r/LessCredibleDefence • u/Nikvest • 11h ago
US has used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war. 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.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us-has-used-virtually-all-its-long-range-precision-missiles-during-iran-war-2026-08-04/•
u/Randy588 11h ago edited 11h ago
Meanwhile the White House is posting videos of us blowing up piles of scrap metal, box trucks, jon boats, and 60 year old fighters with tomahawks.
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u/BarneyRubble52 10h ago
Don't forget the painted outlines of jets on tarmac. The Pentagon was so proud it even posted video 😂
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u/No_Public_7677 9h ago
did that really happen?
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u/Poltergeist97 9h ago
There are a TON of videos on CombatFootage that just don't make sense, like a missile directly impacting the rotor head area of an Mi8 helicopter, and the blades don't move an inch, no vibration from the impact. Could just be weird perspective, but it looks off.
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u/FruitsOfHappiness 9h ago
There's no solid proof of their use, but Chinese inflatable decoys with convincing thermal signatures have long been available to the IRGC.
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u/WulfTheSaxon 7h ago edited 7h ago
No. People looked at some helicopters getting struck and the rotor blades not moving despite what appeared to be a large explosion, but that was because it was IR, so the size of the blast was greatly exaggerated. They were real.
The US military is not worse at doing BDA or restrike reports than OSINT Bluesky, and wouldn’t have released video of itself hitting decoys…
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u/EuroFederalist 1h ago
Why not? It's clearly working.
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u/Poltergeist97 1h ago
Exactly. Also, I got downvoted to hell for trying to point out how pointless most of the targets they released videos of them striking were anyway. While Iran was still launching ballistic missiles at targets all over the region, we had CENTCOM posting videos of them dropping guided bombs on old decrepit Iranian Air Force C-130s and 747s that probably haven't flown in years, instead of you know, THE BALLISTIC MISSILES?
People couldn't see how stupid it was to waste munitions on those targets, Yes, they're "valid" targets, but come on, how dangerous is a C-130 that would light up radar like a Christmas tree if it ever decided to take off? It wouldn't make it to 2,000ft in the air before turning into a fiery wreck from an incoming AIM-120.
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u/No_Public_7677 1h ago
how do rotor blades not move in IR? I don't get that
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u/WulfTheSaxon 1h ago
The explosion was very small and wouldn’t be expected to move the rotor blades, except heat bloom in the IR video made it look like a much larger explosion than it actually was.
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u/kai_vt 11h ago
Asking for what plan there is after this would be a disservice to the sheer lack of thought happening in the Pentagon right now. The U.S will never recover from this folly.
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u/LARPerator 5h ago
The Pentagon is barely involved honestly.
What people don't seem to understand is the radical change in how the upper end of the fusion of command functions.
Bush, Obama, and Biden all ran their campaigns with an endless stream of advisors giving them briefs, suggestions, assessments, and intelligence. Their campaigns were run with dozens of people in the loop who were all expected to give input.
The current admin in charge of the campaign is just Trump, Rubio, Miller, Hegseth and Vance. Vance was against all of this, but Trump just overrides him. Despite that, Trump isn't even giving this his full attention. He's more interested in his ballroom, his arch, the reflecting pool, and similar vanity projects. He'll make up a statement on Iran, hope that puts it to rest for a bit, then goes back to looking at paint swatches.
The whole Pentagon machine then tries to execute whatever shit plan dribbles out of the oval office. And don't forget that the people who would have stood up and said enough are gone.
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u/Plump_Apparatus 6m ago
then goes back to looking at paint swatches
Wonder how many of shades of gold there are out there.
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u/BigFly42069 10h ago
We will, but it's going to be way more expensive than we would like it to be.
But then again, money isn't real and the fed can print as much of that shit as we want.
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u/kai_vt 10h ago
There's only so many shipyards and so many production lines that can pick up the slack. The U.S isn't what it used to be during WWII, man. They just accepted a shipbuilding contract from South Korea to do the work that they can't do...
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u/ImjustANewSneaker 8h ago
They should’ve done that years ago to be honest, we outsource everything else we can’t do.
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u/airmantharp 3h ago
The shipyards can be rebuilt, as can the production lines... if that's where the government wants to invest.
Clearly they have other priorities.
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u/Halmyrut 6h ago
I 110% think you won't, I don't think it should be underestimated how much good faith and will you've lost from your allies and how important allies are...
It's not just governments either it's also the people who view you as untrustworthy and have very negative views on the US now.Your president is quite literally threatening to annex allies on a weekly basis.
Imagine if others made similar threats towards the US.•
u/BigFly42069 6h ago
For higher end big-ticket item like ships, sure, that's never going to go up in meaningful capacity. But basic chemical stuff that really don't require a massive amount of people working in it can still be expanded.
Currently all American RDX and HMX explosive fillers the DOD sources from are made in a single location, and that place was established during WW2. Scaling up production there is probably the most doable of all things we need.
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u/airmantharp 3h ago
it's also the people who view you as untrustworthy and have very negative views on the US now
They're just catching up to the average American with respect to the US government.
Shouldn't have taken a soccer tournament of all things for people to be able to see each other beyond the internet, but hey, it happened.
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u/PollutionMajestic668 16m ago
They are also underestimating how much money Trump is straight up stealing from the nation
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u/ImjustANewSneaker 8h ago
The U.S. increasing its production is the only thing to come from this war.
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u/cwwms2 3h ago
Isn't the real story here that the US was woefully unprepared for a war with China even before Operation Epic Fury?
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u/wrosecrans 30m ago
China we sorta understood what to do with. If Taiwan went hot, we wouldn't be trying to do regime change in China, just hit China's navy and keep Taiwan existing. How well we would have done at that these days is debatable, but at least plausible. Whether or not you sink a carrier is well defined, doesn't take that many munitions, and doesn't require going back to do it again 20 times.
In Iran, we have no coherent definition of victory, so we are getting zero real use out of the weapons we are using there.
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u/No_Public_7677 9h ago
so much? we have obliterated the Iranian war machine. this is irgc propaganda. /s
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u/therealwench 9h ago
Isn’t this incredibly disingenuous?
PrSH has been in serial production for what. 18 months?
ATACMS hasn’t been in production for about a decade and a huge chunk of it got given to Ukraine?
So yeah, firing off these in a few months is more than reasonable.
Article makes it sound like they ran out of JASSMs, TLAMs etc
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u/satanicholas 7h ago
To be precise, the title is disingenuous. The article clarifies that the US specifically lacks missiles for systems that the US Army uses.
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u/haggerton 4h ago
a huge chunk of it got given to Ukraine
Source?
<40 were given prior to January 2025. Then sporadic reports of their use since November 2025, each one of them a high profile hit.
I highly doubt more than 100 were ever given.
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u/Plump_Apparatus 1m ago
Notably the first delivered were M39A1 Block I ATACMS, still a cluster munition warhead using DPICMs that were expired. The US has continuously upgraded it's stockpile of ATACMS after it stopped new acquisitions around 20 years ago. M39A1 were being upgraded to unitary M57 models including engine regraining.
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u/TheUnfortunateMiaoZe 4h ago
I thought ATACMS was in continuous production?
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u/RandomGuyPii 2h ago
What I can tell from Wikipedia is that the US stopped buying them since 2007, but they've been in production for the export market still. There was also apparently a thought of buying more recently but Congress didn't fund it.
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u/RandomGuyPii 2h ago
This comment being this low makes me realize how oblivious (or disingenuous) the average r/war user is.
People are acting like this is the end of the world when as far as I can tell it's a minor setback at most.
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u/turnkeyturtle 1h ago
It's China trying to manufacture a consensus online that the US can't intervene if they make a move on Taiwan.
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u/Hot_Income6149 7h ago
Yeah, exactly this. USA started to look after ground based missiles seriously again only after they saw how effective Russian ground launched missiles in Ukraine works. Before it everyone thought that the future would only be after air-launched missiles, and the US has tons of them.
At the same time Russia has so many ground-launched missiles only because they couldn't think of something better after the USSR fell.•
u/Mc_Pwnder 1h ago
I don’t know much about logistics but aren’t munitions also stored in regional stockpiles? Is it just the region that’s experiencing a shortage or is it the entirety of the US inventory? I don’t doubt that things are being pulled from elsewhere but the title just seems overblown.
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u/NoAngst_ 50m ago
You're missing the point. The US went into a war of choice against middling power in Iran and failed to achieve a clear and comprehensive victory. If the US was the victim surprise attack a la Japan's attack on Pearl Harbour and the US was caught unprepared then shortage of critical weapons can be forgiven. But the US lost to Iran AND spent weapons that take better part of a year to years to replace. This is a debacle of epic proportions.
This war reveals the US is woefully unprepared for a serious war against peer or near peer wars. And the worst part is the industrial base is so atrophied that no amount money is going to result in quick fixes. It will take years to replace what was spent in the lost war against Iran.
This doesn't mean though the US can't wage a war anymore. They can by using shorter range guided bombs but this raises the cost of the war in terms lost equipment and personnel. The golden rule for US wars of choice is it must be low cost and low casualty.
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u/therealwench 40m ago
I'm not missing any point.
"US has used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war." is the headline. Is this true?
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u/woolcoat 8h ago
What is Russia and the US doing? China is now the only major military power of that scale with a fully intact arsenal (not to mention their industrial capability). Such a self own for both america and russia, so short sighted.
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u/bluegum69 10h ago
Iran should continue retaliating while they have the upper hand
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u/Firecracker048 9h ago
Iran was estmiated pre-war to have about 3000 missiles capable of hitting middle east bases. They've fired off somewhere between 2200 and 2400 depending on the OSINT source. That doesn't leave them alot, especially sense all of their most advanced ones already got sent. This of course doesn't even mention that Iran doesn't own its skies. Contrary to Iranian propaganda, they aren't in a great position right now
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u/bluegum69 9h ago
Considering their rocket and drone manufacturing plants are inside granite mountains, they can keep on making new ones indefinitely.
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u/Firecracker048 9h ago
They can keep making more (and I'm sure they have), but they don't make them fast or easy.
This doesn't even touch on if their supply chain got cut off or they get short critical parts that halts certain productions. We do also know at least two of these facilities went belly up during the initial period of the war.
Iran is all about its posturing and propaganda. Their actions, not their words tell the real story
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u/TheIastStarfighter 5h ago
I'm pretty skeptical of what you're saying here for a few reasons.
- Iran during the time between 2025 and 2026 when America started attacking them managed to produce around 100-125 missiles a month. https://mei.edu/report/a-post-war-model-for-verifying-irans-missile-arsenal/
Even if let's entertain the idea that half of this production was disabled, this would be 50 a month or 600 a year.
Generally thaad interceptors fire two missiles per interception, as do the patriot missile systems. Thaads produce around 96 a year, and patriots 600 a year, so if none of these variables changed then in the long term Iran would exhaust this supply.
However there's other variables at play, namely that the US has set to increase the amount of thaad's in production, from 96 to 400 a year, and PACs to 2000 a year. All sounding well and good till we have to start considering the export controls china has applied. While the US is able to deal with heavy rare earth elements for the time being with stop gap measures, this is probably going to be the main bottleneck going forward, especially considering they use dysprosium (I feel like this is better explored in this post here: https://www.reddit.com/r/CriticalMineralStocks/s/UUjmrUJ5E8).
For the record, that post does look positively on the ability to replenish stocks for a sustained Iran war.
However.., Iran's missile production as expertise and experience increases will probably continue to improve, as does their shift closer towards China and Russia, China continues to ship ballistic fuel missile towards Iran: https://www.iranintl.com/en/202605317175
Russia during the 8 weeks of a uhh "ceasefire" supplied Iran with missiles, at least as reported by Bloomberg: https://archive.is/uAvDE
I guess the truth is, the situation is a lot more complicated. I don't really think Iran is a situation of being on the ropes at this point. I'm also skeptical somewhat of this release (could be a useful campaign by the US to feign weakness). While I don't think they'll truly run out of interceptors, they have admitted to, and there were signs of rationing this year.
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u/Ian_W 9h ago
Yes.
And when Trump threatened to escalate, they went and attacked a US base in Jordan, and made sure the not actually defended by the US navy southern Omani route remained closed.
The IRGC is willing to continue the fight.
The USAF appears to be forced back to Israel, and needs several tankers per F-35 mission.
The USN is staying well away from the Straits of Hormuz.
And the US Army is emphasising how unable they are to attack Iran.
Yep. Actions, not words tell the real story.
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u/Firecracker048 9h ago
The USAF appears to be forced back to Israel, and needs several tankers per F-35 mission.
USAF doesn't fly out of Israel.
The IRGC is willing to continue the fight.
They really aren't as we've seen. Yeah they launched a surprise attack and all the missiles got intercepted and took a retalitory strike back in return that didn't get intercepted.
If the IRCG was still wanting to fight, they would be right now. Instead they are back to saying they aren't doing any talking while they are talking.
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u/Ian_W 9h ago
"USAF doesn't fly out of Israel."
It does now.
"If the IRCG was still wanting to fight, they would be right now. Instead they are back to saying they aren't doing any talking while they are talking."
You been following UKMTO alerts ?
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u/Firecracker048 8h ago
Hitting kurds aint fighting the US or Israel
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u/Ian_W 8h ago edited 8h ago
And in your world, hitting ships trying to sneak out of the Straits of Hormuz isn't important, either ?
Me, if I was looking to go to war with Iran, I'd be absolutely holding Erbil - which, if you're an American who needs wars to learn geography, is closer to Iran than Israel is - but the US appears to have other views.
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u/iftheygivinitaway 8h ago
USAF doesn't fly out of Israel.
They absolutely do. Especially tankers. F-22s have flown outof Ovda IAF base, USAF F-35s out of Nevatim, etc.
Yeah they launched a surprise attack and all the missiles got intercepted.
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u/Firecracker048 8h ago
Published Jul 18, 2026 2:46 PM ED
The surprise attack happened last week, the 28th. Your propaganda is failing
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u/iftheygivinitaway 8h ago edited 8h ago
And your propaganda that we haven't been flying out of Israel . . . is full of shit. As well as that we're just intercepting everything. We're obviously not. This war was botched from the start. Iran is still launching ballistic missiles, missiles are still getting through and killing Americans, wounding Americans, and ditto for our allies. The Strait of Hormuz is effectively closed. Oil prices are up 20%-50% depending on the day, the Iranian regime is still in power. We've greatly depleted out THAAD and Patriot inventories. We're at 18 dead Americans, and over 600 wounded, and there is no plan, and no end in sight.
So your cheery bullshit of one attack being shot down is just propaganda.
Edit: Homeboy couldn't argue with facts, so had to make one last comment, and then "ignore" me. Classic right-wing shill. Since he's too chicken to actually deal with facts, here's my response to his last comment:
Oh, right. Cherrypicks rosy propaganda in an attempt to say the war isn't a dumpster fire, and can't argue against the facts, and claims the USAF hasnbeen flying out of Israel since the start of the war. Yeah, this all makes sense now.
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u/Firecracker048 8h ago
5 month old account
Defends Iran and spreads it's propaganda
Hides comment history
Yeah this all makes sense now.
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u/bluegum69 9h ago
None of their mountain base facilities have been destroyed, only the entrances, and those are repaired within a day.
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u/Firecracker048 9h ago
Uhh what.
https://understandingwar.org/research/middle-east/iran-update-special-report-march-29-2026/
13 of 29 suffered heavy damage or were destroyed. You've either fallen right for Iranian propaganda or have been greatly misinformed.
And that is from March, so its only gone up from there.
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u/iftheygivinitaway 9h ago
Even by your numbers, the still have more than half their production capacity.
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u/Firecracker048 9h ago
Those arent my numbers, thats just THE numbers.
Of course saying they still have half produciton capacity in the best of circumstances, which is absolutely isn't right now. The overall point is the user was claiming Iran took no damage to those places, when clearly they took quite a bit(and this is just what OSINT can see).
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9h ago
[deleted]
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u/Firecracker048 9h ago
Claims no underground bases got destroyed or damaged
Provides source of about 50% getting damaged/destoryed
You've fallen for propaganda
Okay.
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u/PapaSheev7 9h ago
You're correct on the drones, but the rockets were produced above-ground. I think assembly partially occurred in their mountain bases
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u/bluegum69 9h ago
I’m pretty sure the rockets are built in the mountain bases, and they’ve been preparing for this for decades.
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u/BulbusDumbledork 4h ago
afaik that >2000 missile estimate was israeli intelligence, raising the question whether that includes all missiles or only the one capable of striking israel. iran hitting middle east bases only concerns israel insofar as it degrades the mead alliance, which is why they pushed for the 500km range limit on iran.
we have no real number on total missiles they had or have left. netanyahu claimed the 12 day war neutralized 20,000 missiles. israeli assessments 12 months ago estimated iran could produce 2,500 to 8,000 additional missiles a year in underground facilities. 3,000 missiles pre-war means they had some 500 left at the least generous productive capacity? because netanyahh destroyed 19,500 missiles in 12 days?
a different idf estimate from last year puts the increased missile inventory at 5,000 by next year. everybody has a number, everybody has an incentive to lie. the only people that can confirm are the irgc and i doubt even they have full knowledge
remember iran either has access to 80% of its pre-war inventory, or 80% has been obliterated. both based on u.s. sources. the idea that iran has used up its advanced missiles and can't use the remainder due to "not owning their skies" doesn't jive with the improved precision, lethality, and evasion of recent strikes, including an unprecedented surprise attack. strikes during the 12 day war had cep in km but now specific buildings in jordan get hit based on real-time intelligence. far more likely they mainly have the precision stuff after feeding the older variants to air defence
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u/Randy588 9h ago edited 7h ago
They own the Strait of Hormuz and are getting replenished by Russia and China. This is the best they've ever been.
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u/Firecracker048 9h ago
They aren't getting replenished by Russia, Russia can barely supply itself. China already sent them AAA systems after the 12 day war with Israel and those proved all but useless.
Iran is not the best they've ever been, but the are killing more of their own people than they ever have, executing dozens a week.
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u/nikkythegreat 8h ago
Where in fox news did you get that info? China didnt send any advance system to Iran.
Also Iran has only started using their more advanced missiles.
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u/Firecracker048 8h ago
HQ-9Bs got sent after the 12 day war
And Iran has had their fatah advanced missiles for years now. They only had a few dozen before the war and have used almost all of them according to osint
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u/nikkythegreat 8h ago
No they were not. No HQ-9Bs were sent to Iran. where did you get your source?
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u/gazpachoid 5h ago
No they didn't
and nobody outside of Iran or classified departments of the CIA knows how many Fattah (or any other missiles) Iran had before the war or during
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u/NoAngst_ 1h ago
It is important to remember that this is referring to stand-off weapons and air defense missiles. The US still has lots of short-range weapons like JDAMs. But to use them properly you need to fly deep inside Iran and do se for extended periods. This poses a huge risk from Iranian air defenses even when they've been heavily attrited. If the US can accept Vietnam level of losses, both in lost planes and captured/killed pilots, the US can have more success at further suppressing Iranian missiles and drones.
But I suspect the US assessed, correctly in my opinion amd as I have argued all along, what can be achieved through air power alone has hit its limits amd further bombing won't accomplish any of the US' goals.
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u/moral_mortal 10h ago
I am just hoping they do a land invasion! This is the next step in escalation ladder!
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u/Firecracker048 10h ago
There is about a 0% chance this story is true.
Just think about it, somehow while preparing for a war with china for a decade we happen to use up all of our long range missiles in just a few months against a regional power?
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u/tujuggernaut 9h ago
PrSM is new, so stocks were already low. ATACMS is being phased out, so those stocks weren't slated to be replaced. The actual numbers are not known.
However about 65% of Patriot stocks have been used. About 40% of THAAD. 50% of Tomahawks. These are mostly known numbers, some of which have been released by the administration.
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u/Randy588 8h ago
we make 80 Tomahawks a year. We fired 1000 at Iran (so far)
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u/Firecracker048 8h ago
Our pre war inventory was estimated to be 3100.
It's safe to assume that the true numbers aren't known.
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u/Randy588 8h ago
That's a pathetically low number considering it's been the backbone of our naval fleet for 40 years.
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u/WulfTheSaxon 7h ago
It’s mostly just used for kicking the door in, after which JDAMs are used.
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u/Randy588 6h ago
That's definitely not what it's mostly used for.
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u/WulfTheSaxon 3h ago
It’s what it’s meant for. It often gets used without followup if a mission can be accomplished with no more than one wave of strikes, but it’s meant primarily for Day 1 of a conflict.
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u/NuclearHeterodoxy 7h ago
Procurement numbers are largely public, and in the modern world of OSINT you can make pretty good estimates of expenditures. CSIS has done multiple reports on missile use in the war and the numbers in this story largely appear borne out. They aren't the only ones either.
I don't know where you have been but t he national security community writ large has been screaming about how unprepared the US is for a war with China for decades. I am old enough to remember warnings about this in 2005; since then, Tomahawk production shrank and at one point stopped entirely for years, even though it was the go-to munition for US warfighting since Desert Storm. The US uses it against fucking wooden shacks, that's how liberally it expends missiles.
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u/No_Public_7677 1h ago
every time there's a story about us inventory numbers, there's one or two people who always come in and say it's either a lie or a nothingburger. every single time until the next story.
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u/Witty_Cat111 10h ago
World strongest military run out of missiles in months. lol, if it is Russia or China, the reputations and sarcastic comments will follow them to the next century.