The Battle for Hormuz: How Two American Destroyers Survived a Multi-Domain Swarm Attack

The Battle for Hormuz: How Two American Destroyers Survived a Multi-Domain Swarm Attack

In one of the most complex and intense naval confrontations in recent history, two American destroyers faced a multi-dimensional attack in the Strait of Hormuz on May 4th, 2024. What should have been a straightforward military operation—escorting a convoy of commercial ships—quickly turned into a nightmare scenario for the crew aboard the USS Mason and USS Truxton. With missiles, drones, and fast attack boats all targeting the destroyers, the situation seemed nearly impossible to survive. Yet, against all odds, the two ships made it out unscathed. The question that everyone is asking: How did they do it?

The Complex Threat: Three Domains, One Radar

The attack on May 4th came from a variety of sources. Iranian cruise missiles were launched from the coastline, drones from inland launchers, and fast attack boats swarmed at 50 knots from hidden coves. With the Strait of Hormuz narrowing to just 21 nautical miles, and the Iranian coastline sitting only 10 nautical miles from the shipping lane, the challenge was immense. A sea-skimming missile launched from that shore reaches its target in mere seconds—an extremely narrow window for interception.

The two destroyers, the USS Mason and USS Truxton, both Arleigh Burke-class Flight 2A destroyers, carried the same radar—Spy 1. This radar was designed to track air threats, and its job is made more complicated when it has to juggle multiple targets coming from different domains: the sky, the surface, and the coast.

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The Red Sea: A Different Kind of Threat

To understand why this situation seemed impossible to navigate, we need to look back at previous missions, specifically in the Red Sea. The threat there was largely air-based—Houthi cruise missiles and drones. Spy 1 radar, which is a passive electronically scanned array (PASA), had to focus solely on the air, tracking air-based threats while guiding missiles to intercept them. The system was designed to handle only one domain: the sky. However, the real test came in the Strait of Hormuz, where air, surface, and coastal threats converged all at once. This added complexity, with each new target demanding time and attention from the radar.

In the Red Sea, only air threats needed to be managed. In Hormuz, the radar had to track not only missiles in the sky but also fast-moving boats on the surface, which would take away precious time and bandwidth. It was a mathematical problem that was on the brink of failure.

The Solution: Dividing the Task

To solve this problem, the military deployed a clever solution—divide the battle into layers. The radar, which would otherwise be overwhelmed by the sheer number of incoming threats, focused exclusively on tracking air threats. The surface fight, including the boats, was handed off to helicopters, specifically Apache attack helicopters and MH-60R Seahawk maritime helicopters. These helicopters, equipped with their own sensors and weaponry, handled the surface threats independently of the radar system.

This was not a new tactic. In 1988, during Operation Praying Mantis, American helicopters had successfully destroyed Iranian fast attack boats in the same region. This time, however, the helicopters were flying from regional bases in the Gulf, not from the destroyers themselves. The attack helicopters could destroy the boats without burdening the radar, which was focused solely on defending against air threats.

Electronic Warfare: The Missing Layer

Even with the radar handling the air defense and the helicopters taking care of the surface targets, there was still the threat of missiles. Aegis destroyers rely on illuminators to track missiles during their final moments before interception. However, each destroyer can only manage three illuminators at a time. This is where electronic warfare came into play.

The EA-18G Growler, a highly specialized electronic attack aircraft, was deployed to jam the missile’s radar seekers. The Growler uses anti-radiation missiles (HARMs) to disrupt the radar signals from incoming missiles. In essence, the Growlers neutralize the threat without firing a single missile, saving the ship’s missile inventory for more urgent needs.

The presence of the Growlers allowed the destroyers to save valuable resources—like SM2 and SM6 interceptors—by rendering the enemy missiles ineffective before they even reached the ships.

The Outcome: A Near Perfect Defense

On May 4th, 2024, this layered defense system worked flawlessly. Despite being under attack from cruise missiles, drones, and fast attack boats, the USS Mason and USS Truxton emerged unscathed. Six to seven Iranian boats were destroyed, and all incoming missiles and drones were intercepted or jammed. In fact, the only Iranian report of a missile hitting a US warship near Jas Island was dismissed as fiction by Sentcom.

The system’s success wasn’t just about superior firepower; it was about superior division of labor. The radar system focused on one task—the sky. The surface battle was managed by helicopters. Electronic warfare took care of jamming the missile seekers. Each layer of defense had its own platform designed for that specific task, and together, they created a nearly impenetrable defense.

The Cost of Perfection

However, such a defense doesn’t come cheaply. The operation required 15,000 service members, over 100 aircraft, a carrier strike group led by the USS George H.W. Bush, and numerous helicopters and land-based squadrons. The total cost of each SM2 missile fired was roughly $2 million, and each SM6 missile cost about $4 million. The helicopters’ hellfire missiles and the Growlers’ operational costs added even more to the tally. In total, the cost of defending just two destroyers through a narrow waterway amounted to billions of dollars.

The Future: A Fix That Can’t Scale

While the five-layer defense system worked seamlessly for this operation, the solution is not sustainable on a large scale. In a real-world scenario where these assets aren’t readily available, the Aegis radar system would struggle to handle the same multi-domain threat. This brings up the issue of scaling—without a carrier and without Growlers, the destroyers would be left to fend for themselves.

The future of naval combat lies in technology, and the upcoming Spy 6 radar system, an active electronically scanned array with 30 times the sensitivity of the current system, could solve the problem. But installing these systems across the fleet is not simple; it’s a massive, long-term overhaul that will take years to implement.

The Math Behind Survival

On May 4th, the United States military proved that it could survive a multi-domain swarm attack using a combination of radar, electronic warfare, and helicopters. But the math is clear: when the next conflict arises, the question is not whether Aegis can handle a multi-domain attack, but whether it can do so alone.

Until Spy 6 is installed across the fleet, the only answer is clear: either provide the full zone defense, or accept the limitations of a destroyer alone in a multi-domain environment.

In conclusion, the operation in the Strait of Hormuz has rewritten the rules of naval warfare. The question that remains is whether the US Navy can continue to maintain such a layered defense system in future operations or if the cost and reliance on multiple assets will limit their ability to respond quickly and decisively in a rapidly changing geopolitical landscape.