Can U.S. Marine Corps F-35C Fighters ‘Kick Down the Door’ to Shatter Iran’s Air Defences?

The U.S. Navy Nimitz class supercarrier USS Abraham Lincoln and its Carrier Strike Group on January 20 completed a transit through the Malacca Strait, after prematurely concluding operations in the 7th Fleet area of operations, particularly in the South China Sea, to redirect towards the 5th Fleet area in the Middle East. The redirection of the carrier group represents part of a much broader U.S.-led military buildup against Iran, which has also included redeployments of Army and Air Force assets to the Middle East, and withdrawals of assets from bases that are potentially vulnerable to retaliation. Should the United States initiate a new attack on Iran, the Abraham Lincoln’s deployment of Marine Corps F-35C fifth generation fighters could particularly valuable. 

The Abraham Lincoln is the first aircraft carrier to operate with Marine F-35C fighters, which are deployed under Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 314. The squadron was in late 2024 confirmed to be the first to utilise the F-35C in combat, namely to strike Ansurullah Coalition positions in Yemen. Recent footage has confirmed F-35Cs launching and landing on Lincoln’s flight deck during operations in the South China Sea in January 2026, with the aircraft being particularly prized in the region due to their broadly peer level capabilities to Chinese fifth generation fighters such as the J-20 and J-35. The F-35 was developed with a primary focus on being able to counter networks of advanced ground-based air defence systems, which in the case of Iran represents the primary challenge to fighter units in the event of war. 

The U.S. Marine Corps is the only service in the U.S. Armed Forces that operates two variants of the F-35, with the F-35B having been procured to operate from amphibious assault ships replacing the Harrier II, which require short takeoff and vertical landing capabilities, while the F-35C was developed to operate from the U.S. Navy’s supercarriers replacing the F-18C/D fighters. The F-35C has a very significantly greater combat potential than the F-35B, combining greater manoeuvrability, large weapons bays, and a much longer range, with lower maintenance needs and sustainment costs. The Marine Corps in early 2025 reduced planned F-35B procurements by 21 percent to reallocate funding to procuring the F-35C, increasingly the planned fleet from 67 to 140 aircraft, which may have reflected dissatisfaction with the F-35B’s capabilities when conducting carrier operations and Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations.

Although the F-35 integrates a particularly powerful electronic warfare suite and a passive sensor array, which optimise it to counter advanced air defence networks, the fighter’s ability to contribute to air defence suppression operations against Iran been brought to question due to extreme delays bringing capabilities to the Block 4 standard. Without this, the fighters lack access to any air-to-surface missiles, including the AGM-88G anti-radiation missile developed specifically to destroy air defence systems. Israeli Air Force officers have indicated that F-35s participating in attacks on Iran in June 2025 accordingly primarily served as intelligence collection platforms which shared data with fourth generation fighters to increase situational awareness. It remains highly possible that Marine F-35Cs would similarly be replied on to support other parts of the USS Abraham Lincoln’s carrier air wing, in particular its E/A-18G air defence suppression aircraft, rather than directly launching kinetic attacks.