Strait of Hormuz Showdown: AH-64 Apaches Enter the Fight

Picture this.

The world’s most critical oil corridor, a strip of ocean barely 20 miles wide at its narrowest point, has been locked shut.

Dozens of merchant ships are burning.

Tankers that carry 20% of the planet’s oil supply have stopped moving.

And the weapon doing all of this damage isn’t a fleet of warships or a wall of missiles.

It’s speedboats.

Speedboats packed with explosives launched in the dead of night from hidden ports along a hostile coastline.

That is the reality that the United States is facing inside the straight of Hormuz right now in one of the most unconventional naval confrontations in modern military history.

And the answer to that problem has arrived in the form of two aircraft that most people would never have expected to see flying over a contested waterway in 2026.

One is a helicopter that has been hunting tanks since the Cold War.

The other is an attack jet so old it first flew before many of its pilots were born.

But together, the AH64 Apache and the A-10 Warthog are doing something that billion-dollar stealth fighters and carrier strike groups have struggled to accomplish.

They are breaking Iran’s strangle hold on the straight of Hormuz, one fast boat at a time.

If you want to understand why that matters and why what’s happening in that narrow waterway right now could reshape global energy markets, trigger a ground war on an Iranian island, and define the final chapter of Operation Epic Fury, then stay with us.

This is World Brief Daily and we’re breaking it all down.

Let’s start at the beginning because the story of how two aging warplanes ended up hunting speedboats in the Persian Gulf is in many ways the story of Operation Epic Fury itself.

On February 28th, 2026, the United States and Israel launched what is already being described as the most significant American military operation in the Middle East since the invasion of Iraq.

The campaign, cenamed Operation Epic Fury by US Central Command and Operation Roaring Lion by the Israeli Defense Forces, began with a coordinated wave of strikes that targeted Iran’s ballistic missile infrastructure, its nuclear program, its IRGC leadership, and its naval capabilities, all in the opening hours of a single night.

President Trump announced the operation in an 8-minute video posted to Truth Social at 2 in the morning Eastern time.

The strikes were launched without a formal congressional declaration of war, though a war powers notification and a briefing to the gang of eight were provided.

From the very first vols, the campaign had a specific strategic logic.

Iran’s ability to threaten the region rested on several pillars.

Its missile arsenal, its nuclear program, its proxy networks across the Middle East, and crucially, its capacity to close the strait of Hormuz.

The first three pillars were targeted immediately with the kind of standoff firepower that the US does best.

Cruise missiles launched from warships and submarines, precisiong guided bombs dropped by B2 stealth bombers, and coordinated Israeli strikes across multiple target sets simultaneously.

According to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegth, US forces destroyed more than 10,000 enemy targets in under one month.

Iran’s entire ballistic missile production capacity was functionally destroyed or damaged.

Underground facilities were penetrated.

Radar networks went dark.

By March 4th, just 4 days into the operation, General Dan Kaine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, declared that the US had achieved localized air superiority across the southern flank of the Iranian coast.

The Alma Research and Education Center reported that the Israeli Defense Forces had taken approximately 85% of Iran’s air defense network offline within the first 3 weeks.

But the fourth pillar, the Straight of Hormuz, was a different kind of problem.

And that is where this story gets genuinely interesting.

Iran has never been able to challenge the United States in a conventional naval fight.

That’s not an opinion.

It’s a mathematical reality.

As of the opening weeks of Operation Epic Fury, reporting indicates the US had already sunk approximately 60 Iranian naval vessels, including major surface combatants, mine laying ships, and at least one submarine.

The Iris Shahed Bagari, an IRGC drone and helicopter carrier converted from a container ship and capable of launching Shahed series UAVs from the open ocean, was struck and eliminated in the opening hours of the campaign.

The Iron Dana, one of Iran’s newer warships, was torpedoed by a US Navy submarine on March 4th and sank off the coast of Sri Lanka.

Iran’s conventional navy as a fighting force was being systematically dismantled.

What Iran had left and what tan had always prepared for the scenario of a confrontation with a superior naval power was its asymmetric capability.

And in the straight of Hormuz, that capability is built around three things.

fast attack boats, mines, and drones.

Together, these three weapon systems have achieved something that Iran’s warships never could.

They have effectively blockaded one of the most economically important waterways on Earth.

According to Australia’s ABC News, Iran struck at least 20 merchant ships since Operation Epic Fury began.

According to Sentcom, by mid campaign, US forces had already engaged and destroyed more than 120 aloat vessels and 44 mine layers.

The Wall Street Journal reporting on March 19th described the Strait of Hormuz as having been brought to a virtual halt in terms of normal maritime commerce.

Ships affiliated with Iran, China, India, and Pakistan were transiting.

But Western commercial shipping had essentially stopped.

A French vessel became the first Western European link ship to attempt the passage in weeks.

And that was news precisely because it was so unusual.

The economic consequences of this blockade have been immediate and severe.

Oil prices surged more than 40% from the moment the war began.

According to analysts at CSIS, the United States had spent approximately 16.

5 billion dollars on the operation through just the first 12 days.

And beyond the direct military costs, there is the staggering economic weight of the straight of Hormuz itself.

Connecting the Persian Gulf with the Arabian Sea, this waterway handles roughly 20% of the world’s oil supply along with a comparable share of global liqufied natural gas.

Every barrel exported by Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Iraq, Kuwait, and Iran itself, at least in normal times, transits through that 20-m wide choke point.

Close it and you trigger a global energy shock.

Iran knows this.

Closing the straight is the regime’s most powerful economic weapon, and it has been using it with considerable effectiveness.

So, how do you reopen a waterway that has been turned into a kill zone by a swarm of explosive laden speedboats and drone boats operating from a coastline more than a thousand miles long? That is the question the Pentagon was grappling with in the second and third weeks of Operation Epic Fury.

And the answer, confirmed publicly by General Kaine at a Pentagon press briefing on March 19th, was two platforms that many in the defense establishment had been debating whether to retire.

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, Kaine said at the briefing.

He also confirmed that AH64 Apache attack helicopters operated by both US forces and regional allies were patrolling the southern flank of Iran’s coastline being used not only against maritime vessels but to intercept the one-way attack drones that Iran has been firing at airports, energy facilities, and American bases across the Gulf region.

That announcement marked the beginning of a new phase in the campaign.

Let’s talk about each platform and why it is, despite its age, exactly what this fight requires.

Start with the Apache.

The AH64 has been in service since the 1980s, operated today by the militaries of the United States, Israel, the Netherlands, Japan, and several other nations.

That list is not an accident.

The Apache has remained in service because it remains extraordinarily capable and because it brings a specific combination of qualities that no other rotary wing aircraft quite replicates.

It is armed with AGM 1114 Hellfire missiles which travel fast, hit hard, and are precisely the right weapon for the kind of fast maneuverable targets that Iran is deploying in the straight.

It carries a 30mm M230 chain gun mounted under its fuselage, firing at approximately 625 rounds per minute with 120 rounds on board.

A single second of fire delivers around 10 rounds, more than enough to shred an explosive laden speedboat, a Shahed drone, or a surface target in a heartbeat.

Beyond Hellfire missiles, the Apache can be loaded with Stinger missiles, AM9 side winders, sidearms, and Mistrals, giving it genuine air-to-air capability if needed.

It also carries a comprehensive electronic warfare suite, including radio jammers, infrared countermeasures, and interference equipment, making it a lethal platform even before it fires a single weapon.

The Apache’s top speed of around 170 mph is more than enough to catch Iran’s fastest surface vessels.

Its sensor package, which includes radar, thermal imaging, and target designation systems, allows it to detect incoming drones, fast boats, and other low signature threats at distance, acting as an early warning node for the wider US air power architecture operating over the straight.

And crucially, the Apache is a deck hugger.

It can fly at near sea level, right down into the threat environment where Iran’s small boats operate.

There is no hiding from an Apache in the weeds when the Apache is in the weeds with you.

There is already combat footage to back this up.

Footage released by the United Arab Emirates, which also operates Apache helicopters, shows the view from an AH64 as it locks onto Iranian Shahed drones and engages them with the M230 chain gun.

Multiple Shaheds are destroyed in quick succession.

The tactic works and it works efficiently.

One burst of chain gun fire and a drone that costs Iran tens of thousands of dollars simply ceases to exist.

Reporting by the war zone confirmed that Apaches have been used in similar counter drone roles by US Army and allied crews throughout the campaign.

There is also a kinetic option that deserves special mention.

The Apache can carry non-exlosive rockets, projectiles that destroy targets through kinetic energy alone without detonating an explosive warhead.

This may sound like a disadvantage, but in the context of the Straight of Hormuz, it is a genuine operational asset.

Shahed drones are not armored vehicles.

They are relatively fragile flying machines.

A kinetic impactor does not need to explode to bring one down.

It just needs to hit it.

That means the Apache can potentially intercept drones without expending expensive explosive munitions.

A significant logistical advantage in a high tempmpo campaign where sorty rates are pushing aircraft and crews to their limits.

This is where World Brief Daily wants to make sure you stay with us.

We’re just getting started and what comes next.

The role of the A-10 warthog, the story of Carg Island, and the deployment of thousands of US Marines that is already underway is where this story takes a turn that the world is only beginning to fully grasp.

Make sure you’re subscribed to World Brief Daily so you don’t miss any of our Operation Epic Fury coverage.

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Now, the A-10 Warthog.

If there has ever been an aircraft that seems purpose-built for a specific moment in history, Operation Epic Fury may be that moment for the Warthog.

The A10 Thunderbolt to 2, almost universally known by its nickname, was designed during the Cold War for one mission, tank killing, in a potential land war in Europe.

It was built around its weapon, the GAU8A Avenger 30mm rotary cannon.

A machine so large and powerful that the joke among pilots and analysts is that the A10 is not an aircraft with a gun attached, but a gun with an aircraft attached.

The GAU8 fires depleted uranium rounds at roughly 3,900 rounds per minute.

And at the operational firing rate of about 65 rounds per second, the sound it produces is unlike anything else in aviation.

A low mechanical burp that is immediately recognizable to anyone who has heard it in combat footage.

The A-10 also carries AGM65 Maverick air-to-surface missiles, a range of precisiong guided munitions, 70 millimeter APKWS2 laserg guided rockets, and for self-defense, AM9 Sidewinder missiles as reported by the war zone.

Sentcom imagery confirmed A10s configured for combat over the Strait of Hormuz carrying mixed loadouts, including APKWS2 rockets and Maverick missiles.

Weapons optimized for exactly the kind of surface targets they are being asked to engage.

What makes the Warthog particularly suited to the Hormuz environment, however, is not just its weapons.

It is its ability to fly low and slow in a waterway where the distinction between a civilian merchant vessel and an Iranian fast attack boat matters enormously.

High-speed strike aircraft have a significant disadvantage.

They move too fast to reliably identify ambiguous surface contacts and their weapon systems are optimized for standoff engagement of large, clearly identified targets.

The A10 can orbit at low altitude over a contested area for extended periods, giving its pilot time to visually identify a target, confirm it is hostile, and then engage with precision.

According to Army recognition, this loiter time and the aircraft’s ability to engage dispersed mobile threats is precisely the capability that makes it irreplaceable in the current fight.

A function described by analysts as acting as a tactical killchain stabilizer in a fragmented battle space where targets are fleeting, communications are contested, and the margin for error is narrow.

The A-10’s survivability is also directly relevant in the straight environment.

Its titanium armor and redundant flight systems allow it to absorb ground fire, the kind that comes from shoulder fired manportable air defense systems or man pads, which are the most credible remaining threat to low-flying aircraft now that the bulk of Iran’s integrated air defense network has been destroyed.

The Warthog was designed to take a hit and keep flying, and that design philosophy is paying dividends over the Straight of Hormuz in 2026.

The A-10 also brings one additional capability to the table that the Apache does not.

Its precisiong guided munitions and Maverick missiles can strike hardened ground targets, missile launch sites, ports, supply depots, and coastal defense installations along Iran’s southern coastline.

Where the Apache is ideally suited for hunting mobile surface threats in the water, the Warthog can suppress and destroy the infrastructure from which those threats are launched.

Together, the two platforms create a layered persistent aerial presence over and around the strait.

One that hunts Iranian assets at sea and one that reaches back to the coast to eliminate the sources of those assets before they can be deployed.

This layered approach is exactly what the US has described publicly.

General Ka’s March 19th confirmation of both platforms involvement was not an accident of timing.

It was a deliberate signal that America was applying persistent tailored firepower to a specific problem from multiple angles simultaneously.

But here is something else worth understanding about the A-10 in this context.

Something that adds a layer of historical significance to what is happening right now in the straight of Hormuz.

The A-10 is a platform that the US Air Force has been trying to retire for years.

As reported by Flight Global, Air Force budget documents for fiscal year 2026 called for the entire remaining Warthog fleet to be phased out of service by 2027.

The inventory had already been reduced from a high of 283 aircraft in 2023 to a current level of 145 jets.

Retired Air Force Colonel Kim Campbell, who famously landed a severely damaged A-10 without any hydraulic power during the 2003 Iraq invasion, has been one of the most vocal advocates for keeping the platform in service.

As she told Flight Global in a 2023 interview, “The fact that the A-10 was not designed to fight peer- level air threats does not mean that its breed of close, persistent stand-in firepower will never be needed.

Operation Epic Fury is proving her right.

And then on April 3rd, 2026, the stakes became very real in a different way.

As Operation Epic Fury entered its sixth week, an A-10 Warthog operating in support of a combat search and rescue mission near the Strait of Hormuz was struck by hostile fire.

According to reporting by the aviationist, confirmed by US officials to the New York Times, the pilot managed to maneuver the damaged aircraft into Kuwaiti airspace before ejecting and was successfully rescued.

Iran released footage purporting to show the aircraft being shot down using a surfaceto-air missile.

The incident came on the same day that an F-15E Strike Eagle was downed over Iran.

its pilot recovered, its weapon system officer still listed as missing as of the time of this recording.

Those are the operational costs of fighting in a contested environment, even one where the adversaries integrated air defense network has been largely destroyed.

What remained of Iran’s air defenses, isolated fragments separated from the wider destroyed network along with shoulder launched missiles and mobile SAM systems, was still capable of extracting a price.

The A-10, for all its armor, is not invisible.

What this moment underscores is the true complexity of what US forces are doing in and around the strait.

This is not a risk-free operation, even with air superiority.

It is a sustained combat campaign at Tempo with real exposure and real consequences.

That said, it also needs to be noted what the loss of one aircraft does not mean.

It does not mean the A-10s are being driven from the fight.

It does not mean Iran has reestablished any meaningful control over the airspace.

And it does not mean the broader campaign is failing.

What it means is that war is war and that the pilots and crews operating over the straight of Hormuz in 2026 are doing so under genuine risk in service of a strategic objective that extends far beyond the aircraft themselves.

That objective is the reopening of the straight of Hormuz and it goes well beyond what the Apaches and Warthogs are doing in the water.

Let’s talk about where this is all heading because the deployment of rotary wing and closeair support platforms to the strait is not happening in isolation.

It is happening alongside one of the largest movements of US ground forces to the Middle East in over two decades.

And when you look at the geography of what those forces are being positioned to do, the picture that emerges is striking.

On March 13th, US forces conducted what Trump described as one of the most powerful bombing raids in the history of the Middle East on Car Island, a fivemile wide coral outcrop located approximately 15 to 20 miles off Iran’s southwestern coast.

Car Island is not just strategically significant.

It is Iran’s economic lifeline.

The island handles somewhere between 90 and 95% of all Iranian crude oil exports.

It hosts three major energy infrastructure sites, including the Falat Iran Oil Company, which alone produces 500,000 barrels of crude oil per day.

The island’s pipelines connect it directly to Iran’s largest oil and gas fields on the mainland.

According to Wikipedia’s dedicated article on the 2026 Carg Island attack, over 90 Iranian military sites were struck, including naval mine storage facilities, missile storage bunkers, the island’s airfield, radar installations, and other military infrastructure, and they critically the oil infrastructure was deliberately left intact.

Trump announced the strikes via truth social and added a direct warning.

If Iran did not reopen the straight of Hormuz and cease attacking shipping, he would immediately reconsider this decision and strike the oil infrastructure as well.

By March 30th, Trump escalated that threat further, stating that if a deal was not reached, the US would conclude the war by destroying all of Iran’s power plants, oil wells, Car Islands, infrastructure, and possibly its desalination plants.

The message was unmistakable.

The oil terminal is being held in reserve as a final lever of coercive pressure.

But the military picture suggests something beyond air strikes is being contemplated.

As reported by the Associated Press and confirmed by the Pentagon, the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, roughly 2,500 Marines aboard the USS Tripoli, was ordered to the Middle East from its base in Okinawa, Japan, arriving approximately 2 weeks into the conflict.

The 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit departed San Diego on March 18th aboard the USS Boxer, carrying an additional 2,200 Marines.

Pentagon officials also confirmed that approximately 2,000 soldiers from the US Army’s 82nd Airborne Division were ordered to begin moving to the Middle East.

Add it together and you have more than 6,000 highly capable ground troops converging on the region drawn from amphibious assault units and airborne infantry.

precisely the kinds of forces you would use for a rapid amphibious landing, a helicopter-born raid, or the seizure of a strategic island.

According to analysis published by the Foreign Affairs Forum, the deployment of the 31st MEU signals that the Pentagon has crossed a conceptual threshold.

The transition from a purely aerial and naval strike campaign into a posture capable of rapid land-based raids, maritime interdiction, island seizure, and literal warfare along Iran’s southern coastline.

SOF news reporting on the April 3rd update noted that the forces available for a forcable entry operation include both the 31st MEU and elements of the 82nd Airborne.

And while analysts are careful to note that the deployment does not in itself constitute a ground invasion, it fundamentally expands Washington’s menu of operational choices.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio added another dimension at a congressional briefing, noting that the US may need to physically secure nuclear material inside Iran.

“People are going to have to go and get it,” Rubio said, without specifying who.

That statement, combined with the force movements, has fueled speculation that Operation Epic Fury’s final phase could involve ground action of some kind.

Whether a seizure of Car Island to fully deny Iran its oil revenue, a helicopter-born campaign against missile sites and mine depots along the Hormuz coastline, or something more consequential involving Iran’s remaining nuclear infrastructure.

For students of American military history, the pattern is familiar.

In Iraq in 2003 and in Afghanistan before that, Apache helicopters and A-10 warthogs were among the first assets deployed ahead of major ground advances.

They conduct what military planners call battlefield shaping, suppressing enemy positions, destroying mobile threats, and clearing the path for ground forces that follow.

In Iraq, Apache helicopters were used to conduct deep attack operations against armored formations ahead of ground advances.

The presence of both platforms over the straight of Hormuz and along Iran’s southern coastline today may be doing precisely the same thing.

Car Island’s military infrastructure has already been largely destroyed by US air power.

Its airfield has been struck.

Its missile storage bunkers have been hit.

Its radar sites are gone.

What remains is an island whose oil terminals continue to operate, deliberately preserved as a strategic card to be played.

If US ground forces were to seize Kar Island, they would not need to destroy the oil infrastructure to deny it to Iran.

Control of the terminal itself would achieve that.

And denying Iran 90% of its crude export revenue in the context of a regime already under severe military pressure would be a strategic blow of a different order entirely.

As the foreign affairs forum analysis notes, drawing on historical precedent, the 1988 operation praying mantis in which the United States destroyed a significant portion of Iran’s naval capacity in a single day ultimately contributed to Iranian acceptance of a ceasefire in the Iran Iraq war.

The difference in 2026 is the absence of a coherent Iranian interlocutor with the authority to negotiate following the assassination of Supreme Leader Ali Kam in the opening hours of Operation Epic Fury.

That absence complicates diplomatic resolution, but it does not reduce the coercive value of the military options now being assembled.

The question now is not whether the Apache and the Warthog can do the job they have been asked to do in the straight.

The evidence from the first weeks of their deployment suggests they can.

The question is what comes next? Whether the Marines now converging on the region will be used for something more than deterrence and whether the war ends through a negotiated opening of the strait or through military action of a kind that will reshape the Middle East for decades.

We’ll be watching every development and breaking it down for you as it happens.

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And if you want to understand more about how the broader Operation Epic Fury campaign is unfolding, the Car Island strikes, the Marines, the diplomatic pressure, and the global economic fallout, check out our recent coverage right here on the channel.

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