Ocean Warrior Defenses: Why "No" U.S. Navy Ships Have Been Hit
Kris Osborn
3d
Updated at May 11, 2026, 21:11
Advanced multi-layered sensors and rapid-fire interceptors provide a lethal shield, neutralizing Iranian and Houthi projectiles long before they can penetrate the Navy’s sophisticated, tiered defensive perimeters.
by Kris Osborn, Warrior Maven
U.S. Central Command has simply said “no,” a U.S. Navy warship was “not” hit by Iranian missiles in the Strait of Hormuz, despite claims from Iran’s IRGC-aligned Fars News Agency that a U.S. Frigate was hit. A statement from U.S. Central Command acknowledged that the U.S. was operating in the region but said unequivocally that “no” U.S. ships were hit.
This CentCom statement aligns with the U.S. Navy’s experience thus far, as no U.S. Navy warships have actually been “hit” in the Red Sea or Strait of Hormuz in recent years, despite hundreds of attempted Iranian and Houthi missile and drone attacks. As for “why” there has been no actual “hit” of a U.S. Navy warship, there are numerous reasons or variables which explain this pertaining to weapons, tactics, doctrine, sensing and multi-domain “sensing.”
The U.S. Navy’s multi-layered warship defenses are extremely significant, as they operate with a ‘tiered” or “range-based” ability to destroy incoming threats from great distances all the way into close-in threats. In the unlikely event that a threat manages to pass through several longer-range layers of ship-defenses, U.S. Navy warships are armed with deck-mounted guns, close-in interceptor missiles and “area” weapons such as the Close-in-Weapons System (CWIS). The CWIS is a phalanx gun capable of firing 4,500 rounds of tungsten “steel” projectiles a minute to blanket an area with defensive fire. Approaching drones or small boats which manage to get within close range of Navy warships will be quickly “hit” with these weapons. However, in most cases in the Middle East in recent years, it seems threats have not often penetrated outer layers of ship defenses such that they needed to be engaged with the closest-in systems.
Multi-Domain Sensing
https://warriormaven.com/news/sea/ocean-warrior-defenses-why-no-u-s-navy-ships-have-been-hit
