Three Saronic Corsairs carried out the first US sea-drone combat strike, CENTCOM says

CENTCOM named the platform behind the first combat strike by American sea drones: three Saronic-built Corsairs hit Iran's Bandar Abbas naval port on July 12.

US Central Command has put a name on the boats behind the first combat strike by American sea drones. Three Corsair unmanned surface vessels, built by Austin's Saronic Technologies, hit what the command called "a submarine and ship maintenance facility" at Iran's Bandar Abbas Naval Base on July 12, Defence Blog wrote Monday.

"Three Corsair unmanned surface vessels hit the port at Bandar Abbas Naval Base, marking the first time American forces have employed sea drones in combat operations," CENTCOM said in a post on X carrying 24 seconds of strike video, adding the attack "degraded Iran's ability to continue attacking commercial shipping." The command's first announcement, a day earlier, named neither the type nor the builder. Carl Schuster, a former Pacific Command intelligence director, had told CNN the Fleet-class USV was the likelier one-way candidate.

CENTCOM identified no submarine by class. Times of India described the target as infrastructure used for submarine and naval vessel maintenance, and Dawn read the statement the same way, a repair site rather than a named hull. The strike closed a week in which US forces hit more than 300 Iranian targets after attacks on tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, Task & Purpose reported.

The Corsair runs 24 feet, carries up to 1,000 pounds about 1,000 nautical miles and tops 35 knots, with one operator supervising several boats at once, according to company specifications cited by Defence Blog. The same report puts Saronic's December 2024 Navy production contract at $392 million and dates Task Force 59's fielding of the boats in the Middle East to late March. The type already holds one first: a Corsair pulled two downed Apache aviators from the water off Oman on June 8, the first known personnel recovery at sea by an uncrewed vessel, Defence Blog noted.

Ukraine has shown what explosive-laden drone boats do to warships, Task & Purpose pointed out, and the US has now used the tactic with a startup's 24-foot hull rather than a warship. Saronic's larger Marauder is one of seven designs in the Navy's MUSV at-sea tests, which finish by October with $15 million and production eligibility for each design that passes, per USNI News. Saronic enters those final months as the only entrant whose boats already carry a combat strike on their record.