8 ms·

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

SilverElfin 7mo ago
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.
- lumost 7mo ago
  If China was to attack Taiwan, now would be the time. The current world order is at least in part based around the notion of the US (and allies) having the military capacity to fight any plausible combination of foes at all times. That this military capacity was used in accordance to a set of rules with input from allies and partners made the system tolerable. If the US lacks the munitions to fight all of these conflicts, and is unreliable to allies or foes leads to a high likelihood of conflict.
  - deleted 7mo ago
    [deleted]
  - koolala 7mo ago
    Would allies give the US munitions to stop that possible outcome?
    - deleted 7mo ago
      [deleted]
    - lumost 7mo ago
      Why give munitions to an unreliable partner? why rely on an unreliable partner for munitions? the Japan/Australia/SK-US-EU/NATO alliance depends on the US being sensible and broadly aligned with the goals of the other countries. Granted, patriot missiles are still manufactured across the alliance and I'm sure arms will be available for purchase.
  - tim-tday 7mo ago
    Pretty sure they’ll wait about 9 months. They have a schedule after all.
  - CyanLite2 7mo ago
    Fortunately, China just decided to fire most of their military leadership and replaced them with inexperienced, but loyal grunts.
    - Eddy_Viscosity2 7mo ago
      Isn't that what the US did too?
    - deleted 7mo ago
      [deleted]
    - M95D 7mo ago
      Why "fortunately"?
    - mizzao 7mo ago
      Does this make them more or less likely to attack Taiwan, then?
  - Ajakks 7mo ago
    [flagged]
    - markus_zhang 7mo ago
      Ah, such good thought to talk about nukes so lightly. Do not underestimate the number of nukes needed to obliterate a country with 1.3 billion people.
      - Ajakks 7mo ago
        Well, my comment was flagged, so apparently it wasnt taken lightly by everyone. You don't need a missile for everyone - I don't want to offend anyone but, you only have to use them in such a way that everyone else is affected. Like how in America, our energy grid is so bad and interconnected - an air blast above Kansas would render most of our electrical grid and any connected/ancillary electronics completely unusable.
    - lumost 7mo ago
      All limited exchanges end in annihilation, parties are required to tit for tat the exchange and it's really easy to run out of targets when you are using nukes - forcing an escalation. If Taiwan was invaded, the only military targets for the US are in close proximity to major population centers. The response would be nukes on US Naval bases (in close proximity to US population centers). This would rapidly escalate to a full exchange. Or China would just use their nukes to achieve all military objectives in Taiwan. Neither China nor the US plan to invade each other, or engage in any non-limited conflict. There is no rational reason for either to ever use nukes.
      - Ajakks 7mo ago
        MAD is actually a myth - especially when it was invented in the 60s, its more so now, in theory, but in all practical sense - nobody can use the massive nukes, they would prolly melt the polar ice and screw the climate for sure... but, having them means something else: nobody without an equivalent number can actually engage with you. Which is why tactical nukes will be used in the future - likely by the US, Russia, or later on, maybe China. The British and French only have enough if we support them - India and Pakistan hardly have enough for each other... Essentially - if we did take out say half a city somewhere and Russia doesnt go to their "final at bat" forever, for some country that isn't Russia - nobody else will attack us directly either bc they can't destroy our capacity to entirely remove them from existing. China would want to fire back - but do you waste a billion people to make your enemy really, really angry and determined to use all of their remaining capabilities - which is more than everyone else (cept Russia), with just what is outside of the US in subs... I'm not actually joking here - trading a part of an iconic city, to be taught an unwanted lesson, is superior to losing all the skylines of all the cities and learning no more lessons ever. That modern understanding is actually entirely different than Mao originally approached an exchange - he said he wasn't worried - bc China has enough people and cities. This is the real reason America has so many - bc with our large sprawled out country and global distribution of nuclear capabilities - we will always be the last one pushing red buttons. That is all that matters in an actual nuclear war/exchange - being the last one left IS Winning. I wont explain more, bc it clearly is uncomfortable to people, but essentially, if the US and Russia were to "allow" each other to use tactical nukes (with rules, they set for each other) - like my example with Kiev (which would accomplish sooo many things - I wont elaborate further in case the Pentagon has somehow that) - with that one move, condoning "limited tactical nukes" bc they are "so weak" compared to the "real ones" - we would immediately return to a bipolar world split between the US and Russia. All those conversations about the end of NATO would immediately stop, for example.
  - nebula8804 7mo ago
    There is so much BS on both sides of the aisle so it seems impossible to get a clear picture but didn't Iran prepare better than Venezuela in terms of deployment of Chinese radar and other security defenses? Seems like there has been no conversation whatsoever about Chinese defenses, were they bypassed again? If so, then China must be reassessing. (Again dont know whats real and whats fake anymore)
    - nathanlied 7mo ago
      China is being very careful to provide enough support not to be seen as abandoning their trading partners/allies, while keeping the support at a low enough level to not get entangled in conflict or create expectations for future conflicts. They want to be able to paint this as "just business", in spite of any rhetoric they may publicly have. In some cases they'll help more in covert ways (Russia), while others they'll do the bare minimum (Venezuela). So yes, China did give (note: sell) Iran some hardware, but it's not the most cutting edge tech China has, and it's not in sufficient quantity to make much of a difference. The US is still ahead of China in a lot of military tech, even if the gap keeps getting narrower.
      - nebula8804 7mo ago
        This sounds like a cop out. The second biggest loser of Iran being invaded is China. The US already took out Venezuela and now Iran. I know China has made excellent strides in renewables but they still depend on oil to fuel their over capacitized factories. Now they have lost their number 1 and number 2 supplier. Combined with 25% youth unemployment things are looking more grim for China. If any of this tech had any value it should have done something. Now people aren't even bashing it like they did in venezuela they just seem to be accepting that it is not worth talking about. Like I said there is so much BS on both sides and well your argument isn't convincing: There is this cutting edge tech that no one has seen and no one knows anything about but just trust me China is saving it for the perfect moment. :/ >The US is still ahead of China in a lot of military tech, even if the gap keeps getting narrower. We need to take a step back and reassess: is the hardware effective against the US or is it not? If it is not, then it is no better than a paperweight. Second place finishers are not with us any longer as the victor wrote the history books. I'm starting to think maybe WW3 has already started and we are so bogged down in the day to day nonsense that many don't realize it yet.
  - fma 7mo ago
    I think this is only true if the United States takes armaments from the Pacific theater.
- rasz 7mo ago
  >used up a lot of the remaining tomahawk inventory apparently 4000 in stockpiles, they shot maybe couple hundred in one day. Could sustain for 2 weeks at this pace.
panny 7mo ago
archive link https://archive.is/usjGR https://archive.is/usjGR
eqvinox 7mo ago
Interesting aspect: if the ammo is all used up in Iran, it can't be sold or given to Ukraine. Tinfoil hat time?
- ethbr1 7mo ago
  If the ammo is all used up in Iran, new ammo must be procured. This lets the current administration direct funding away from established military primes to their preferred vendors (i.e. political patronage).
- onlyrealcuzzo 7mo ago
  You know who exports a lot of oil and gas NOT through the straight of hormuz?
  - slater 7mo ago
    Brunei?
    - ddoottddoott 7mo ago
      Nigeria.
      - pseudohadamard 7mo ago
        Italy and Spain? Which sort of oil are we talking about again?
  - eqvinox 7mo ago
    Doesn't even matter if it's a direct effect, the increase in oil prices is/will be enough.
  - ParentiSoundSys 7mo ago
    It's just funny that people can't stomach that their own ruling class is leading them down the primrose path so they have to go casting about for a foreign bogeyman who's making it happen, despite the fact that every major Western power has bent the knee to this action against Iran.
rurban 7mo ago
[flagged]
lupire 7mo ago
If this is true, the real problem is why the US was so undersupplied in core munitions.
- spaghetdefects 7mo ago
  I think the real problem is that the US keeps attacking people at the behest of Israel and to the determent of US citizens.
  - ParentiSoundSys 7mo ago
    It's not to the detriment of our ruling classes who have their hands on the actual levers of power.
    - M95D 7mo ago
      And investments in key war suppliers.
- sigwinch 7mo ago
  The 12 days back in June depleted half of Iran’s stockpile and a quarter of the US interceptor global stockpile.
ZunarJ5 7mo ago
We could have had healthcare.
- onlyrealcuzzo 7mo ago
  US healthcare costs on the order of $3T per year. The Iraq war cost about $2T over a decade. You could have about 10% subsidized healthcare, which I would obviously argue is better than pointless war killing tons of people. But you couldn't just "have healthcare".
  - fma 7mo ago
    I don't think OP is talking about a specific war, but the overall cost to maintain such a capability and project force all over the world. At least that is what I perceive when people lament about lack of healthcare. The United States military budget is now 1.5 trillion dollars per year.
    - onlyrealcuzzo 7mo ago
      Sure, we could just not have a military and hold hands with Russia and China and everyone else. We wouldn't need healthcare. We'd just be dead.
      - ParentiSoundSys 7mo ago
        Of course it might cost a lot less if we didn't need to pay for unprovoked attacks on countries like Venezuela and Iran.
      - Ajakks 7mo ago
        What if they didnt try to kill us tho? What if the world is so interconnected now, that we actually could hold hands - especially if we already had those asteroids already at the Lagrange points - if we were "post-scarcity" as a species, what would be worth fighting over? We absolutely can, and will, go get those asteroids.
  - 7mo ago
righthand 7mo ago
[flagged]
- 486sx33 7mo ago
  [dead]
aftbit 7mo ago
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.
- aftbit 7mo ago
  Trying a little experiment. Here's the same comment as above, but I asked Claude to research my claims and add web citations. Any errors in content are my own - I originally wrote the comment with no AI assistance and only brief web searching to check my numbers. --- 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.[1][2] We produce just under 100 per year.[3] There are plans to raise that number to 400 per year.[4] The Ukrainians were expending somewhere around 10,000 drones per day in mid 2025.[5] 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.[6][7] World War II had similar, especially for the Russians and Germans.[8] The US was short on ammo early in the Korean war.[9][10] 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. *Sources:* [1] https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/28/middleeast/us-thaad-missile-interceptor-shortage-intl-invs https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/28/middleeast/us-thaad-missile-i... [2] https://armyrecognition.com/news/army-news/2025/us-army-raises-alarm-over-thaad-stockpile-after-firing-more-than-150-interceptors-during-iran-conflict https://armyrecognition.com/news/army-news/2025/us-army-rais... [3] https://breakingdefense.com/2026/01/lockheed-pentagon-ink-plan-to-boost-thaad-interceptor-production/ https://breakingdefense.com/2026/01/lockheed-pentagon-ink-pl... [4] https://thehill.com/policy/defense/5713637-lockheed-martin-quadruples-thaad/ https://thehill.com/policy/defense/5713637-lockheed-martin-q... [5] https://dronexl.co/2025/10/22/ukraine-deploys-9000-drones-daily-warfare/ https://dronexl.co/2025/10/22/ukraine-deploys-9000-drones-da... [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_Crisis_of_1915 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_Crisis_of_1915 [7] https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/shells-crisis-of-1915/ https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/shells-cri... [8] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13518046.2024.2340837 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13518046.2024.2... [9] https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA416944.pdf https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA416944.pdf [10] https://wp.oldmagazinearticles.com/magazine-articles/the-cold-war/the-korean-war/general-james-van-fleet-1953/ https://wp.oldmagazinearticles.com/magazine-articles/the-col...
duxup 7mo ago
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.
- tim333 7mo ago
  One possibility is the Shah's son takes over as a provisional leader. Here he is on 60 minutes today https://youtu.be/x2mIUZ3WCEg?t=110 https://youtu.be/x2mIUZ3WCEg?t=110 It's tricky because the opposition don't have arms so it needs some of the guys who do to turn. The US/Israel are being quite brutal though - killing all the regime leaders (as in youtube https://youtu.be/2TZF8_wwAUs?t=572 https://youtu.be/2TZF8_wwAUs?t=572)
  - orwin 7mo ago
    The Shah son doesn't have the local support his father had. Part of the diaspora like him enough, but the clans that brought him to power are way less aligned with the British ans US than they use to be. On the other hand, exchanging an anti-US dictator for a US-aligned dictator is probably a lot better for the average citizen because your country won't be embargoed anymore, you just have to accept US oil companies on your territory.
TheAlchemist 7mo ago
What is the optimal strategy for Iran, if they assume that the regime can withstand the intensive bombardments and people won't take it to the streets like US / Israel are assuming ? Wouldn't it be to only launch cheap missiles / drones for a week or two to deplete interceptors and only then start using more advanced missiles ?
- pseudohadamard 7mo ago
  Same as the optimal strategy for Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, ... 1. Bomb everything. 2. Bomb everything some more. 3. ? 4. Profit! Peace and democracy breaks out.

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.

lumost 7mo ago
If China was to attack Taiwan, now would be the time. The current world order is at least in part based around the notion of the US (and allies) having the military capacity to fight any plausible combination of foes at all times. That this military capacity was used in accordance to a set of rules with input from allies and partners made the system tolerable. If the US lacks the munitions to fight all of these conflicts, and is unreliable to allies or foes leads to a high likelihood of conflict.
- deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
- koolala 7mo ago
  Would allies give the US munitions to stop that possible outcome?
  - deleted 7mo ago
    [deleted]
  - lumost 7mo ago
    Why give munitions to an unreliable partner? why rely on an unreliable partner for munitions? the Japan/Australia/SK-US-EU/NATO alliance depends on the US being sensible and broadly aligned with the goals of the other countries. Granted, patriot missiles are still manufactured across the alliance and I'm sure arms will be available for purchase.
- tim-tday 7mo ago
  Pretty sure they’ll wait about 9 months. They have a schedule after all.
- CyanLite2 7mo ago
  Fortunately, China just decided to fire most of their military leadership and replaced them with inexperienced, but loyal grunts.
  - Eddy_Viscosity2 7mo ago
    Isn't that what the US did too?
  - deleted 7mo ago
    [deleted]
  - M95D 7mo ago
    Why "fortunately"?
  - mizzao 7mo ago
    Does this make them more or less likely to attack Taiwan, then?
- Ajakks 7mo ago
  [flagged]
  - markus_zhang 7mo ago
    Ah, such good thought to talk about nukes so lightly. Do not underestimate the number of nukes needed to obliterate a country with 1.3 billion people.
    - Ajakks 7mo ago
      Well, my comment was flagged, so apparently it wasnt taken lightly by everyone. You don't need a missile for everyone - I don't want to offend anyone but, you only have to use them in such a way that everyone else is affected. Like how in America, our energy grid is so bad and interconnected - an air blast above Kansas would render most of our electrical grid and any connected/ancillary electronics completely unusable.
  - lumost 7mo ago
    All limited exchanges end in annihilation, parties are required to tit for tat the exchange and it's really easy to run out of targets when you are using nukes - forcing an escalation. If Taiwan was invaded, the only military targets for the US are in close proximity to major population centers. The response would be nukes on US Naval bases (in close proximity to US population centers). This would rapidly escalate to a full exchange. Or China would just use their nukes to achieve all military objectives in Taiwan. Neither China nor the US plan to invade each other, or engage in any non-limited conflict. There is no rational reason for either to ever use nukes.
    - Ajakks 7mo ago
      MAD is actually a myth - especially when it was invented in the 60s, its more so now, in theory, but in all practical sense - nobody can use the massive nukes, they would prolly melt the polar ice and screw the climate for sure... but, having them means something else: nobody without an equivalent number can actually engage with you. Which is why tactical nukes will be used in the future - likely by the US, Russia, or later on, maybe China. The British and French only have enough if we support them - India and Pakistan hardly have enough for each other... Essentially - if we did take out say half a city somewhere and Russia doesnt go to their "final at bat" forever, for some country that isn't Russia - nobody else will attack us directly either bc they can't destroy our capacity to entirely remove them from existing. China would want to fire back - but do you waste a billion people to make your enemy really, really angry and determined to use all of their remaining capabilities - which is more than everyone else (cept Russia), with just what is outside of the US in subs... I'm not actually joking here - trading a part of an iconic city, to be taught an unwanted lesson, is superior to losing all the skylines of all the cities and learning no more lessons ever. That modern understanding is actually entirely different than Mao originally approached an exchange - he said he wasn't worried - bc China has enough people and cities. This is the real reason America has so many - bc with our large sprawled out country and global distribution of nuclear capabilities - we will always be the last one pushing red buttons. That is all that matters in an actual nuclear war/exchange - being the last one left IS Winning. I wont explain more, bc it clearly is uncomfortable to people, but essentially, if the US and Russia were to "allow" each other to use tactical nukes (with rules, they set for each other) - like my example with Kiev (which would accomplish sooo many things - I wont elaborate further in case the Pentagon has somehow that) - with that one move, condoning "limited tactical nukes" bc they are "so weak" compared to the "real ones" - we would immediately return to a bipolar world split between the US and Russia. All those conversations about the end of NATO would immediately stop, for example.
- nebula8804 7mo ago
  There is so much BS on both sides of the aisle so it seems impossible to get a clear picture but didn't Iran prepare better than Venezuela in terms of deployment of Chinese radar and other security defenses? Seems like there has been no conversation whatsoever about Chinese defenses, were they bypassed again? If so, then China must be reassessing. (Again dont know whats real and whats fake anymore)
  - nathanlied 7mo ago
    China is being very careful to provide enough support not to be seen as abandoning their trading partners/allies, while keeping the support at a low enough level to not get entangled in conflict or create expectations for future conflicts. They want to be able to paint this as "just business", in spite of any rhetoric they may publicly have. In some cases they'll help more in covert ways (Russia), while others they'll do the bare minimum (Venezuela). So yes, China did give (note: sell) Iran some hardware, but it's not the most cutting edge tech China has, and it's not in sufficient quantity to make much of a difference. The US is still ahead of China in a lot of military tech, even if the gap keeps getting narrower.
    - nebula8804 7mo ago
      This sounds like a cop out. The second biggest loser of Iran being invaded is China. The US already took out Venezuela and now Iran. I know China has made excellent strides in renewables but they still depend on oil to fuel their over capacitized factories. Now they have lost their number 1 and number 2 supplier. Combined with 25% youth unemployment things are looking more grim for China. If any of this tech had any value it should have done something. Now people aren't even bashing it like they did in venezuela they just seem to be accepting that it is not worth talking about. Like I said there is so much BS on both sides and well your argument isn't convincing: There is this cutting edge tech that no one has seen and no one knows anything about but just trust me China is saving it for the perfect moment. :/ >The US is still ahead of China in a lot of military tech, even if the gap keeps getting narrower. We need to take a step back and reassess: is the hardware effective against the US or is it not? If it is not, then it is no better than a paperweight. Second place finishers are not with us any longer as the victor wrote the history books. I'm starting to think maybe WW3 has already started and we are so bogged down in the day to day nonsense that many don't realize it yet.
- fma 7mo ago
  I think this is only true if the United States takes armaments from the Pacific theater.
rasz 7mo ago
>used up a lot of the remaining tomahawk inventory apparently 4000 in stockpiles, they shot maybe couple hundred in one day. Could sustain for 2 weeks at this pace.

panny 7mo ago

archive link https://archive.is/usjGR https://archive.is/usjGR

eqvinox 7mo ago

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

ethbr1 7mo ago
If the ammo is all used up in Iran, new ammo must be procured. This lets the current administration direct funding away from established military primes to their preferred vendors (i.e. political patronage).
onlyrealcuzzo 7mo ago
You know who exports a lot of oil and gas NOT through the straight of hormuz?
- slater 7mo ago
  Brunei?
  - ddoottddoott 7mo ago
    Nigeria.
    - pseudohadamard 7mo ago
      Italy and Spain? Which sort of oil are we talking about again?
- eqvinox 7mo ago
  Doesn't even matter if it's a direct effect, the increase in oil prices is/will be enough.
- ParentiSoundSys 7mo ago
  It's just funny that people can't stomach that their own ruling class is leading them down the primrose path so they have to go casting about for a foreign bogeyman who's making it happen, despite the fact that every major Western power has bent the knee to this action against Iran.

rurban 7mo ago

[flagged]

lupire 7mo ago

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

spaghetdefects 7mo ago
I think the real problem is that the US keeps attacking people at the behest of Israel and to the determent of US citizens.
- ParentiSoundSys 7mo ago
  It's not to the detriment of our ruling classes who have their hands on the actual levers of power.
  - M95D 7mo ago
    And investments in key war suppliers.
sigwinch 7mo ago
The 12 days back in June depleted half of Iran’s stockpile and a quarter of the US interceptor global stockpile.

ZunarJ5 7mo ago

We could have had healthcare.

onlyrealcuzzo 7mo ago
US healthcare costs on the order of $3T per year. The Iraq war cost about $2T over a decade. You could have about 10% subsidized healthcare, which I would obviously argue is better than pointless war killing tons of people. But you couldn't just "have healthcare".
- fma 7mo ago
  I don't think OP is talking about a specific war, but the overall cost to maintain such a capability and project force all over the world. At least that is what I perceive when people lament about lack of healthcare. The United States military budget is now 1.5 trillion dollars per year.
  - onlyrealcuzzo 7mo ago
    Sure, we could just not have a military and hold hands with Russia and China and everyone else. We wouldn't need healthcare. We'd just be dead.
    - ParentiSoundSys 7mo ago
      Of course it might cost a lot less if we didn't need to pay for unprovoked attacks on countries like Venezuela and Iran.
    - Ajakks 7mo ago
      What if they didnt try to kill us tho? What if the world is so interconnected now, that we actually could hold hands - especially if we already had those asteroids already at the Lagrange points - if we were "post-scarcity" as a species, what would be worth fighting over? We absolutely can, and will, go get those asteroids.
- 7mo ago

righthand 7mo ago

[flagged]

486sx33 7mo ago
[dead]

aftbit 7mo ago

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.

aftbit 7mo ago
Trying a little experiment. Here's the same comment as above, but I asked Claude to research my claims and add web citations. Any errors in content are my own - I originally wrote the comment with no AI assistance and only brief web searching to check my numbers. --- 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.[1][2] We produce just under 100 per year.[3] There are plans to raise that number to 400 per year.[4] The Ukrainians were expending somewhere around 10,000 drones per day in mid 2025.[5] 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.[6][7] World War II had similar, especially for the Russians and Germans.[8] The US was short on ammo early in the Korean war.[9][10] 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. *Sources:* [1] https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/28/middleeast/us-thaad-missile-interceptor-shortage-intl-invs https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/28/middleeast/us-thaad-missile-i... [2] https://armyrecognition.com/news/army-news/2025/us-army-raises-alarm-over-thaad-stockpile-after-firing-more-than-150-interceptors-during-iran-conflict https://armyrecognition.com/news/army-news/2025/us-army-rais... [3] https://breakingdefense.com/2026/01/lockheed-pentagon-ink-plan-to-boost-thaad-interceptor-production/ https://breakingdefense.com/2026/01/lockheed-pentagon-ink-pl... [4] https://thehill.com/policy/defense/5713637-lockheed-martin-quadruples-thaad/ https://thehill.com/policy/defense/5713637-lockheed-martin-q... [5] https://dronexl.co/2025/10/22/ukraine-deploys-9000-drones-daily-warfare/ https://dronexl.co/2025/10/22/ukraine-deploys-9000-drones-da... [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_Crisis_of_1915 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_Crisis_of_1915 [7] https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/shells-crisis-of-1915/ https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/shells-cri... [8] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13518046.2024.2340837 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13518046.2024.2... [9] https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA416944.pdf https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA416944.pdf [10] https://wp.oldmagazinearticles.com/magazine-articles/the-cold-war/the-korean-war/general-james-van-fleet-1953/ https://wp.oldmagazinearticles.com/magazine-articles/the-col...

duxup 7mo ago

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.

tim333 7mo ago
One possibility is the Shah's son takes over as a provisional leader. Here he is on 60 minutes today https://youtu.be/x2mIUZ3WCEg?t=110 https://youtu.be/x2mIUZ3WCEg?t=110 It's tricky because the opposition don't have arms so it needs some of the guys who do to turn. The US/Israel are being quite brutal though - killing all the regime leaders (as in youtube https://youtu.be/2TZF8_wwAUs?t=572 https://youtu.be/2TZF8_wwAUs?t=572)
- orwin 7mo ago
  The Shah son doesn't have the local support his father had. Part of the diaspora like him enough, but the clans that brought him to power are way less aligned with the British ans US than they use to be. On the other hand, exchanging an anti-US dictator for a US-aligned dictator is probably a lot better for the average citizen because your country won't be embargoed anymore, you just have to accept US oil companies on your territory.

TheAlchemist 7mo ago

What is the optimal strategy for Iran, if they assume that the regime can withstand the intensive bombardments and people won't take it to the streets like US / Israel are assuming ? Wouldn't it be to only launch cheap missiles / drones for a week or two to deplete interceptors and only then start using more advanced missiles ?

pseudohadamard 7mo ago
Same as the optimal strategy for Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, ... 1. Bomb everything. 2. Bomb everything some more. 3. ? 4. Profit! Peace and democracy breaks out.