Comment by carefree-bob
11 hours ago
I get what you are saying, and I was sympathetic to this view in the Ukraine war (where we gave orders of magnitude more munitions than have been spent on Iran).
At that time, I believed it "We are running out of missiles, we are running out of shells", etc.
But it turns out the US adapted. They increased production, they substituted for next best options, they got other countries to produce for us, and still we have not run out. Not after years of Ukraine.
So I am no longer on the "US is running out of munitions" bandwagon. Plus, this military spending increases productive capacity.
Take a peek at last year's budget for missile production. It's amazingly small, and the production capacity is limited as well. RTX makes both Patriot and SM2/3 missiles, and production is so low that the Navy is going to be using the Patriot in its VLS launchers.
Lockheed makes THAAD, around 100/year. That's nothing. A veritable drop in the bucket.
PAC-3 production MIGHT hit 650 this year, with a goal of 2000 per annum by 2033!!!
SM-6 is about 300/year, and they're hoping to get to 500/year by roughly the same timeframe.
SM-3 is even lower at maybe 75/year. The USN has just never prioritized filling their weapons magazines.
It's hard to know what missiles were expended in the current Iran War, but you can figure out how many were purchased over the years since it's public info. Then subtract what's been used for training, fighting the Houthis in Yemen etc.
Before the war started, total purchases of all PAC-3 were approximately 2500. Some of these were used in training, some donated to Ukraine, and some were part of FMS.
Approximately 500 SM-3 missiles have been delivered. Approximately 1100 SM-6 missiles have been delivered.The majority of both the SM-3 and SM-6 are used by the USN, though some allies have made small purchases of both.
Unclassified estimates have Iran launching over 3000 ballistic missiles and 4500 drones. US policy for BMs is two missiles each. Not all of these would have been engaged by the US (Israeli systems such as Arrow etc would be tasked with missiles targeting Israel, though Israel also has Patriot through FMS). But it's easy to see where 3000 to 4000 interceptor missiles could have been consumed.
Now add in what the USN burned through in the Red Sea when the Houthis started targeting shipping and it's easy to be concerned about magazine depth.
And this is just interceptors. It doesn't count Tomahawks, JAASM, etc.