VIGIL CONSILIUMSearch
Context. Not headlines.
Equipment catalogue · shared across conflicts

Naval vessel · Guided-missile destroyer

Arleigh Burke-class destroyers

The American destroyer that is the Gulf's actual missile-defence-at-sea — the Aegis ships that have intercepted Houthi missiles and drones in the Red Sea since 2023 and Iranian ballistic missiles fired at Israel, and the vessels behind the naval interdiction of Iranian exports in 2026.

Arleigh BurkeUnited States1991 service entry; continuous production

Status as of
2026-09
Last reviewed
2026-09-09

AssessmentHigh confidence

Recognition context, not a stat sheet. The catalogue covers major publicly documented systems relevant to the conflicts Vigil covers — not an exhaustive order of battle. No quantities, availability or current allocations are recorded.

The recordWhat this system is, where it comes from, who operates it and which of Vigil’s modules it is relevant to — with the evidence each of those rests on.

FieldedEvidence: Confirmed
Silhouette · not to scale

Record

FamilyArleigh Burke
VariantsFlight I; Flight II; Flight IIA; Flight III
OriginUnited States
Era1991 service entry; continuous production
Appears inIran–Gulf 2026 war · Red Sea campaign

Conflict relevance

This is the catalogue's single record for this system. It is relevant to the module below; each module's Force Atlas shows how it is used there.

Iran–Gulf · Force Atlas

Operators

The United States in the Gulf · Primary operator

The United States in the Gulf: The Fifth Fleet's principal surface combatants, rotating through the theatre from other fleets.

Battlefield role

Air and missile defence at sea and for the coast behind it, surface warfare, strike, and the escort and interdiction tasks of a fleet in a narrow sea.

Strengths

The Aegis system's proven ballistic-missile intercepts, deep magazines by the standards of any regional navy, and a class large enough that ships can be rotated through a long campaign.

Limitations

Magazine depth is finite and reloading requires leaving station; the ships are expensive answers to cheap drones, which is the cost asymmetry of every Red Sea engagement; and their presence in the Gulf depends on a strait they must transit. Hulls, numbers and dispositions are not recorded.

Documented conflict use

Red Sea engagements against Houthi missiles and drones from November 2023; intercepts of Iranian ballistic missiles fired at Israel in April 2024; the 2026 maritime interdiction reported by CENTCOM.

PartialConfidence: HighSources: Congressional Research Service — Iran, the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz · US Naval Institute News↗ · IISS Military Balance↗MethodologyCorrections

Assessed as of2026-09Last reviewed2026-09-09