, this strike signals a shift in how the US conducts precision attacks: cheaper, crewless, and harder to attribute in the moment than a missile strike or a manned aircraft.
The cost gap matters here. A crewed naval operation in a defended harbour carries enormous risk to personnel. A small autonomous boat costs a fraction of a destroyer mission and puts no sailors in danger. That calculus will shape military decisions well beyond this single strike.
The US has now joined Iran, Russia, and Houthi forces as an active user of explosive drone boats in real conflict. The weapon proved itself. Expect to see it again.
