U.S. Races to Accomplish Iran Mission Before Munitions Run Out

SilverElfin

They used up a lot of the remaining tomahawk inventory apparently. These operations, done without congressional approval, are wasting literal billions. Repositioning multiple carrier groups and spending lots of munitions isn’t cheap. And yet the administration thinks some alleged small scale Somalian fraud deserves all our attention.

panny

archive link https://archive.is/usjGR

eqvinox

Interesting aspect: if the ammo is all used up in Iran, it can't be sold or given to Ukraine. Tinfoil hat time?

lupire

If this is true, the real problem is why the US was so undersupplied in core munitions.

ZunarJ5

We could have had healthcare.

aftbit

This is reminding us something that we should never have forgotten - modern war has an insatiable demand for munitions. To take just one example out of dozens, the US fired somewhere from 100 to 150 THAAD interceptors - about ¼ of the stockpile - during the 12 days war in 2025. We produce just under 100 per year. There are plans to raise that number to 400 per year. The Ukrainians were expending somewhere around 10,000 drones per day in mid 2025. Russian numbers are likely broadly similar. Many historical conflicts have featured a substantial bottleneck on multiple munitions during ramp up. World War 1 had artillery shell crises across Britain, France, Russia, and Germany. World War II had similar, especially for the Russians and Germans. The US was short on ammo early in the Korean war. Modern mechanized combat demands an insane manufacturing and logistics chain. It can burn through stockpiles incredibly fast, especially of high capability expensive munitions. War production levels are utterly unsustainable during peace time. This is why peer and near-peer conflict is as much an economic and productive game as it is a military one. Shock and awe takes a tremendous amount of resources to accomplish at all, let alone sustain.

duxup

Lets say I'm on team regime change... aren't I also hoping someone we like somehow rises up and takes over that whole country too? That seems unlikely.