U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war

"There's no such thing as public opinion, merely published opinion". While on the one hand we should never discount the impact of incompetence, gross negligence, or deliberate mismanagement there's a reason this story is circulating. For the most-dominant military power in the world to "whoopsy" run out of weapons because of a low-stakes engagement isn't readily believable.

Suspicious me likens it to the supposed "water shortage deception" at Midway in WW2 https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2024/december/bat...

Slightly concerned that there could be an unreported tit-for-tat. China "allegedly" arming/equipping Iran to perhaps the USA coverty planting unbalancing arms and equipment to Taiwan. The Ukraine (and Iran?) theater has shown how drone warfare has changed the game. A nation without a navy can now inexpensively counter a nation with one (ongoing 2-for-2 at the moment).

>The U.S. Army has used up much of its stockpile of highly accurate long-range missiles during its five-month war with Iran, according to three people familiar with the data, raising concerns about the military’s readiness for future conflicts.

>The missiles are principally the Army’s surface-to-surface weapons, known as Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) and Precision Strike Missiles (PrSM). The U.S. has used “virtually all” of these weapons, according to two of the sources.

That quite a bit less of an issue than the headline implies.

I'm always confused by prices of "highly regulated" goods in the United States.

When I get a $150,000 bill for a 15-minute hand-reconstruction surgery, how much of that bill is the total margin vs self cost? And how much of that is warranted / acceptable?

When a single Tomahawk missile bills the taxpayer $3,600,000, how much of that bill is the total margin? When I say "total margin", I mean not just the margin of the company that builds the Tomahawk itself, but the margins of all the components that were used in it -- every last bolt and every ounce of aluminum.

If I was an ex KGB man running the rump of an ex empire, I'd be thinking of ways of disarming the strongest military in NATO. "Sure go ahead invade Iran, we are so impressed with your leader we wouldn't dare do anything to dissuade you."

The "drill here and drill now" crowd doesn't understand the concept of managing limited expendable resources?? Say it ain't so!

Now they'll exhaust interceptors and other long range missiles like tomahawks and whatnot.

And then China gets frisky with Taiwan and the US will totally not abandon them and tell them to just give up pressured by the lack of firepower to defend them, the risks of China getting back into bidding oil in international markets and the mess the treasury would be in if China raises capital by selling bonds (they just told the fed to print more so Japan can buy yens without selling their US bonds, so they are at least very concerned about the possibility).

Sorry for the rant.

3 generations of wealth poured into the most expensive military in recorded history - the reason that we don't have health care, clean energy, decent social safety nets and so many other things... and they can't even control a small stretch of water. What a waste.

That's the one glaring weakness of relying too heavily on missiles. They are expensive and difficult to manufacture. And they have a limited shelf life, making stockpiles also expensive

In previous conflicts the US military could get a lot done with bombs, but that's risky if you can't get air superiority and take out all enemy anti-air systems. Which is more difficult against an enemy who can shoot at your air bases and aircraft carriers. But those previous conflicts might have contributed to a false sense of security about required missile stockpiles

Did the US just have the same fate as Russia where they where feared for their military until they used it?

North Korea has a bunch they're willing to sell. Russia is buying already so get 'em while they're hot.

I have been vaguely watching the Ukraine conflict over the past few years. From my distant and zero experience observations, it seems like missiles are extremely effective BUT also extremely limited. So you blow up that one building or SAM you targeted. Well done. What about the other 10,000 static targets? What about the guys with FPV drones and shoulder-launched anti-air now inside the rubble of the building you just destroyed? Send another XX-million USD missile to blow up the building you already blew up?

Feels like a determined adversary who is not easily cowed with a quick bit of "shock and awe" and armed with cheap, mobile winged/quad drones and man-portable guided anti-air/-tank missiles has totally changed the equation. Expensive limited missiles/planes/tanks/ships in smaller numbers seem kinda limited in their ability to get results in today's battlefield where there are FPV drones literally at every turn, and can be operated from literally a hole in the ground 15km away by people who aren't about to easily surrender.

It feels somewhat like the US doctrine has been to start with a "hit 'em hard" opening salvo of cruise/ballistic missiles and rockets etc and hope for immediate surrender. So far the lesson from Ukraine and Iran seems to be expect a big wave first attack or two and if you survive that initial push then suddenly the big super-power has no more cards left to play and it's down to men on the ground with hand-held weapons and drones. I wonder if people will look back at this era as a "WW1 moment" where the old ways of battle suddenly looked hopelessly out of date.

A more technical source:

https://www.militarytimes.com/industry/techwatch/2026/08/04/...

The US only used long range precision missiles for the first 3 days of the war. Since then, its been almost all JDAMs. The interceptors got used a lot more but even with those we only went through about 5% of the stockpile. This is CNBC. If you trust them on topics like this, well...that's on you. Please remember that they don't have a single person on staff with any military experience or expertise.

PS Their source was probably the IRCG...

Anyone have insight into the overlap of techies and armchair military experts? Every thread like this ends up overflowing with comments like "Let me explain to you what's really happening..."

Probably needed an excuse to rotate our stock out.

its good to drain pool and refill with fresh water every now and again

That's hard to believe. US with it's military spending should be able to join two large scale conflicts at the same time, not to have problem with a one minor conflict.

>The U.S. Army has used up

So not the US. There is also the Navy, Air Force etc

Borderline clickbait

Wild how it only took 2 years of a dementia ridden corpse king to fundamentally gut America's global power indefinitely

With stories like this you always have to ask “Who are the sources?”

“People who are familiar with this matter” is doing a lot of work.

This reeks of laundering lies.

> “U.S. has used…”

Missing the ‘has’ part for “present perfect tense”, e.g. “a past action with present relevance”.

In an ongoing war.

It might actually be for the best to stress the system in this way. It's not practical to keep a military based only around "stockpiles" that you're scared to use up. Modern combat looks like long wars of attrition where two countries compete to see who can burn through more missiles so you need to keep the actual supply chain active.

Hopefully they're able to learn lessons from Ukraine as well and pivot towards cheaper missiles and autonomous vehicles

What is there even to say about this? Where does one even begin?

Can anyone verify this through secondary sources?

Typical CNBC article. Lying as usual.

Only PrSM and ATACMS reserves are low.

Not sure why anyone has a taste for the kind of butch, chest-pounding performative foreign policy we have these days. Not only does it not work, it's dangerous to national security.

Does this mean that from now on bombings will happen with dumb bombs and that we can expect way more Iranian casualties? Otherwise this seems incorrect.

A lot of the problem is with the current commander in chief's not very good strategy. Iran is huge and populous and would be very expensive to occupy with boots on the ground so no one really wants to go there. Trump thought he could just bomb their military assets and government and things would all be ok but the Iranians have been planning for that for ages and have everything distributed, duplicated and protected. A more normal leader might consult with allies who have been dealing with Iran for decades and make a coherent plan but he ignores them, tariffs them and threatens their territories. I'm not sure how it's supposed to work. He could launch 100% of the US's missiles at Iran and still not achive much.

> Analysts say such weapons – which cost over $1 million each – would also be important in any conflict with China.

Said without context, there are not very many places close to China where these could be fired from, so I'm not so sure how useful they would really be in any South China Sea hot wars

Goes to show every army does the same: they make, especially the lower echelons, largely correct predictions of future conflicts. Then they refuse to prepare for them.

The more things change.

> A fourth person familiar with the matter said that while Central Command — which oversees U.S. forces in the Middle East — has nearly used up the land-based missiles it had before the war began, it has been able to reload from U.S. military supplies elsewhere in the world.

The title seems fairy inaccurate

The headline is inaccurate, as the article actually says that the US Army has used nearly all of its long-range precision missiles, referring to ATACMS and PCM.

First, those are short- to medium-range weapons.

Second, the USAF and USN hold most of the US's long-range precision weaponry, the only real exception being the Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW), which is not yet fielded.

This is good for Anduril. The future of war is cheap, massed, intelligent drones. Its strategically fortunate for us to burn through all of this expensive, obsolete crap.

What a fucking joke.

Same way Russia ran out of missiles 3 years ago?

All the expensive planes are falling out of the sky too. It seems like some weird plan to unwind the US ever since Obama left office.

There’s no growth or hope. It’s all bad news, war, and rumors of war - and all reads like a bad WWE script.

Just seems like a coordinated effort to destroy from within since about ~2016 or at least act out this play of America in Decline

Whatever, would be way better if they celebrate collaboration and forward thinking again.

Mainly because it’s just so boring under Trump - this should have been a 4 year show

It's a good job their allies will defend them then if their ammo is low - this isn't sarcasm, it's the point of NATO, but hey if Trump still wants to pull out of that alliance...

To no farking effect - Iran is still as bellicose as ever.

This is already the lifeline Europe is using to save its auto industry from the electric... the US is next. Just need to open up competitive bidding for the production of these components. Licensing patriot production to Ukraine will be a good start... S. Korea next

there is a lot of money to be made, building more of them :(

The article is about the Army (not the Navy or Air Force for example)

It's almost like the current decision makers are incompetent.

Trump is like Al Capone - just dumber.

There is not really any strategy here in place that makes sense from an US point of view. There is a strategy in place that may make sense for Netanyahu (e. g. remain in power) but this is not a US strategic point of view. Trump seems to be the most easily influenced roleplaying as "president". People need to follow the money trail here - that would explain the whole situation right now best.

Americans living in their bubble might be unable to see from a perspective, but from outside is quite apparent that American-Israeli conflict against Iran will long outlive both Trump and Netanjahu. Hopefully that was the last dumb thing and decision they made.

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I like how China and Russia are mentioned as adversaries that the US might be less likely to deter with their dwindling supply of long-range munition, but the country that so helpfully "received" (being bombed) all that supply and is the reason for the stockpile being minimal right now, isn't mentioned as an adversary that could take advantage of this.

used? as if it's paper towel wipe up some dirt? this is so depressing.

USA people, do you all really love killing other human? or you have no control of your democratically elected government at all?