Watch: US Military Unleashes Suicide Drone-Boat Swarm On Iranian Submarine Facility

Three U.S. Navy-backed Saronic Corsair one-way attack sea drones struck Iran's Bandar Abbas Naval Base on Sunday, according to U.S. Central Command.

The operation marks the clearest sign yet that the U.S. military has taken a page directly from Ukraine's maritime warfare playbook, using expendable, autonomous, suicide stealth drone boats to penetrate a heavily defended naval facility - much cheaper than a million-dollar missile.

Yesterday, using multiple one-way attack surface drones, CENTCOM forces successfully struck a submarine and ship maintenance facility in Iran. Three Corsair unmanned surface vessels hit the port at Bandar Abbas Naval Base, marking the first time American forces have employed sea… pic.twitter.com/bOM2kmgRxz

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) July 13, 2026

More broadly, the combat debut of suicide drone boats and AI-enabled loitering munitions shows how technologies once thought to be in the future- perhaps the 2030s - are being pulled forward into the present.

Three weeks into the US-Iran conflict. We briefed readers on the deployment of these suicide drone boats and one-way attack drones that the US military was rapidly deploying.

Read:

• US Deploys Ukrainian-Style Drone Boat In Iran War As AI Weapons Race Accelerates

Now that autonomous strike drones are being deployed, the next phase is the U.S. military procurement cycle, which means tens of thousands, and potentially hundreds of thousands, of these robots will need to be ordered. We have detailed how readers can position into the "Asymmetric Warfare Boom." Read more here.