Iran Captures Anduril Dive-LD, a 3D-Printed US Underwater Drone

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced on September 8 that its naval forces captured an American autonomous underwater vehicle near the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz. The vessel, identified by open-source analysis as an Anduril Dive-LD, is a large uncrewed underwater vehicle built in part using additive manufacturing.

What Is the Dive-LD

The Dive-LD measures roughly 5.8 meters long and 1.2 meters in diameter, with a gross weight close to three tons. Anduril, the California defense technology company, acquired the design when it bought Dive Technologies in 2022. The platform entered service with the U.S. Navy's Unmanned Undersea Vehicle Group One in April 2025.

Anduril's product literature specifically notes that the hull uses additive manufacturing to enable rapid integration of sensors and mission payloads. The company states the design can dive to 6,000 meters and remain at sea for up to ten days, depending on configuration.

How the Incident Unfolded

Iranian state media released video and photographs showing a large cylindrical drone being lifted from the water. The visible markings on the hull read "DI E-LD," with the "v" worn away. Independent analysts compared the photos to known Dive-LD images and confirmed the match based on flood holes, fastenings, and the short transparent sail forward.

A U.S. Central Command spokesperson told reporters the drone had malfunctioned more than a day before the IRGC announcement and was "essentially dead in the water." The spokesperson described it as an older model that did not carry classified sonar or radar equipment.

Why It Matters

The Dive-LD is not a top-secret weapon. It is designed to be optionally attritable, meaning losses in contested waters are an expected cost of operations. Anduril's statement emphasized that the vehicle had already completed thousands of hours of missions in the CENTCOM region.

Still, recovering an intact operational UUV gives Iran a rare chance to study American autonomous undersea systems up close. Tehran has a established pattern of reverse-engineering captured hardware. After Iran seized a Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel stealth drone in 2011, analysts found the regime had shared details with Russia and China. The same could happen with the Dive-LD.

The Bigger Picture

The Strait of Hormuz handles roughly a fifth of global oil shipments. The U.S. Navy uses unmanned underwater vehicles there for mine countermeasures, seafloor mapping, and surveillance. Losing even an older platform in a contested chokepoint points to the growing difficulty of operating autonomous systems in peer-adjacent environments.

For the 3D printing industry, the story is a reminder that additive manufacturing is now embedded in defense supply chains. The Dive-LD hull is not a prototype part. It is a serial-production component on an operational military system. That is a level of adoption most consumer-facing 3D printing stories still do not reflect.