Videos released by the Pentagon on Wednesday captured the moment a U.S. attack submarine sank an Iranian warship in international waters.
The incident marks the first confirmed use of a torpedo in destroying a combat vessel since the end of World War II, U.S. defense officials said on Wednesday.
“An American submarine sunk an Iranian warship that thought it was safe in international waters,” U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said during a press conference held at the Pentagon.
“Instead, it was sunk by a torpedo.”
Dramatic footage released by the Pentagon depicting the moment of the strike showed the Iranian vessel erupting into a large explosion before beginning to sink into the ocean.
https://t.co/PiqQpVIrMu pic.twitter.com/Wc1e0B0um7
— Department of War 🇺🇸 (@DeptofWar) March 4, 2026
Noting the historical significance of the U.S. Navy’s use of a torpedo strike in sinking the vessel, Hegseth characterized the incident as “quiet death” on Wednesday, comparing the current U.S. military efforts to those fought decades ago during World War II.
“Like in that war, back when we were still the War Department, we were fighting to win,” Hegseth said while revealing the footage before reporters on Wednesday.
While there was no discussion of rescue operations involving the vessel during Wednesday’s press conference, Sri Lankan authorities reported that their navy had participated in the recovery of survivors, as well as the remains of individuals killed during the incident.
32 people were said to have been rescued, according to Sri Lankan Navy spokesperson Buddhika Sampath, who also said investigations were underway to determine why the Iranian vessel was operating near the island country.
The sinking occurred early on the fifth day of the escalating U.S. military campaign against Iran, which has targeted Iranian military infrastructure across the region since the conflict began over the weekend.
Speaking at the Pentagon on Tuesday, Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of U.S. Central Command, said that American forces have destroyed more than 17 Iranian vessels since the conflict began over the weekend, including “the most operational Iranian submarine,” which reportedly sustained severe damage.
The destruction of Iran’s naval capabilities has been cited as a major focus of the U.S. military’s campaign.
Appearing alongside Hegseth at the Pentagon on Wednesday, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine reiterated to reporters that the sinking of the Iranian warship represents the first time an attack submarine has used a torpedo to sink a combat ship since 1945.
“As the Secretary showed in the video, for the first time since 1945, a United States Navy fast attack submarine has sunk an enemy combatant ship using a single Mark 48 torpedo to achieve immediate effect, sending the warship to the bottom of the sea.”
During World War II, the U.S. submarine USS Sealion famously destroyed the Japanese battleship Kongō in 1944 using nine Mark 18 torpedoes.
USS Sealion remains the only Allied submarine credited with sinking a battleship during the Second World War, although in more recent decades, torpedoes have occasionally been used in controlled operations. One example had been a 1999 incident in which a U.S. submarine sank an abandoned oil tanker after other scuttling attempts failed.
Caine characterized the Iranian vessel’s sinking as “an incredible demonstration of America’s global reach,” adding that “To hunt, find, and kill an out-of-area deployer is something that only the United States can do at this type of scale.”
Caine also said that within the next two days, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) will continue its efforts to locate and strike both Iranian naval assets, as well as infrastructure, although he cautioned that ongoing assessments of the U.S. military’s progress would be required before complete assessments could be made.
“It does take time for us to collect that information and to assess in route,” Caine said on Wednesday. “Much of our intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capability is currently hunting and killing ballistic missile launchers in one way attack capability.”
Operation Epic Fury: The Latest
Wednesday marked the fifth day of the U.S. military operation, known as Operation Epic Fury, which, according to current Pentagon figures cited by CENTCOM commander Adm. Brad Cooper, has already struck more than 2,000 Iranian targets.
The scale of the operation is also forcing military planners to make careful calculations regarding the rate at which American forces are expending their most sophisticated munitions, amid questions over how long Iran will be able to sustain its own attacks, which have relied on launches of missiles and drones throughout the region.
On Wednesday, several outlets reported that some military officials with knowledge of the matter have cautioned that the current rate of interceptor use by the U.S. military could lead to changes in the U.S. strategy, causing the Pentagon to have to prioritize which incoming threats to defend against.
However, Pentagon leadership has pushed back on the claims, maintaining that the U.S. military is well-equipped to sustain the campaign.
“I know there have been a lot of questions about munitions,” Caine remarked amid questions from reporters during Wednesday’s Pentagon briefing. Though declining to provide specific figures, Caine affirmed that the U.S. has “sufficient precision munitions for the task at hand, both on the offense and defense,” though adding that “as a matter of practice, I don’t want to be talking about quantities.”
Caine did acknowledge, however, that there had been “a great debate” in recent days about the potential for depleting munitions, as well as significant interest from members of the media.
“I appreciate the interest, but just know that we consider that an operational security matter,” Caine told reporters on Wednesday.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also dismissed concerns about munitions as “speculations” aiming to “make it look like we’re limited in what we can do,” and said the Pentagon will increasingly shift to GPS-guided gravity bombs, which he described as being available in “nearly unlimited” quantities.
“Iran cannot outlast us,” Hegseth said. “We are going to ensure through violence of action and our offensive capabilities and our defensive capabilities, as I said, that we set the tone and the tempo of this fight.”
President Donald Trump similarly wrote on his Truth Social website that U.S. stocks of mid-tier munitions are “virtually unlimited,” though he acknowledged supplies of the most advanced weapons were “not where we want to be.”
Asked for clarification on the President’s statements on social media, Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Wednesday during a White House press briefing that the U.S. “has more than enough capability to not only successfully execute Operation Epic Fury, but to go much further,” adding that the U.S. has “weapons stockpiles in places that many people in this world don’t even know about.”
Leavitt told reporters that President Trump’s social media post had been intended to highlight mistakes by past U.S. leadership, shifting ongoing questions regarding munitions away from current military capabilities and instead over to past U.S. leadership.
“The President, in that post, was pointing out that, unfortunately, we had a very stupid and incompetent leader in this White House for four years who gave away many of our best weapons for nothing—for free—to another country very far away, by the name of Ukraine,” Leavitt said.
“So the President was pointing out how that was an unwise decision,” Leavitt told reporters, “nevertheless, don’t doubt the strength and the might of the American military.”
To-date, Operation Epic Fury has already seen several American casualties. On Tuesday, it was reported that six U.S. troops were killed in a drone strike on a base in Kuwait, marking the deadliest single incident for U.S. forces since the conflict began.
Analysts say Iran’s strategy appears designed to continue exploiting low-cost drones and carefully managed missile salvos to exhaust the far more expensive air defense systems deployed by the United States and its allies.
On Wednesday, Leavitt told reporters at the White House that “victory will be determined by the Commander in Chief once the goals and the objectives that we have repeatedly laid out are fully realized.”
“In the next few hours, we’ll be achieving that dominance over the skies,” Leavitt said, adding that “the United States military will be raining missiles and weapons down on Iran to hit these specific targets that have been identified as crucial to take out by the Department of War.”
Micah Hanks is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of The Debrief. A longtime reporter on science, defense, and technology with a focus on space and astronomy, he can be reached at micah@thedebrief.org. Follow him on X @MicahHanks, and at micahhanks.com.