US boosts Iran war assets with third aircraft carrier USS George HW Bush

A third US aircraft carrier has arrived in the Middle East, bringing thousands more American troops and dozens of advanced fighter jets to the region.

The USS George HW Bush entered waters near Iran after a week of chaos in the Strait of Hormuz, with no sign of peace talks resuming.

The US Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East, posted an image on X of the carrier with its deck packed with warplanes.

It said as of April 23, the strike group was sailing in the Indian Ocean.

Three carriers ‘highly unusual’ 

The USS George HW Bush strike group is comprised of nearly 5,000 sailors, the US Navy said. 

It includes the flagship carrier, which comes with nine aircraft squadrons.

The George HW Bush is also accompanied by the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers USS Ross, USS Donald Cook and USS Mason.

The US describes Arleigh Burke-class destroyers as the “backbone” of the navy’s surface fleet, designed to provide mission capabilities such as anti-aircraft, anti-surface, and anti-submarine warfare.

The Bush is joining the carriers USS Gerald R Ford and USS Abraham Lincoln.

The USS Gerald R Ford — the world’s largest aircraft carrier — is operating in the Red Sea after a stint in Croatia undergoing repairs caused by a laundry room fire last month.

The Ford has set the record for the longest US aircraft carrier deployment since the Vietnam War, surpassing 300 days at sea.

At 337 metres, the Ford is longer than the tallest building in Australia and surpasses the height of the Eiffel Tower.

It supports up to 90 jets, including several squadrons of F/A-18 Super Hornet fighters and EA-18G Growler electronic warfare aircraft.

Before Bush’s arrival, there were at least 21 navy warships and more than 16,500 sailors and marines already in the region, according to data from United States Naval Institute (USNI), an independent military association.

The US has about 40 per cent of its naval capacity operating in the Middle East.

Analysis from Army Recognition, a leading defence industry news site, said it was “highly unusual” to deploy three aircraft carriers to a region. 

“Moving from one to three carriers does not simply increase presence — it fundamentally transforms operational capacity by enabling continuous multi-axis air operations, dramatically expanding the scale and tempo of potential US military action,” it reported.

Support for strait blockage 

It was not immediately clear what the Bush may be ordered to do, when it was revealed the vessel had moved to the Middle East.

But many US warships in the Middle East had reportedly been tasked with enforcing US President Donald Trump’s blockade of Iranian ports in the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran has maintained its own blockade on the strait, a key shipping route, for nearly two months, causing global energy prices to soar.

Before the war, about a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas exports flowed through the critical waterway.

Iran has vowed to keep the strait closed to all but a trickle of approved vessels for as long as the US Navy blockades its ports, brushing off demands from Mr Trump to reopen Hormuz and surrender its enriched uranium.

The US has intercepted multiple ships after imposing the blockade on April 13.

But the stoush in the strait has been escalating over the past week.

The Defence Department released footage of US forces on the deck of the Guinea-flagged oil tanker Majestic X, which was seized in the Indian Ocean.

The footage emerged a day after Iran’s paramilitary Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps attacked three cargo ships in the strait, capturing two of them, in an assault that raised new concerns about the safety of shipping through the waterway.

The third US aircraft carrier would help support safe passage for tankers through the strait, Admiral Daryl Caudle, chief of naval operations, said during an event hosted by the Atlantic Council.

It would also help, if required, to deal with Iranian sea mines and other asymmetric threats.

Mr Trump has ordered the navy to “shoot and kill any boat” laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz.

Carrier tests laser weapons to fight drones

Ahead of the USS George HW Bush arrival in the Middle East, the US Navy disclosed it had tested an AeroVironment LOCUST Laser Weapon System (LWS) aboard the carrier. 

The 20kW laser system was designed as a cost-effective option to counter swarms of cheap drones.

Captions on photos released by the US Navy this month said the LOCUST system had neutralised several drones during exercises held in late 2025.

The LOCUST “effectively detected, tracked, engaged, and neutralised multiple unmanned aerial vehicles, marking a milestone toward fielding operational directed energy capabilities,” the captions read.

Admiral Caudle has expressed his goal for directed energy weapons to be the go-to choice for warship crews for line-of-sight threats, emphasising that it had “an infinite magazine”.

But some defence analysts have noted the weapons still faced limits in operational settings.

The beam effectiveness could decrease over distance, and weather conditions such as dust, smoke, or moisture could reduce performance before the beam reached its target.

Ahead of a ceasefire that came into effect two weeks ago, which has been indefinitely extended, Iran had been launching waves of cheap attack drones.

The drones had been evading US and Israeli air defence systems across the region and wreaking havoc on Gulf states.  

Source: ABC News

--Agencies