Posted on 04/22/2026 8:26:21 AM PDT by thegagline
Concern about the status of U.S. munitions inventories has intensified as reports emerge about high expenditures of Tomahawks, Patriots, and other missiles in the Iran war. As Operation Epic Fury remains paused in a shaky ceasefire, there is an opportunity to assess whether the U.S. military nears the point of going “Winchester”—or running out of ammunition.
Analysis of seven key munitions shows that the United States has enough missiles to continue fighting this war under any plausible scenario. The risk—which will persist for many years—lies in future wars.
In the 39 days of the air and missile campaign before the ceasefire, U.S. forces heavily used the seven munitions in Table 1. For four of them, the United States may have expended more than half of the prewar inventory. Rebuilding to prewar levels for the seven munitions will take from one to four years as missiles in the pipeline are delivered. These missiles will also be critical for a potential Western Pacific conflict. Even before the Iran war, stockpiles were deemed insufficient for a peer competitor fight.***
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President Trump has accepted this munitions risk—alongside other tradeoffs like the diversion of forces from the Western Pacific. The theory here appears to be that it is important to decisively win the current war you are in, rather than to hold back and preserve capability for a future war that may never happen. Once Operation Epic Fury ends, the naval assets sent to the Middle East will return to the Pacific. Munitions inventories will start to recover, but restoring depleted stockpiles and then achieving the desired inventory levels will take many years.
(Excerpt) Read more at csis.org ...
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we haven’t used even 10% of what we have
The “number of months” of the delivery timeline during WWII, of every kind of thing our armed forces needed to fight the Germans and the Japanese, clearly fell as time went on. By 1945, finished war materiel was pouring in huge quantities out of our factories and into the different theaters of conflict. The U.S., in re-arming itself with the noted munitions, should study the methods used back then to accelerate production and find every available way to reduce those lengthy delivery timelines.
It being understood that we may be experiencing a temporary shortage of so-called “rare earth minerals”, used in many components of our high-tech missiles and bombs.
Isn’t CSIS a liberal organization that relies on assumptions? We all know what assumptions are the mother of.
Anybody care to explain to me why this information is even available for public consumption?
Best reason yet for this “ceasefire”. Very much doubt that Trump has deluded himself that he can actually cut a “great deal” with the mullahs. Underscores the logistical nightmare if this mullah regime is to be forcefully deposed and the uranium secured. Right now suspect that NATO munition stores, regardless of what the Europeans are saying, objecting or complaining, are being sent to the deployed US military and are rearming Israel. It will be a political and strategic catastophre for America if this war ends and the mullah regime, however weakened remains and the uranium is not secured. Too late now to have regrets. Trump crossed the Rubicon when he decided to attack and made promises that “help was on the way”. Almost no wars are easy or fast. Whatever the reason or why, America is now committed. If it ends in failure the demonic Democrats will ride the backlash to power and the American nation and the American people will suffer horribly.
It’s all “woe is me” from the anti-Trumpists....
They are fools thinking we have used so much of our weapons inventory against a little country such as Iran when we have kept in our possession enough to engage with larger countries such as Russia and/or China...
You may want to check your math. Look at table 1, estimated prewar inventory vs estimated used. For example, the Patriot missiles, prewar 2330, used in war 1060-1430. 1060/2330=45.5% which is much larger than your claim of less than 10%. Did you do Ilhan Omar’s taxes?
Put another way, using a $3 million dollar missile to destroy a $20,000 drone is not sustainable.
we have tons of weapons in stock from all reports
tons and tons and tons and tons
but we COULD order more at any time
and we could order a certain “car” factory to produce more defense arms and rockets etcetera ... it would be a real TWO-FER to get those Ugly as Sin fire hazards off the public roads
smiles smiles smiles smiles smiles
Anybody care to explain to me why this information is even available for public consumption?
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See here for the basis of the numbers:
https://comptroller.war.gov/Budget-Materials/Budget2027/
This is the unclassified report and labeled as such - therefore they are in the public domain.
And they gave a lot of that away to Ukraine!
The numbers are based on unclassified reports, and therefore, not an accurate accounting of the weapons made or used.
The table is the authors’ best guesses.
Cheaper to choke them out with a blockade, and let the CIA and Mossad undermine the regime, than to keep expending expensive munitions. Maybe the occasional burst of bombing, interspersed with ceasefires, to weed out troublemakers, and make an example of them.
I’m quite sure these public domain inventory levels do not represent the actual status.
Put another way, using a $3 million dollar missile to destroy a $20,000 drone is not sustainable.
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Or the missile costs 1 million and the other 2 million goes to black projects. There is absolutely no way for the public to determine how much any particular item costs, as long as black projects exist, since their costs are off-budget and any costs are found only in classified reports, if at all; this is why $5 hammers cost $100.
Most of the success in this war has been the result of on the ground Mossad/CIA intelligece ( truly heroic, unrecognised people) and electronic surveillance augmented by AI. If an Iranian commander speaks on a radio, he and his location is almost immedeatly identified. Hence the dearth of radio communications. If the Iranian people ever rise up, the chatter among the IRGC will increase dramatically. Hopefully the Israelis and the US military will be armed appropriately and ready.
This war has been dragging for 47 years. I have some patience for wrapping it up.
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