On February 28, 2026, the Pentagon confirmed that the United States launched precision munitions from air, land, and sea simultaneously against Iranian military targets, marking the opening salvo of what CENTCOM designated Operation Epic Fury. The strikes, carried out in coordination with Israel’s parallel Operation Roaring Lion, represented the largest assembly of American military force in the Middle East in decades — over 150 aircraft and dozens of warships operating across multiple theaters at once. CENTCOM stated that “the first hours of the operation included precision munitions launched from air, land, and sea,” a deliberate show of multi-domain capability that included several historic firsts for the U.S. military.
The operation targeted Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps command and control facilities, Iranian air defense systems, missile and drone launch sites, and military airfields. Strikes reportedly hit near the offices of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. What makes this operation particularly notable beyond its sheer scale is the Pentagon’s first-ever combat deployment of one-way attack drones, the first offensive U.S. military assets stationed on Israeli soil, and the use of HIMARS rocket launchers firing on Iranian targets from land positions — all happening concurrently with carrier-based air operations and Tomahawk cruise missile salvos from warships spread across multiple seas. This article breaks down how each domain — air, sea, and land — contributed to the simultaneous strikes, examines the new weapons systems that saw their combat debut, and looks at the strategic implications and aftermath of the operation.
Table of Contents
- What Did the Pentagon Mean by Strikes From Air, Land, and Sea Simultaneously?
- The LUCAS Drone and the Pentagon’s First Combat Use of One-Way Attack Systems
- The Carrier Strike Groups and Naval Positioning
- Land-Based Strikes and the Forward Deployment to Jordan and Israel
- Scale of the Operation and Why It Matters
- The Shahed-to-LUCAS Pipeline and What It Signals
- Aftermath and What Comes Next
- Conclusion
- Frequently Asked Questions
What Did the Pentagon Mean by Strikes From Air, Land, and Sea Simultaneously?
When CENTCOM used the phrase “air, land, and sea simultaneously,” it was describing a coordinated multi-domain assault designed to overwhelm iranian air defenses from every direction at once. This is not simply a matter of having assets in different places. Simultaneous strikes require precise timing across platforms that operate at vastly different speeds — a Tomahawk cruise missile launched from a destroyer in the Arabian Sea, HIMARS rockets fired from a base in Jordan, and fighter jets screaming in from carrier decks all need to arrive on target within the same narrow window. The coordination challenge is enormous, and it is meant to prevent the adversary from shifting defensive resources to meet any single threat axis. The air component alone was staggering. Two carrier strike groups — the USS Abraham Lincoln in the Arabian Sea and the USS Gerald R. Ford off Israel’s coast — launched F/A-18E Super Hornets and F-35C Lightning IIs. Twelve F-22 Raptors were deployed to Ovda Airbase in southern Israel, marking the first time the United States has ever stationed offensive weaponry on Israeli territory.
Fourteen KC-135 and KC-46 refueling tankers were positioned at Ben Gurion Airport to extend the range of strike aircraft to reach iranian targets. On the Israeli side, roughly 200 fighters including F-35s and F-15s struck approximately 500 targets in what the Israeli Air Force called its largest operation ever. The sea and land components added layers that Iran could not easily counter. U.S. warships launched Tomahawk cruise missiles from positions in the Strait of Hormuz, Red Sea, Mediterranean, and Persian Gulf. On the ground, U.S. Army HIMARS launchers fired on Iranian targets from land positions, while F-15E Strike Eagles that had relocated from RAF Lakenheath in the United Kingdom to Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan added to the land-based air sortie count. The result was a strike package coming from essentially every compass direction.
The LUCAS Drone and the Pentagon’s First Combat Use of One-Way Attack Systems
One of the most consequential firsts to emerge from operation Epic Fury was the combat debut of the LUCAS — Low-Cost Unmanned Combat Attack System — a one-way attack drone employed by Task Force Scorpion Strike. This marked the Pentagon’s first-ever use of one-way attack drones in combat, a milestone that defense analysts have anticipated for years as militaries worldwide increasingly rely on cheap, expendable unmanned systems. The LUCAS is, in a twist of battlefield irony, reverse-engineered from the Iranian Shahed-136 drone — the same weapon Iran and Russia have used extensively against Ukrainian cities. Built by SpektreWorks, an Arizona-based defense company, each LUCAS unit costs approximately $35,000. Compare that to the $30 million price tag of a Reaper drone, and the economic logic becomes impossible to ignore. The LUCAS can be launched via catapults, rocket-assisted takeoff, or mobile ground systems, giving commanders flexible deployment options without requiring runways.
Perhaps most remarkable is the timeline: the system went from notable field testing to actual combat use in roughly three months. However, the low per-unit cost should not be mistaken for low strategic risk. One-way attack drones are, by definition, expendable — they destroy themselves on impact. This changes the cost calculus of attrition warfare, but it also raises questions about escalation dynamics. When a weapon is cheap enough to use liberally, the threshold for employing it drops. If adversaries adopt the same logic with their own low-cost systems — as Iran already has with the original Shahed — the result could be a proliferation of drone strikes that blurs the line between limited operations and sustained campaigns.
The Carrier Strike Groups and Naval Positioning
The naval dimension of Operation Epic Fury reflected months of deliberate force posturing. The USS Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group was deployed to waters off israel‘s coast on February 27, just one day before strikes commenced. The USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group was already positioned in the Arabian Sea. Together, these two strike groups provided floating airfields capable of sustained sortie generation deep into Iranian territory, supported by escort vessels carrying Tomahawk cruise missiles. Beyond the two carrier groups, additional U.S. naval assets were spread across the Strait of Hormuz, the Red Sea, the Mediterranean, and the Persian Gulf.
This wide distribution served a dual purpose: it created multiple launch axes for cruise missiles, and it positioned defensive assets to protect regional allies and shipping lanes in the event of Iranian retaliation. That retaliation came swiftly — Iran struck Israel and multiple Gulf states hosting U.S. assets, including the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Jordan. The geographic spread of these retaliatory strikes underscored exactly why the U.S. Navy had pre-positioned so broadly. Notably, despite the scope of Iran’s retaliatory strikes across the region, no U.S. casualties were reported, according to officials. This outcome likely reflects both the effectiveness of missile defense systems aboard naval vessels and at land bases, and the dispersal of American forces across a wide area rather than concentrating them in a few vulnerable locations.
Land-Based Strikes and the Forward Deployment to Jordan and Israel
The land component of Operation Epic Fury broke new ground in U.S. force posture in the Middle East. F-15E Strike Eagles were relocated from their home station at RAF Lakenheath in the United Kingdom to Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan, putting them within striking distance of Iranian targets without relying solely on carrier-based aviation. Meanwhile, U.S. Army HIMARS launchers — mobile rocket systems that gained fame for their effectiveness in Ukraine — fired on Iranian positions from undisclosed land locations. The deployment of 12 F-22 Raptors to Ovda Airbase in southern Israel was perhaps the most symbolically significant land-based move.
The United States has provided Israel with enormous quantities of military aid over decades, but it had never before stationed offensive American weaponry on Israeli soil. This crossed a long-standing political boundary, one that previous administrations maintained partly to avoid confirming adversaries’ narratives about U.S.-Israeli military integration. The operational benefit was clear — basing F-22s in Israel shortened transit times and reduced the tanker support needed to reach Iranian airspace — but the tradeoff is a permanent shift in how the U.S. military relationship with Israel is perceived by the rest of the region. The Jordan basing arrangement carries its own risks. Jordan has historically walked a careful line between its security partnership with the United States and its need to maintain domestic stability in a population that is broadly sympathetic to Palestinian and broader Arab causes. Hosting strike aircraft used against a Muslim-majority country adds political pressure on the Jordanian government, even if the operational logic is sound.
Scale of the Operation and Why It Matters
The sheer scale of Operation Epic Fury is difficult to overstate. Over 150 American aircraft and dozens of warships constituted what military officials described as the largest U.S. force assembled in the Middle East in decades. Combined with Israel’s contribution of roughly 200 fighters striking approximately 500 targets in its largest-ever air operation, the total force package dwarfed anything seen in the region since the opening days of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Scale matters for reasons beyond raw destructive capability. A simultaneous multi-domain assault of this magnitude is designed to saturate an adversary’s integrated air defense system.
Iran has invested heavily in layered air defenses, including Russian-supplied S-300 systems. By forcing those defenses to track and engage threats arriving from the air, sea, and land at the same time — from stealth fighters, cruise missiles, HIMARS rockets, and expendable drones — the U.S. and Israel aimed to create gaps that manned aircraft could exploit with reduced risk. The limitation worth noting is sustainability. An operation of this scale consumes enormous quantities of precision munitions, fuel, and maintenance hours. The United States has struggled in recent years to replenish its stocks of key weapons like Tomahawk missiles and JDAMs, partly due to supply chain bottlenecks exposed by the war in Ukraine. Whether the military can sustain this tempo if the conflict with Iran extends beyond the initial strike phase remains an open and serious question.
The Shahed-to-LUCAS Pipeline and What It Signals
The fact that the LUCAS drone is a reverse-engineered version of the Iranian Shahed-136 adds an uncomfortable layer of irony to its combat debut against Iran itself. The Shahed became globally infamous as a cheap terror weapon when Russia used it in waves against Ukrainian civilian infrastructure. U.S.
defense engineers studied captured and downed Shaheds, extracted the design principles, and contracted SpektreWorks to build an American version at roughly $35,000 per unit. This is not without precedent — military history is full of examples of captured enemy weapons being copied and improved — but the speed of the pipeline is notable. The LUCAS went from early field testing to actual combat employment in about three months, a timeline that reflects both urgency and a willingness to accept risk on a system with limited operational history. For defense procurement, which typically moves in years and decades, this is extraordinarily fast, and it suggests the Pentagon is learning from the rapid acquisition models that Ukraine’s battlefield has forced into existence.
Aftermath and What Comes Next
Iran’s retaliation following Operation Epic Fury targeted not just Israel but multiple Gulf states hosting U.S. military assets — the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Jordan. This regional escalation pattern is precisely what critics of a strike on Iran have long warned about: the conflict does not stay bilateral. American bases, allied nations, and global energy infrastructure all become targets the moment hostilities begin. That no U.S. casualties were reported is a significant data point, but the political fallout across the Gulf — where host nations must now reckon with the consequences of their security relationships with Washington — will unfold over months and years.
Looking ahead, Operation Epic Fury has established several new precedents that will shape U.S. military posture regardless of how the broader conflict resolves. The combat validation of one-way attack drones will accelerate their procurement and integration. The basing of offensive U.S. weapons in Israel has crossed a threshold that is unlikely to be uncrossed. And the demonstration that the United States can coordinate simultaneous precision strikes across air, land, and sea domains at this scale sends a deterrence message to adversaries well beyond Iran — though whether that message deters or provokes remains, as always, the central gamble of military force.
Conclusion
Operation Epic Fury demonstrated the Pentagon’s ability to execute simultaneous strikes from air, land, and sea against a well-defended adversary at a scale not seen in the Middle East in decades. The operation introduced the LUCAS one-way attack drone to combat, stationed offensive U.S. weapons on Israeli soil for the first time, and coordinated over 150 American aircraft with dozens of warships and land-based HIMARS launchers across multiple theaters.
Each of these firsts carries implications that extend far beyond the immediate military results. The broader consequences — Iran’s retaliatory strikes across the Gulf, the political strain on host nations like Jordan, the question of munitions sustainability, and the precedent of using reverse-engineered enemy drones in combat — remain unresolved. What is clear is that the U.S. military has moved into a new phase of multi-domain operations where cheap expendable systems operate alongside the most advanced stealth aircraft in the world, and where the line between limited strikes and regional war depends entirely on choices that have yet to be made.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Operation Epic Fury?
Operation Epic Fury is the U.S. military codename for the coordinated strikes against Iranian military targets launched on February 28, 2026, in partnership with Israel’s Operation Roaring Lion. CENTCOM confirmed the operation included simultaneous precision strikes from air, land, and sea platforms.
What is the LUCAS drone used in the Iran strikes?
LUCAS stands for Low-Cost Unmanned Combat Attack System, a one-way attack drone built by SpektreWorks. It costs approximately $35,000 per unit, is reverse-engineered from the Iranian Shahed-136, and was used in combat for the first time during Operation Epic Fury — marking the Pentagon’s first-ever use of one-way attack drones.
Were there U.S. casualties from Iran’s retaliatory strikes?
According to officials, no U.S. casualties were reported following Iran’s retaliatory strikes, which targeted Israel and multiple Gulf states including the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Jordan.
Why were F-22 Raptors deployed to Israel?
Twelve F-22 Raptors were deployed to Ovda Airbase in southern Israel to shorten transit times to Iranian airspace and reduce dependence on aerial refueling. This marked the first-ever deployment of offensive U.S. military assets on Israeli soil.
How many aircraft and ships were involved in Operation Epic Fury?
The U.S. assembled over 150 aircraft and dozens of warships — described as the largest American military force in the Middle East in decades. This included two carrier strike groups (USS Abraham Lincoln and USS Gerald R. Ford), F-22 Raptors, F-15E Strike Eagles, and 14 refueling tankers. Israel contributed approximately 200 fighters.