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U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war
- asdfman123 3mo agoIwould fire more long-range precision missiles but Iran out.
- therealdkz 3mo ago[dead]
- Jgrubb 3mo agoWhat is there even to say about this? Where does one even begin?
- greesil 3mo agoTime to send in the ground troops. Nothing bad can happen. /s
- bsenftner 3mo agoThis nation is sitting ducks? The only reason we don't have Red Dawn is nobody wants this nation idiots.
- jeroenhd 3mo agoIt bodes well for Europeans when the Americans begin their invasion of Denmark, at the very least. Not great for a potential Russia-USA war and Taiwan wouldn't get as much support if the Chinese invade would also be difficult, though. The title says "virtually all" but the first paragraph says "much". The actual stockpile is probably larger than this news report would make it seem. It would be convenient for Trump and his Russia-loving cronies if it would appear that the USA has no more weapons to support Ukraine with, of course. Many advanced NATO weapons being difficult to produce and only being available in small quantities is something that has been discussed before, I don't think that's news. The rate at which they're being spammed without much result at Iran is, but that's hardly surprising given the current people in charge.
- rf15 3mo agoOkay, let's start. - A country, even as big as the US, is strictly, evidently, not exceptional. - The US lost the majority of the wars it joined/started in the last 100 years and came home every time trying to sell it as a victory despite not achieving their war goals. - You may have weapons or power of some kind, but every move you make costs you some kind of currency: time, material, energy, credibility, goodwill. You may have large amounts, but they're never infinite. - Acts of raw destruction as mean towards a goal is often not ideal: change and control are "constructive" concepts, while bombs can only offer you guaranteed chaos. You MIGHT be able to steer that chaos afterwards, but it's not guaranteed and numbers do not simply improve your position here. (see: Iraq, etc.)
- bluegatty 3mo agoNo - the Iran war is a total strategic failure, but the US is very obviously 'exceptional' - I'm not saying necessarily admirable, or more moral etc but it is hugely 'stand out' in terms of capabilities. That's just a fact of reality irrespective of all of the political and moral context. - The US did not 'lose' the majority of the wars it started - it won most of them, and arguably failed to achieve strategic objectives in some. - "Acts of raw destruction as mean towards a goal is often not ideal " - this is a misrepresentation of US doctrine for decades. Even in Vietnam the US did not pursue 'full war' and refused to do strategic bombing in North Vietnam for a decade. As soon as Nixon did (op: Linebacker) - basically, the US 'won' right away. They decimated N. Vietnamese ability in a very material way. Were that strategy to have been undertaken in 1967, the war would have had a completely different outcome, probably more like Korean detente. - US is very careful in their campaigns, there are chains of authority, externalizations are always assessed. The rules of engagement may shift a but - but it's false to suggest it's 'arbitrarily destructive' in targeting, it's generally minimal. If you want to see what 'destructive' is, just look at Russian engagement in Ukraine, or Assad in Syria, or Saudi in Yemen. They don't care what they hit, it's a totally different environment. To this day Iran's Oil Infrastructure remains intact. Just let that sink in. All of this is outside of any moral or whatever other consideration - it's just 'what it is'. The 'important note' here is that 'Power Has Limits' and that's truly the defining characterization of this war. This is not 'America is not capable' is that 'capabilities have limits' - and they become very obvious in difficult ways if power is applied poorly. The Generals 100% warned Trump of all of this - this conflict is not a military failure in that sense, this is predictable. It's the political apparatus pushing the boundaries. The Generals would have none of this.
- dgellow 3mo agoUS adversary countries have to love everything that is happening. If you’re China you win by doing nothing, just let the US administration pillage the country
- ZeroGravitas 3mo ago> Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. - Dwight D. Eisenhower 1953
- tclancy 3mo agoThat fools running a country who turfed out military experience for loyalty were completely blind to what they were doing? I had no idea that running out of missiles was a distinct possibility until Spencer Ackerman started beating that drum in his newsletter around the start of the conflict. Forever Wars (along with the pieces he links to) has been an eye opening read.
- nonethewiser 3mo agoOne begins by looking at the sources which the article dies not substantiate.
- pjc50 3mo ago"Play stupid games, win stupid prizes", international relations edition. America is not happy when it is not at war. There has to be an enemy. The old WOT had finally run out of steam; people are coming out of college who were born after 9/11. Venezuela (and Latin America generally) made a good enemy for a while, but they were too easily defeated. But Iran? America has wanted a rematch since Jimmy Carter. (A bipartisan problem, mostly, but propped up by pro-war media. The only people against it are a few Democrats, almost all of whom are women)
- wongarsu 3mo agoThat'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
- MagicMoonlight 3mo ago[dead]
- closewith 3mo agoYou have the same issue with the conventional bombs and their guidance kits, which when delivered in contested areas are not usually cheaper. The issue is general industrial capacity, not missiles specifically.
- throwthrowuknow 3mo agoThe issue is restraint, an all out bombing campaign with no regard for civilians or international condemnation would do the job in a month
- closewith 3mo agoI think it takes a wilful ignorance of the history of industrialised warfare to believe this.
- budman1 3mo agoJDAM's are a lot cheaper. They are a guidance kit bolted on to a MK-82 gravity bomb. There are a lot of MK-82's in stock, as they have been made since the 1940's. Problem is you put a crew and an expensive airplane at risk. We are out of missiles because the current administration wants to minimize combat losses. Looking at the dollar cost; it seems like a bad idea. But is this war worth any of our soldiers / sailors / airman ? (no)
- Squarex 3mo agoThat'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.
- matchbok3 3mo agoThat would be true if the money spent was actually optimized on output rather than expensive contractors, consultants, and third party profits. :(
- martinky24 3mo agoIt’s easier to believe when missiles are the only strategy being used in the war…
- firesteelrain 3mo agoIt’s a clickbait article
- rbanffy 3mo agoThe word you are looking for is "stragedy"
- mohamedkoubaa 3mo agoHold on, there's strategy being used in the war?
- kubb 3mo agoPaper tiger.
- UltraSane 3mo agoThat is a remarkably stupid thing to say about the US military.
- throwthrowuknow 3mo agoDon’t worry, they can still carpet bomb with high explosive and nuclear always remains an option lest you forget.
- BadBadJellyBean 3mo agoDid the US just have the same fate as Russia where they where feared for their military until they used it?
- thinkindie 3mo agoIt wouldn’t be the first war the USA loose against a smaller enemy. See Vietnam, Afghanistan, etc etc.
- actionfromafar 3mo agoThis was very quick though.
- thibaut_barrere 3mo agoIt turns out public money is more expensive these days. Debt is a more mainstreamly exposed problem.
- leonidasrup 3mo agohttps://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtid=2&psid=3468 https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtid=2&... "The estimated cost of the war in Vietnam during the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations was $176 billion." Adjusted for inflation, that is $1,192 billion in 2026 dollars. "The longest war in American history had significant economic effects both domestically and internationally in terms of what was spent on the war and what expenses had to be cut." https://www.thecollector.com/vietnam-war-economic-effects/ https://www.thecollector.com/vietnam-war-economic-effects/
- thinkindie 3mo agoIran has been preparing for this war for almost 50 years, and they have more leverage than Vietnamese or Talebans had.
- 3mo ago
- embedding-shape 3mo agoI 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.
- actionfromafar 3mo agoUkraine will take advantage of low PrSM stock ... how?
- tclancy 3mo agoThink Ukraine is the reason the US is low on missiles? Do the numbers actually support that? The numbers don’t seem to support that. From a very cursory search, offensive missiles seem to be around 2:1 Iran. And that’s just raw numbers; someone other than me who might do a little moral editorializing would point out the use in Ukraine was to fight off an illegal invasion while the most effective strike in Iran killed a hundred schoolgirls.
- embedding-shape 3mo ago> Think Ukraine is the reason the US is low on missiles? I wasn't intended to imply Ukraine is an adversary, AFAIK to the US, they aren't. Edit: I realize my original comment was a bit ambiguous, I'm talking about Iran, I've now put "received" into quotes.
- redwood 3mo agoThis 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
- RobertoG 3mo agoyeah, let's start all to produce more weapons. What could possible go wrong. What about this? The USA just go home, nobody is going to invade them.
- celsoazevedo 3mo agoSomeone that wants peace shouldn't be happy that, let's say, China is well stocked while the US isn't when we consider China's position on Taiwan and the South China Sea. Russia having multiple production lines for artillery and drones while Europe has sent everything they had to Ukraine isn't good for the balance. And so on. I'm not saying that you should support whatever is happening with Iran, but understand that if a country thinks no one can punish them if they start shit, then they may do it, and then you end up with war, not peace... the opposite of what you expect. I don't like it, but "si vis pacem, para bellum": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Si_vis_pacem%2C_para_bellum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Si_vis_pacem%2C_para_bellum
- DrProtic 3mo agoSame way Russia ran out of missiles 3 years ago?
- morkalork 3mo agoThe missles Russia is launching are made within the last few months. What stockpile they do have is being built up for (another) winter campaign
- closewith 3mo agoThe 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.
- PowerElectronix 3mo agoNow 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.
- greedo 3mo agoAs much as I support Taiwan, there's no realistic timeline where the US goes to war against the PRC over Taiwan. None.
- PowerElectronix 3mo agoA timeline in which AI is everything Amodei and Altman say it is and intel is still stuck in an older node while tsmc has the good gaafet stuff on could be one where it's worth fighting for taiwan. Also, if the US doesn't fight for taiwan, will they fight for the phillipines? Malasia? South korea?
- vuurmot 3mo agoif the US can't even spell Malaysia, I doubt they have interest fighting for them
- bamboozled 3mo agoWar isn't just about bombs though.
- rbanffy 3mo agoOn the flip side, at least the press is not hammering the Epstein files and the lack of any prosecution for the crimes documented in those.
- nakedrobot2 3mo agothere is a lot of money to be made, building more of them :(
- xtiansimon 3mo ago> “U.S. has used…” Missing the ‘has’ part for “present perfect tense”, e.g. “a past action with present relevance”. In an ongoing war.
- Austiiiiii 3mo agoWhat are you talking about? The war is over. It's more over than any war in history. In fact, the POTUS has already ended the war 38 times. /s
- Madmallard 3mo ago[flagged]
- lifestyleguru 3mo agoAmericans 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.
- weatherlite 3mo ago> American-Israeli conflict against Iran Is it even a correct framing for the conflict ? Iran seems to have big issues with UAE and Saudi Arabia and repeatedly fired at them and got fired by them.
- dccoolgai 3mo ago3 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.
- rbanffy 3mo agoSoft power would have gone a long way towards furthering US interests in the Middle East. Unfortunately, it seems too late for that. By the time a new administration's diplomacy reverts the current antagonism and lack of trust, the dollar will have lost ground as the default reserve currency and financing US debt will become much more expensive than it is now, making military expenses prohibitive, but still a priority. This is usually the point the economy is flipped around into a war-based economy where all output is directed to military equipment.
- simonh 3mo agoThe health care issue in the USA isn't due to lack of funding, the US spends more on health care per person than any other country, double that of many European countries with single payer systems. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_health_expenditure_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_hea... The costs of medicare, medicaid and CHIP to tax payers are about what most Europeans pay in tax for universal health care, but then they also need to pay for health insurance for themselves. As for controlling Hormuz, the US military absolutely could control Hormuz. I'm confident it's quite capable of it. It's that the US public wouldn't support the immense cost in lives and treasure it would take to do it, and maintain that control. No other military could even try, but the the USA could. It's not a matter of lack of military capacity.
- redwood 3mo agoThe article is about the Army (not the Navy or Air Force for example)
- mattlondon 3mo agoNorth 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.
- iamnothere 3mo agoIt depends on the specific nature of the conflict. Not every conflict is about control over land; Iran is a perfect example. Their missiles provide a credible threat against globally critical infrastructure, which gives them a way to retaliate without committing ground troops. And their drone strikes are using heavier one-way drones, not FPVs, which wouldn’t make a dent in oil infrastructure or tanker ships. The current US force configuration was designed to fight quick wars against opponents who mostly can’t fight back. It’s a military built to play “global police,” and for a short while this was probably the correct configuration. Building a military that stands ready to fight any kind of war is probably impossible—it would be too expensive. You need to look at the biggest threats and optimize for those conflicts. The problem that the US now faces is that rival nations have optimized for defense against its particular style of maneuver warfare with heavy air bombardment. Air defense (not missile defense) is better and cheaper than ever.
- haunter 3mo ago>The U.S. Army has used up So not the US. There is also the Navy, Air Force etc Borderline clickbait
- panzagl 3mo agoThis should be higher, the Army never had a lot of ATACMs to begin with as launching missiles at things is not really their job. Doesn't make the points about this administration not having a real plan invalid though...
- AxiomaticSpace 3mo agoFrom what I've seen the US has never really put much effort behind surface-to-surface missiles in the first place because when you have a massive and well-funded air force that's a lot better tool for executing long-range fires. Not to say that losing those missiles won't hurt if we get into a war in the medium-term (or want to supply more firepower to our allies), especially in a more land-based theatre like eastern Europe.
- mrguyorama 3mo ago>Army never had a lot of ATACMs to begin with as launching missiles at things is not really their job It's called the Army tactical missile system FFS. It was literally built for them. It's rocket artillery! We built only 3500 of the missiles total. We stopped investing in rocket artillery because they get very close to IRBMs, and those were banned until recently. The Marines had some, but not anymore (IIRC). Other branches have zero. The replacement, PrSM is not in any serious production yet. Other long range precision strike munitions include: Tomahawk: 10k total production through all US history. We only fired 800ish total in all of the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. We have so far fired over 1000 in Iran. The immense "Shock and Awe" that the world drooled over during the Gulf War involved fewer than 300 Tomahawks. AGM-158 JASSM: This is our bread and butter Air launched cruise missile (There isn't an air launched version of Tomahawk!). They only cost about $800k each! Lockheed claims they can someday build 1000 a year. We built 10k total. We fired 1100 in Iran so far and only have 1500 left. AGM-86 ALCM: A 70s era cruise missile. We built 1800. We supposedly only have a few hundred remaining as nuclear tipped cruise missiles. Donald Trump has fired over 2500 of our missiles in Iran, for no benefit, which represents a massive draw down of our long range precision munitions. These numbers are literally public information.
- shevy-java 3mo agoTrump 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.
- b3ing 3mo agoThe strategy was to get Epstein off of everyone’s mind. And if it cost over $40billion and counting then it was deemed worth it, because the president comes first, that how’s our president thinks, me first, and our politicians, party first, our lobby second and the oligarchs third.
- tibbydudeza 3mo agoTo no farking effect - Iran is still as bellicose as ever.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- nonethewiser 3mo agoWith 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.
- mupuff1234 3mo ago> 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
- tclancy 3mo agoI don’t think the title is inaccurate and robbing Peter to pay Paul isn’t the military flex Pete Hesgeth may think it is. Anyone who has ever slept under a too-small comforter knows how this will go.
- mupuff1234 3mo agoMoving resources within an organization isn't exactly robbing.
- nonethewiser 3mo agoIt also says they declined to say how many the US has left. And saying “person familiar with the matter” is doing a lot of work. It could be anyone with no direct information. This is what laundering a bogus story looks like.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 3mo agoExactly how many people do you think are allowed to communicate the status of weapon stockpiles? You are only ever going to get off-the-record comments or a top official letting details slip that should have remained secret.
- drdrek 3mo agoDoes 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.
- chis 3mo agoIt 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
- SillyUsername 3mo agoIt'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...
- cyanregiment 3mo agoAll 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
- TiredOfLife 3mo agoWhich expensive planes are falling out of the sky?
- cyanregiment 3mo agohttps://www.legion.org/information-center/news/security/2026/may/42-aircraft-lost-or-damaged-in-operation-epic-fury-congressional-report-says https://www.legion.org/information-center/news/security/2026...
- TiredOfLife 3mo agoThose are drones and a couple of 30 year old f-15.
- fourseventy 3mo agoIts all drones and one F-15, its not like dozens of F-22s or F-35 are being shot out of the sky
- resters 3mo agoNot 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.
- _menelaus 3mo agoThis 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.
- josefritzishere 3mo agoIt's almost like the current decision makers are incompetent.
- tim333 3mo agoA 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.
- spwa4 3mo agoGoes 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.
- giardini 3mo agoCan anyone verify this through secondary sources?
- superkuh 3mo agoIf you watch CSPAN/etc it has been verified during congressional questioning of the current head of the dept. of defense.
- verdverm 3mo ago> 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
- Austiiiiii 3mo agoThe "drill here and drill now" crowd doesn't understand the concept of managing limited expendable resources?? Say it ain't so!
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- hunterpayne 3mo agoThe 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...
- dr1ggins 3mo agoInstead you should trust this unsourced HackerNews comment!
- bigyabai 3mo ago> but even with those we only went through about 5% of the stockpile. Source? In terms of VLS-packed high end interceptors, I'd imagine they're much deeper into the magazine than that. Quad-packed point defense missiles might be lower, but those aren't useful against theater ballistic missiles like Iran has been deploying. > Their source was probably the IRCG... That doesn't make much sense as disinformation. Iran stands to gain very little by lying like that, and judging by the exodus of US generals and admirals I'd wager to say that this was an internal point of disagreement in the US armed forces. A lot of assets earmarked for the Pacific theater have been expended with no quick replacements incoming.
- russell_h 3mo ago[dead]
- Havoc 3mo agoWhere is your 5% used quote from? All the estimates for interceptors like patriots I've seen are north of 50% used so 5% certainly seems like an outlier
- FrustratedMonky 3mo ago" source was probably the IRCG" Curious. What is your source on the 5%? Why is random chud on the internet a 'better' source.
- sssilver 3mo agoI'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.
- joshmarinacci 3mo agoIf you were to count the margin of everything it would be 100%. At the end of the day everything is either a resource harvested from the earth or human labor.
- sssilver 3mo agoHelp me understand this. There's the cost that the employees pocket, and then there's the share that the shareholders pocket, right? Doesn't "margin" represent the latter?
- abtinf 3mo ago100% of the money ends up going to people. It’s not like you get to the end of the chain and trade a fistful of dollars with the ingot of aluminum itself.
- sssilver 3mo agoSure, the concept of money is only meaningful / valuable to humans. But isn't there a conceptual difference between the "owners" of the Tomahawk factory vs. the people who are actually putting the missiles together?
- abtinf 3mo agoOf course, but it’s not so clear in terms of the question you asked, and certainly not in terms of government procurement. Those workers are often organized and unionized. They exert tremendous political influence to, say, require the factories to employ unionized labor and extract above market wages. Surely the differential between union and market wage should factor into your margin calculation? The factory owners are only too happy to oblige. If you have a cost-plus contract with the government (so a contract that guarantees a certain margin), then the only way to get more absolute profit is to have higher costs. Defense procurement is best thought of as being totally price insensitive. In fact, almost everyone in the chain benefits from higher costs: the workers, the suppliers, the corporations, the military leadership, the politicians, and their constituents. The only people hurt are those future casualties of a less capable national defense, mainly soldiers.
- laughing_man 3mo ago>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.
- Maxion 3mo agoPrSM has been in production for only a short time, and ATACMS stocks were never high. Neither of these are the backbone of US long-range precision strike weapons. Article is misleading.
- renegade-otter 3mo agoIt IS an issue if stand-off war is your only war, and it seems to be the exclusive approach here. If you run out of long-range precision weapons, what do you have left? Boots on the ground? That's not going to happen, and that means you will never win this on and off war.
- laughing_man 3mo agoThe USAF has a pretty substantial inventory of stand-off weapons, and an absolutely enormous inventory of guided bombs.
- renegade-otter 3mo agoThey do, but the current leadership does not have any appetite for entering Iran's airspace after the last downing drama. If Iran captures a pilot, there is going to be no more room for market manipulation.
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- mnmnmn 3mo ago[dead]
- pandinus 3mo ago"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/battle-midway-five-intelligence-takeaways-today 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).
- justin66 3mo ago> 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. Wow, yeah, you'd need to have morons at the top of the chain of command and subordinates afraid to speak out in order for something like that to happen. Nothing like the US government today at all.
- pendenthistory 3mo ago(Not American, need to preface with this) I think the US military has shown itself to be extremely competent in the last war. Reading about Desert Storm and later the invasion of Iraq it's just insane. It's still possible they miscalculated how rapidly warfare would change, but to call them morons... As far as I can see, there are only three proven militaries in the world, the US, Israel and Ukraine, and the US is orders of magnitude larger than the rest. Have we already forgotten what happened to Maduro? What other country in the history of the world could pull something like that off? Russia tried at Hostomel, didn't go so well.
- hgoel 3mo ago
- Varelion 3mo agoWhat a fucking joke.
- nphardon 3mo agoAnyone 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..."
- serf 3mo agoWar is one of the most high tech and technologically interesting things humans do, and is often the first place that truly state of the art abilities are showcased. It's not hard for me to understand why techies would be so interested.
- nphardon 3mo agoThat's fine but not entirely what I'm trying to understand. There is an aspect of it that connects back to the Qanon mentality of having insider information and a level of expertise beyond the society sanctioned experts. There are plenty of tech topics that come up here that do not get the same response, so "techies just like tech" isn't the full explanation.
- hereme888 3mo agoTypical CNBC article. Lying as usual. Only PrSM and ATACMS reserves are low.
- everybodyknows 3mo agoA more technical source: https://www.militarytimes.com/industry/techwatch/2026/08/04/us-used-virtually-all-long-range-precision-missiles-during-iran-war-sources-say/ https://www.militarytimes.com/industry/techwatch/2026/08/04/...
- infogulch 3mo agoProbably needed an excuse to rotate our stock out.
- relug 3mo agoits good to drain pool and refill with fresh water every now and again
- jimmydoe 3mo agoused? 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?
- Waterluvian 3mo agoDidn't Americans kill something like 150 Iranian school girls and basically nothing came of it?
- jimmydoe 3mo ago> nothing came of it? they probably regretted as it "used all the missiles"
- GetTheFacts 3mo agoUSA people, do you all really love killing other human? And I went up there, I said, "Shrink, I want to kill. I mean, I wanna, I wanna kill. Kill. I wanna, I wanna see, I wanna see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth. Eat dead burnt bodies. I mean kill, kill, kill, kill." And I started jumpin' up and down yelling, "Kill! Kill!" and he started jumpin' up and down with me and we was both jumping up and down yelling, "Kill! Kill!" And the Sargent came over, pinned a medal on me, sent me down the hall, said, "You're our boy."[0] Does that validate your fantasy about Americans? >you have no control of your democratically elected government at all? Yes. We do[1]. [0] https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/arloguthrie/alicesrestaurantmassacree.html https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/arloguthrie/alicesrestaurant... [1] https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/full-text https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/full-text
- Mr_Eri_Atlov 3mo agoWild how it only took 2 years of a dementia ridden corpse king to fundamentally gut America's global power indefinitely
- Zigurd 3mo agoIf 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."
- 1-6 3mo agoHow is this information public knowledge?
- cineticdaffodil 3mo agoIf i was china wanting to invade taiwan, this is what i would buy.
- bettercallsalad 3mo agoNot an American but live here. But I don’t understand the fixation of US in middle east theatre. With the abundance of onshore oil through fracking revolution, presumably US doesn’t need to police the Middle East. The president himself said US doesn’t need their oil. So what is this conflict all about? Is there bigger geopolitical price tag attached to victory in Iran? Or US is just besieged by corruption to the extent campaign finding from Israel lobby as they say dictated much of the foreign policy than national interest? It’s just baffling and public seems largely fine with this with the lack of widespread protest that this should have caused (vaguely remember living across the bridge from Michigan all the protests there post Iraq war).
- tcp_handshaker 3mo agoThere is only ONE country in the Middle-East whose borders are, continuously growing...for the last 78 years ;-) Something about a promise from God...
- trolleski 3mo agoMICE - Money, Ideology, Compromise and Ego. I think at least three might be at play here. Guess who I'm talking about.
- swingboy 3mo ago[flagged]
- pianopatrick 3mo agoOne reason among several is that middle east states fund the US fiscal deficit by buying treasuries with their oil revenues. If the US loses that source of financing then the US fiscal situation gets worse
- rhelz 3mo agoThis. Since it has been demonstrated that we can no longer guarantee the shipping of oil through the straight of Hormuz, nobody has any reasons to price oil in USD or to finance our deficits. Get ready for the mother of all tax increases.
- elendilm 3mo agoUS apologists thought this is Hollywood. That Iron man and Thor will fly down from the sky. Instead we saw videos after videos of Iranian missiles rain down from the sky. There is a reason distributed systems are resilient. Iran's military doctrine of decentralized mosaic has proven to be a masterclass in military organization.
- onlyrealcuzzo 3mo agoWhat could possibly go wrong with Dr Strangelove?
- asdfman123 3mo agoIndeed fellow current events observer, this will portend the imminent collapse of the cowardly west and the grand rise of the stalwart and wise Ayatollahs of Iran (I was not paid by state actors to write this)
- gulfofamerica 3mo ago[dead]
- elendilm 3mo ago[flagged]
- elendilm 3mo agoYou seem well versed in the wiseness of the Ayatollahs. Fellow world events observer. The ayatollahs are stupid for their restraint. I wouldn't have their patience. They only recently resorted to 2 for 1 and promised 10 for 1 on escalation. I would have gone 1k to 1 on the first day if it were me :)
- asdfman123 3mo agoI would have gone all out on the biggest military power in the world too, if only I were the one calling the shots
- Culonavirus 3mo agoHow is this not hidden even after 9 hours? The article vs the title is a crystal clear case of clickbait (or as the kids say these days: engagement farming).
- tmaly 3mo agoHow could someone even verify this claim?
- ourmandave 3mo agoWe can just buy them from the Ukrainians.
- bmitc 3mo agoAnd we've advertised it to the entire world. And we've destroyed our economy. And we've further isolated ourselves from the world, culturally, politically, and economically. Good job everyone with the voting. All those people voted for "let's make things universally worse for everyone except billionaires in America".
- jmward01 3mo agoI have no idea if this is true or not. If it is it shows a new level of incompetence for Hegseth and the current administration and clear hypocrisy in their messaging of 'america first'. It was ridiculous that we started the war believing it will be over in a weekend, but this is a mistake the US has made many many times before so to say this administration is different is silly. Then Hegseth allowed vaccine mandates to go away because no military in history has ever be harmed by disease. Now we (possibly) have depleted strategic munitions with essentially no strategic gain? This is a teenager's view of how to run/use the military. No understanding of history. No understanding of history (medical reediness or basic military tactics of the danger choke points), no understanding of the present (understanding Iran's likely responses and resolve or how vulnerable our bases and allies in the region were and are) and no understanding of the future (depleting strategic stockpiles of munitions without understanding what 'strategic stockpiles' means). We are idiots for even remotely tolerating such utter incompetence.
- jmyeet 3mo agoThere are several conclulsions you can draw from all this: 1. The US has been strategically and militarily defeated by Iran and this has been clear since at least April to anyone who was paying attention and has achieved none of its objectives. More [1]; 2. Continued use of so-called "stand off" weapons confirms that the US has been unable to achieve air supremacy over Iran and use gravity bombs. The article mentions this but doesn't really explain the implications; Reaper drones have been lost in large numbers. Air sorties are limited to also firing stand off weapons, mostly. One reason for this is an Iranian developed weapons system of loitering missiles that the US has designated as 358 and 359 missiles [2]; 3. The US is spending an unprecedented amount of money on a war it has already lost that nobody wants. In some ways this mirrors the Nixon-Kissinger plan to bomb Cambodia until morale improves. Nobody wants to admit defeat. But wars are good for business. Some people are getting incredibly wealthy off all this. Munitions are the ultimate product. You use them once and then have to buy them again, often at $1M+ apiece; 4. This is the real story of American oil dependence over rewnewables. Nobody goes to war over a solar panel [3]; 5. The article also mentions the drastically low inventory levels of missile interceptors (eg PAC-2, PAC-3, THAAD). This is in part why several US bases in the Gulf have been effectively destroyed and abandoned because the military cannot defend them. Iran is using very cheap weapon systems, particularly the Shahed drone, and can produce them in much higher numbers. Shooting down a $20k drone with a $1-4M missile does not scale; 6. This is going to rewrite Gulf politics as the promise of the American security-for-oil guarantee has shown to be a paper tiger. This is going to force a change for Gulf countries; 7. For all the complaining about the JCPOA, this administration has for absolutely no reason kicked the hornet's nest and the price of ending this war is going to be far, far higher. That will include (IMHO) an end to economic sanctions, unfreezing of Iranian assets, weakening of the petrodollar, compensation for Iran in the hundreds of billions and a concession that Iran can and will charge tolls for transit of the Strait of Hormuz in concert with Oman. Well done, everybody, the system works. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRAtD7iAgwY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRAtD7iAgwY [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wMoKLuL8Jc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wMoKLuL8Jc [3]: https://www.theenergymix.com/no-one-goes-to-war-over-a-solar-panel/ https://www.theenergymix.com/no-one-goes-to-war-over-a-solar...
- pianopatrick 3mo agoThis article seems strange to me talking about the lack of ATACMS mattering for a war against China. The publicly available range of the ATACMS is 300 km. Seems to me an ATACMS could not reach China from American bases in Japan, South Korea or the Philippines. The only place you could launch an ATACMS from to hit China would be Taiwan. But Taiwan is so small and likely so well covered by Chinese air defenses that I don't think ATACMS would be that effective there.
- tezo_cooper 3mo agoI disagree with the war in Iran but this is likely mostly a huge issue for ukraine, who heavily relies on donated arms like the ATACMS from the United States.
- khriss 3mo agoWhat's stunning is that there doesn't seem to be a single way in which the United States has come out ahead on this conflict. We have * Established that US zero ability or will to protect it's 'allies' in region beyond Israel. * Permanently ceded de facto control over the straits of Hormuz to Iran * Significantly strengthened the hardliners in the Iranian regime and cleared the way for them to have absolute power by eliminating all moderates * Spiked inflation at home and doubled down on pissing off pretty much every single country except Russia by heaping sky rocketing energy costs on them * Exploded the myth of US military superiority with US warplanes unable to approach Iran and the carrier groups unable to go anywhere near the straits. And to think we got this in exchange for spending more on our military than the next few countries combined, and the military is asking for 1.5 Trillion more to continue to fight this war. All of this to get to a point where we are negotiating a deal which is worse than what we already had with the JCPOA. I think we will look back on this as the US version of the Suez crisis, the beginning of the end of the US empire.
- b3ing 3mo agoDoesn’t matter as long as the Epstein files fell out of the news, it’s considered a success despite $40 billion spent
- credit_guy 3mo agoThe title does not follow from the stated facts. At most one could say that the US Army has used "virtually all" of its long-range munitions. But the war in Iran is mainly prosecuted by the US Air Force and the US Navy, not by the US Army. Is it possible that the USAF and US Navy also used most of their long range munitions? Maybe, but on that the Reuters report does not have anything new compared to guesses by everyone else.
- streb-lo 3mo agohttps://www.csis.org/analysis/renewed-iran-war-would-test-diminished-interceptor-inventories https://www.csis.org/analysis/renewed-iran-war-would-test-di...
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- aajailee 3mo ago[flagged]