A U.S. Marine Corps F-35C fighter working from the Nimitz class supercarrier USS Abraham Lincoln shot down an Iranian drone Shahed 139 unmanned plane working close to the warship on February 3, at a time of excessive tensions between Tehran and Washington. The Iranian plane “aggressively approached” with unclear intent, and “unnecessarily manoeuvred towards the ship,” U.S. Central Command spokesman Navy Captain Tim Hawkins reported. The Iranian drone continued to fly towards the ship regardless of de-escalatory measures taken by U.S. forces working in worldwide waters,” he added. This marks one of many first instances the F-35 has been employed in air-to-air fight.
The USS Abraham Lincoln and its Provider Strike Group on January 20 accomplished a transit by way of the Malacca Strait, concluding operations within the seventh Fleet space of operations forward of schdule to redirect in direction of the Center East, as a part of a wider U.S.-led navy buildup in opposition to Iran. The Abraham Lincoln is the primary plane provider to function with Marine F-35C fighters, that are deployed beneath Marine Fighter Assault Squadron 314. The squadron was in late 2024 confirmed to be the primary to utilise the F-35C in fight throughout strikes on Iranian-aligned Ansurullah Coalition forces in Yemen. These operations included air-to-air fight in opposition to native unmanned plane. The F-35C has by far the very best fight potential of any fighter kind fielded by the Marine Corps, and has been procured to interchange out of date F-18C/D fighters. Delays to the F-35C’s improvement and operationalisation have pressured the Corps to maintain Chilly Warfare period F-18s in service far longer than meant, leading to a major decline in availability charges.
The Shahed 139 has considerably similarities to the U.S. Air Pressure MQ-9 Reaper, and is able to each reconnaissance and fight operations. The plane shot down by the Marine stealth fighter was reportedly unarmed, with Iranian sources reporting that it was on a surveillance and reconnaissance mission. The Iranian drone fleet has demonstrated superior capabilities previously, together with throughout excessive depth operations in opposition to Western-backed rebel teams in Syria, and Turkish-backed Islamic State fighters in Iraq, throughout the 2010s. The Shahed 139 is taken into account a decrease finish drone kind with the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps having deployed superior flying wing stealth plane for each fight and reconnaissance missions, which in keeping with Israeli stories have confirmed to be extremely survivable even throughout penetration missions into closely defended airspace.
The U.S. Marine Corps is the one service within the U.S. Armed Forces that operates two variants of the F-35, with the F-35C having better manoeuvrability, bigger weapons bays, and a for much longer vary, in addition to decrease upkeep wants and sustainment prices. The Corps in early 2025 decreased deliberate F-35B procurements by 21 % to reallocate funding to procuring the F-35C, more and more the deliberate fleet from 67 to 140 plane, which can have mirrored dissatisfaction with the F-35B’s capabilities when conducting provider operations and Expeditionary Superior Base Operations. Though it’s the solely fifth era fighter kind in manufacturing within the Western world, the F-35’s suitability for top depth fight operations however stays extremely restricted, which is able to seemingly solely be addressed as soon as Block 4 software program is built-in within the early 2030s. F-35s deployed by the Israeli Air Pressure for assaults on Iran in June 2025 have been notably relegated to intelligence assortment roles utilizing their outstandingly highly effective sensor suites, reasonably than to launching kinetic assaults on Iranian targets.
