Hellfire

The AGM-114 Hellfire is a laser-guided, semi-active missile made by Lockheed Martin and Boeing, originally developed in the 1970s for anti-armour use from helicopters. It has since been adapted for fixed-wing aircraft, drones including the MQ-9 Reaper, and naval platforms, and weighs roughly 49 kg.

CENTCOM has fired it repeatedly to disable, rather than sink, non-compliant merchant vessels in the Hormuz blockade. It first entered the conflict record on 29-30 May 2026, hitting the engine room of the Gambian-flagged M/V Lian Star in the Gulf of Oman, disabling propulsion without sinking the vessel or hurting its crew . On 2 June it disabled the tanker M/T Lexie bound for Iran's Kharg Island terminal, the sixth hull CENTCOM had disabled with the missile since the blockade began in March .

Each strike targets an engine room rather than a hull, consistent with the missile's low-collateral-damage design, but using it against unarmed commercial shipping was itself an escalation: the first time munitions rather than boarding parties enforced the blockade. Every disabled vessel pushes war-risk insurance premiums higher across the Gulf, regardless of a ship's cargo or destination .