The A-10 Thunderbolt is hunting down Iran’s enormous “mosquito fleet” of manned and drone suicide boats in the Gulf, again apparently proving the utility of a venerable airframe that the U.S. Air Force has been trying to retire for years.
Iran’s fleet of several hundred — perhaps more than a thousand — speedboat-size paramilitary attack boats are being hunted by the United States Air Force in the Gulf, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine said at a briefing on Thursday. Presenting an update on the status of Operation Epic Fury, General Caine revealed: “the A-10 Warthog is now in the fight across the southern flank, and is hunting and killing fast-attack watercraft in the Straits of Hormuz”.
The A-10 may be especially well suited to the role, given it benefits from a long loiter time and availability of mission-appropriate, highly destructive, and cost-effective munitions for hunting down unarmoured fibreglass boats. Among them is the A-10’s integral 30mm Gatling gun, the GAU-8 Avenger.
Caine said: “we continue to hunt and kill mine storage facilities and naval ammunition depots. We continue to hunt and kill afloat assets including more than 120 vessels and 44 minelayers and the pressure will continue”.
A U.S. Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt II aircraft flies alongside a KC-135 Stratotanker aircraft over the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility during Operation Epic Fury, March 9, 2026. (U.S. Air Force photo)
The so-called “mosquito fleet” is part of a mosaic of capabilities of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), with which it has long held the region to ransom by threatening to shut the Straits of Hormuz. The waterway is one of a handful of particularly vulnerable global maritime chokepoints through which a meaningful proportion of oil the world economy needs daily passes in enormous crude carrier tankers.
As reported earlier this week of these Iranian capabilities which are now being hunted down and destroyed by U.S. forces, among them are the mosquito fleet of suicide boats either carrying massive explosive charges, or Chinese-made anti ship missiles in strapped-on cannisters, sea mines, and ground-based anti-ship missiles (AShMs). One of the earliest targets of U.S. strikes in the course of Operation Epic Fury was Iran’s conventional navy, which has now been largely destroyed.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said of this: “we’ve damaged or sunk over 120 of their navy ships with battle damage assessments pending for many more… their surface fleet is no longer a factor, their submarines — they once had 11 — are gone, their military ports are gone”.
While Caine referred to the mosquito fleet being hit “afloat”, FLIR footage released by U.S. Central Command (Centcom) in recent days has shown mosquito boats being hit ashore, too.
Part of Iran’s strategy for preserving its force includes making many of these sea-denial assets highly mobile and easy to hide, including the creation of extensive tunnel networks to hide truck-mounted AShM launchers and even trailered suicide boats. One such trailered fast attack boat was shown being struck while camouflaged under tree cover, while others in the published footage were taken out at their anchorages.
Those tunnels are no guarantee of survival either, with the USAF dropping latest-generation bunker busters on the coastal hideaways in recent days to take out hidden launchers.
The appearance of the A-10 as an anti-small attack boat platform in the skies over the Persian Gulf is the latest update in a now years-long saga over the future of the aircraft, which has survived multiple attempts by the Air Force to retire it, with the latest bid having intended to eliminate the plane from inventory this year.
Former A-10 pilot Dale Stark reflected on the discourse around these arguments, stating of the announcements A-10s had pivoted to the anti-ship role they’d long trained for, stating: “Shocked, I tell you. I was reliably informed by the Lockheed funded military bloggers that the A-10 was outdated and irrelevant in modern warfare.”
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