Iran may soon be studying a piece of American underwater drone technology up close — after its forces recovered and displayed on state television a US Navy Anduril Dive-LD, a system valued at about $2.5 million.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said Tuesday that it had captured the drone near the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz. US Central Command offered a different account, saying the unmanned submersible had suffered a malfunction and was “essentially dead in the water for more than a day” before Iranian forces took possession of it.
“We will lose exquisite (and not so exquisite) tech when employing it against adversaries,” said retired Army Major Gen. Gordon B. “Skip” Davis, now with the Center for European Policy Analysis.
Davis said a capable opponent such as Iran likely has the ability to reverse engineer parts of the craft’s physical design and some electronics, though its encrypted software would probably remain beyond reach.
CENTCOM spokesman Navy Capt. Tim Hawkins downplayed the intelligence risk, saying, “The defective drone was an older model that neither collected sensitive data nor carried any classified sonar or radar equipment.”
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps framed the seizure in far more dramatic terms, claiming it resulted from a “complex intelligence and operational mastermind operation at dawn today.”
The Dive-LD is a 19-foot, 3-ton autonomous underwater vehicle capable of descending nearly 20,000 feet. Designed for missions including reconnaissance, mine-clearing and tracking enemy submarines, it is almost certain to be closely examined by Iran, experts said — and Tehran may attempt to produce its own version.
Even if Iran cannot fully duplicate the system, Davis said it could try to “leverage the captured tech with Russia for support to develop a more sophisticated domestic” underwater drone capability.
Federico Borsari, a CEPA fellow who focuses on transatlantic defense, said Iranian specialists could scrutinize the drone’s power system, navigation tools, communications equipment, sonar and optical sensors used in mine-hunting missions.
“That could help Iran improve its own underwater drones or develop ways of detecting and disrupting US vehicles in the future,” Borsari said.
Naval warfare specialist Steven Wills of the Center for Maritime Strategy said the greater danger may not be the vehicle itself, but whether Iran could use it “to penetrate US data networks that support such drone operations.”
“That’s of more value than the drone itself, unless it carried some payload of use to the Iranians,” Wills said.
Iran has tried to feed its own arsenal by seizing the latest Western technology. That’s what it did when it tried to capture a US reconnaissance drone in 2011. It tried to tow away a high-tech Saildrone, or surface drone, in 2022 — only to back away after the US military intervened.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed this week it just destroyed a “Saildrone-type” craft, which relies on wind and solar power, “thwarting its aggressive mission” – although a US official told The Post “all of our Saildrones are accounted for and fully operational.”
The US and Iran have been trading strikes while President Trump demands Iran reopen the strait and end its nuclear program.
With most of its own navy destroyed and Tehran facing new sanctions meant to strangle its economy, Iran isn’t in a good position to take full advantage of its find, said Fred Fleitz, who spent 19 years at the CIA and serves as vice chair for national security at the America First Policy Institute.
“It’s a cost of doing business, especially this type of drone that’s designed to operate in dangerous areas,” he said. “When you go to war you’re going to lose equipment. As we use more and more drones, these things are going to happen.”
