Exploding attack drones causing chaos in the Middle East are no match for US Navy warships, former captains say

• Iran and its proxies have increasingly used drones for attacks in the Middle East.
• These drones have struck commercial ships and been shot down by US Navy warships in the region.

US Navy aircraft carriers and other warships regularly sail through dangerous waters and are facing an evolving threat that has caused headaches for both militaries and civilians from the Middle East to Eastern Europe.

Drones, particularly exploding one-way attack drones, used by Iran and proxy groups supported by Tehran are a manageable challenge, but warfare is always changing. Although US warships, such as the carrier strike group on patrol in key Middle Eastern waters, have proven they can handle this threat today, the future may be less certain.

The employment of one-way attack drones in the Middle East by Iran and its allies is not a new phenomenon. Over the past few years, these deadly weapons have been launched by Houthi rebels in Yemen at oil facilities in Saudi Arabia, militias in Iraq and Syria at US forces based in those two countries, and even Tehran itself at commercial ships transiting key waterways in the region. But the use of these weapons is on the rise.

Since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war, the Pentagon has outlined scores of one-way drone attacks carried out by Iran-backed actors across the region. The militias in Iraq and Syria, for example, have used drones and rockets to target US forces there on a regular basis.

In waters off the coast of Yemen, American and French warships have repeatedly shot down Houthi one-way attack drones launched by the rebels as they continue to attack commercial ships. Some drones have even flown directly at US Navy destroyers, forcing the ships to defend themselves with force. At least one of the downed drones has been identified by the US military as an Iranian-produced KAS-04 system, which is also known as a Samad drone.

The most well-known — and perhaps notorious — of Iran's one-way attack drones is the Shahed-136. Though it's called a drone, this weapon is technically a loitering munition, which means it can lurk above a target before flying directly into it and detonating. The Iranian Shahed-136 is a small system that features a delta-wing shape and can carry an explosive payload of up to an estimated 110 pounds.

The Shaheds mainly garnered attention due to their relentless use by Russia against Ukraine's civilian infrastructure, but this type of weapon has also been involved in attacks around the Middle East — including strikes on multiple commercial vessels.

The rise in use of one-way attack drones such as these is changing the operating environment in Middle Eastern waters, where the US Navy regularly patrols. American warships are now having to consider the threat posed by lethal unmanned systems.

Naval-warfare experts say well-armed US warships and carrier strike groups have plenty of capabilities to successfully defend themselves from one-way attack drones before they could even put a vessel at risk, including advanced radars, close-in weapons systems, surface-to-air missiles, and other sophisticated armaments.

Sam Tangredi, a retired US Navy captain and surface warfare officer, said one way for a warship to defeat drones was by using the Phalanx close-in weapon system, which is an automatic gun that fires 20mm rounds. For greater ranges, the crew could use SM-2 missiles, although this would impose higher costs for the defenders, he said.

"An even better option might be gunfire from aircraft or even an attack helicopter," Tangredi, now the Leidos Chair of Future Warfare Studies at the US Naval War College, said in emailed remarks to Business Insider. "If the drones loiter — which is really the whole point of using them — that is certainly possible."

Individual drones may not be a significant threat on their own, but a concern with one-way attack drones and loitering munitions is that multiple systems could be fired in a salvo during a relatively short period of time in an attempt to overwhelm — or swarm — a target's defenses. The Russian military has attempted to do this with the Shaheds in Ukraine. Although Kyiv's air-defense network has been largely successful in stopping them, some of the drones make it through to their target.

Such an attack, however, requires a significant amount of coordination and sophistication against moving targets like warships, experts say. It would also require preparations that could be spotted by aerial surveillance assets.

"It's definitely a challenge when there's a lot of stuff up there, but then it kind of turns into a shooting gallery," Bradley Martin, a retired US Navy surface warfare captain, told BI. "They have to be able to fly through everything that the ships are throwing up in order to actually hit something."

"One thing the US Navy's actually quite good at is air defense," Martin, now a senior policy researcher at the RAND Cooperation think tank, added. "So I certainly don't dismiss a threat at all — not in any way, shape, or form — but I would say it's something that's capable of being handled."

Even if a few one-way attack drones somehow make it past a warship's defenses, it's not certain that they will hit their targets, and if they do, tactical success is not a guarantee. These systems have relatively small warheads and are unlikely to cause much damage to the vessel compared with what a much larger missile could do.

The drones could distract defenses for a missile, though. Iranian proxies have been using them together. The Navy has, however, been up to the task.

One-way attack drones "are not superweapons," Tangredi said. "They are basically low-explosive missiles that can loiter in the air while being directed to or seeking a target. In order to do so, they have to fly very slow, thus presenting themselves as a target for defense weapons that could never stop a Mach 3 ballistic or cruise missile."

Frequent provocations involving drones by Iran's proxy groups over the past two months have been directly tied to the Israel-Hamas war, and during this time, US Navy ships in the Middle East have only been shooting down threats off the coast of Yemen, where the Iran-backed Houthis are active.

But Farzin Nadimi, a senior fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said the possibility of escalation in waters closer to Iran should not be dismissed.

The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower carrier strike group recently entered the Persian Gulf — separating Iran from its historical rival, Saudi Arabia — after the collection of warships deployed to the Middle East in the wake of Hamas' October 7 terror attacks. Iran has drone capabilities, including bases, in the area, and it's not a fan of having the Navy operating nearby.

Nadimi told BI that the presence of the carrier strike group strike in the region was a risky move because it exposed the warships to a variety of Iranian offensive capabilities there. But at the same time, he added, it sent a strong message to Iran that the US military is in the Gulf region to stay and protect commercial ships, which have frequently come under attack by Tehran's forces.

"Any attack against the Eisenhower carrier strike group would be considered a declaration of war," Nadimi said. He added that a strike on a US warship in the Gulf region was most likely the "last thing" Iran would want to do right now.

"But obviously," he said, "the threat should not be dismissed, and their intentions — their activities — should be monitored constantly with both manned and unmanned assets."

For now, Iran and its proxies mainly pose a risk to commercial shipping in the Persian Gulf and off the coast of Yemen. But a US defense official said that if that changes, the Pentagon was "well-postured" to safeguard its assets in the region.

"It's a very dynamic environment," the official told BI. "So as the threat evolves, the posture is adjusted to ensure we do what we need to do to protect our forces."