RUSI's analysis of weapons' system expenditure, estimated exhaustion time, and replenishment cycles. https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/over-11000-munitions-16-days-iran-war-command-reload-governs-endurance Israel has already run out of Arrow SAMs. Ditto the Arab THAADs. The Israelis can keep going for about a month before running out of top deck munition systems, then they will be forced to increasingly rely on older and older systems, which are less effective, less accurate, and in some cases, near time expired. Russia FAFO this over Ukraine; after 4 years of fighting its has been reduced to essentially a 1960s-70s peer, with its MBTs being dominated now be refurbished T62s. Take the AGM-158 JASSM; this is a 1000lbs airlaunched stealth cruise missile, first used in actoin in 2018, $1.5m each. 30% of the US stockpile have gone. This is the sort of thing you need lots of if you are planning a potential conflict with a nation like China. Spaffed a lot of them against a third rate regional power that we are told now has no radar, no air defence. 32% of the US's own stockpile of PAC3 Patriots has gone. PAC3 was a significant improvement over the PAC2, which can be really considered the original Patriot that could actually hit a ballistic missile. PAC2 relied of Track-via-Missile guidance and a semi-active radar. PAC3 uses Active Radar Homing and an Active Radar Seeker. PAC3 entered service in 2001-2. So increasingly, the US, until stocks are replenished, are relying essentially ona system that was a sort of Mk2 uprade of the original Desert Storm Patriot. Replenishment is hard; these are expensive, complex things. The Israelis will was a lot of things that the Americans would rather have themselves. Hard choices by factories will need to be made on order fulfilment.
Create an account or sign in to comment