America's Newest Missile Caught on CCTV During Deadly Iran Strike

The Pentagon's Newest Toy Gets Its First Outing

When the United States launched Operation Epic Fury against Iran on 28 February 2026, it brought along something new to the party. Defence analysts have now confirmed that footage from the southern Iranian town of Lamerd captured what appears to be America's Precision Strike Missile (PrSM) in action, marking the weapon's combat debut.

The identification was made by analysts at Janes and McKenzie Intelligence Services, who examined CCTV footage of the strike. For the uninitiated, PrSM is the successor to the ageing ATACMS missile system (the one Ukraine has been lobbing at Russian targets). Built by Lockheed Martin, it entered service in December 2023, boasts a range of up to 500km (310 miles) compared to ATACMS' 300km (186 miles), and launches from the same HIMARS platform that became a household name during the Ukraine conflict.

What Happened in Lamerd

The strikes hit the town of Lamerd, home to roughly 30,000 people, on the opening day of the war. Two impacts landed approximately 300 metres apart, striking residential buildings and a sports hall. At least 21 people were killed, according to Iranian state media, though other reporting puts the figure between 17 and 21 depending on when the count was taken. Among the victims was reportedly a two-year-old child and 12-year-old Elham Zaeri.

The intended target may have been an IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) facility reportedly near the sports hall, though this has not been independently confirmed. CENTCOM has acknowledged using PrSM during the broader campaign but has not commented specifically on the Lamerd strikes.

A Grim Pattern

The Lamerd attack came just hours after the far deadlier strike on a school in Minab, which killed at least 168 people initially, a figure later revised upward to more than 175 as recovery efforts continued through 4 March. Around 110 of those killed were children. US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has said the Minab incident is "under investigation."

To put it bluntly, the opening day of this war was catastrophic for Iranian civilians.

Making History, One Press Conference at a Time

At a Pentagon press briefing on 13 March, General Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, described the PrSM deployment as "making history." It is, of course, a matter of perspective whether that history is the sort anyone ought to be celebrating. The missile certainly performed its technical function. Whether hitting a sports hall in a town of 30,000 qualifies as precision is a question the Pentagon seems less eager to address.

Business Is Booming

If there were any doubt about the military-industrial complex's capacity for efficient timing, Lockheed Martin put that to rest on 25 March 2026 by signing an agreement to quadruple PrSM production. The deal builds on a $4.9 billion contract, and given that the US reportedly fired an estimated 320 PrSM and ATACMS missiles in just the first 16 days of the conflict (nearly half the combined inventory), the restocking urgency is hardly surprising.

Nothing sells a weapons system quite like a live demonstration, it seems.

The Bigger Picture

The identification of PrSM through open-source analysis highlights just how difficult it has become for militaries to keep their hardware choices quiet. Between CCTV cameras, satellite imagery, and a global community of very dedicated defence analysts, the fog of war is thinner than ever.

What remains considerably foggier is accountability. When precision missiles hit civilian areas and the response is a press conference about making history, the gap between capability and responsibility becomes impossible to ignore.

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