War against Iran draining US Tomahawk missile stockpile, alarming Pentagon: Report

US military has fired more than 850 Tomahawk cruise missiles in four weeks of its war against Iran, burning through the precision weapons at a rate that has alarmed Pentagon officials and prompted internal discussions about how to make more available, according to a report by The Washington Post, citing sources.

The heavy expenditure – a part of the so-called ‘Operation Epic Fury’, which began on February 28 with the assassination of Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei and some top-ranking commanders as well as ordinary civilians – has raised concerns about the strain on US weapons stockpiles, the report stated.

According to analysts, the US currently produces approximately 90 to 100 Tomahawk missiles annually, meaning that the number fired in the past four weeks exceeds the total output of the past five to eight years, triggering alarm bells.

Each Tomahawk missile costs between $2 million and $4 million, depending on the variant, with some estimates placing the cost as high as $3.5 million per unit.

At that rate, military experts say, the 850 missiles fired represent a cost of up to $3 billion, a fraction of the overall war bill, which is estimated to have exceeded $18 billion so far.

Replacing the expended missiles is expected to take years. Building a single Tomahawk requires between 18 and 24 months due to complex components, including solid rocket motors, advanced seekers, and terrain-matching sensors that rely on single-source suppliers.

The fragile supply chain and historically low production rates have left manufacturers struggling to scale up rapidly, according to reports, citing military experts.

In an effort to address these vulnerabilities, the Pentagon recently entered into a seven-year framework agreement with Raytheon, an RTX business, aimed at ramping up annual Tomahawk production to more than 1,000 units.

The agreement, announced in early February, came just weeks before the US and the Israeli regime launched an unprovoked aggression on Iran. Officials acknowledge that even with expanded capacity, replenishing stockpiles depleted at the current rate will take years.

Iranian armed forces have so far carried out 83 waves of Operation True Promise 4, using their advanced missiles and drones to inflict heavy blows on the enemy.

Israeli military infrastructure in the occupied territories, as well as US military bases scattered across the region, have been destroyed and made “uninhabitable,” according to the New York Times and other US media outlets.

Importantly, US military had used Tomahawk missiles in its attack on an elementary school in southern Iran's Minab that killed more than 170 schoolchildren on February 28.

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