USS Boxer Downs Iranian Drone in ‘Defensive Action’

July 19, 2019

USNI News:

Amphibious warship USS Boxer (LHD-4) took down an Iranian drone that U.S. officials say threatened the ship as it entered the Persian Gulf on Thursday.

At about 10 a.m. local time, Boxer was transiting Strait of Hormuz when an Iranian fixed-wing drone approached the ship, a defense official told USNI News.

“A fixed-wing unmanned aerial system (UAS) approached Boxer and closed within a threatening range. The ship took defensive action against the UAS to ensure the safety of the ship and its crew,” a Pentagon spokesman said in a Thursday afternoon statement provided to USNI News.

The statement did not detail the method in which Boxer downed the drone. The ship is armed with RIM-7 Sea Sparrow short-range anti-ship missiles, and the RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missile (RAM) and Phalanx CIWS point defense weapons systems. Additionally, the Navy and the Marine Corps have begun to field a wide variety of non-kinetic systems capable of downing a drone by other means.

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