U.S. spent $800M+ on THAAD missiles in 11 days to shield Israel from Iran’s barrage, depleting 15-20% of its arsenal. Explore the costs and strategic risks.
Feel like this is way more important than the spend.
U.S. depletes 15-20% of THAAD defending Israel from Iran.
Some back of the napkin math based on the article:
$800M at ~$15M each is ~53 interceptors. If that’s 15% of the global stockpile that means the total was around 353 and they’re down to about 300 and the article mentions Lockheed Martin can only produce 50-60/year.
It took Iran only a week to use up a years worth of interceptors. Not to mention the cost difference between the interceptors and the missiles fired at it.
This is not going to be an effective defense against any sort of prolonged engagement with a country like China or Russia.
Yeah, the math does not work here at all. The US very clearly cannot sustain any sort of war of attrition with an industrially advanced adversary at this point.
My revolutionary optimism half thinks this is great news because lol, lmao.
The doomer half thinks this is awful news because the gringos might go straight to the nuclear option when they escalate against China and they get dogwalked for a couple weeks.
This also means they fired an interceptor every 10 missiles, Wich seems weird given 1/4 of the interceptions seemed to have been from this system.
Edit:
I think much more likely:
They had 620 in 2021, they make 60 a year, spent 60-80 in their war against Yemen, so they had about 800, spent about one for each of the 500 Iranian missiles, I remember them using over 40 in one of the early volleys. they have less than 300 left Wich would be 40 percent left.
They would have spent on average 800 millions a day on this type of interceptor, not for the whole operation. Wich makes sense given that true promise 1 cost 2 billion to intercept half of it.
Nah THAAD is not the only ballistic missile intercept system used. In Israel, a total of 5 systems were integrated together and used to intercept ballistic re entry vehicles directly. SM-3, Arrow 3, THAAD, Arrow 2, and David’s Sling. So THAAD is just one of those 5. The actual price of a THAAD Talon interceptor is 12.7 million, which means 63 THAAD Talon interceptors were used (63*12.7=800.1). Such a number seems realistic given 39 THAAD higher altitude interceptions were caught on video visible from Jordan. That means the other 24 intercepts took place at lower altitudes, THAAD can go as low as 35-40km, and as high as 150km.
Do they are just not firing the interceptors, but every interceptor was successful?
Yet in the much less intense aggression against Yemen, they spent more missiles?
I think they are trying to intercept with everything they got, using several arrow misiles and american ones against each Iranian ballistic one. I think it is even posible that they are left with as low 130 interceptors,
Feel like this is way more important than the spend.
U.S. depletes 15-20% of THAAD defending Israel from Iran.
Some back of the napkin math based on the article:
$800M at ~$15M each is ~53 interceptors. If that’s 15% of the global stockpile that means the total was around 353 and they’re down to about 300 and the article mentions Lockheed Martin can only produce 50-60/year.
It took Iran only a week to use up a years worth of interceptors. Not to mention the cost difference between the interceptors and the missiles fired at it.
This is not going to be an effective defense against any sort of prolonged engagement with a country like China or Russia.
Yeah, the math does not work here at all. The US very clearly cannot sustain any sort of war of attrition with an industrially advanced adversary at this point.
My revolutionary optimism half thinks this is great news because lol, lmao.
The doomer half thinks this is awful news because the gringos might go straight to the nuclear option when they escalate against China and they get dogwalked for a couple weeks.
That’s my biggest worry as well, we already see just how unhinged the US is. It’s very possible that these psychos will start a nuclear holocaust.
Hence why they pushed for that ceasefire so hard.
This also means they fired an interceptor every 10 missiles, Wich seems weird given 1/4 of the interceptions seemed to have been from this system.
Edit: I think much more likely:
They had 620 in 2021, they make 60 a year, spent 60-80 in their war against Yemen, so they had about 800, spent about one for each of the 500 Iranian missiles, I remember them using over 40 in one of the early volleys. they have less than 300 left Wich would be 40 percent left. They would have spent on average 800 millions a day on this type of interceptor, not for the whole operation. Wich makes sense given that true promise 1 cost 2 billion to intercept half of it.
Nah THAAD is not the only ballistic missile intercept system used. In Israel, a total of 5 systems were integrated together and used to intercept ballistic re entry vehicles directly. SM-3, Arrow 3, THAAD, Arrow 2, and David’s Sling. So THAAD is just one of those 5. The actual price of a THAAD Talon interceptor is 12.7 million, which means 63 THAAD Talon interceptors were used (63*12.7=800.1). Such a number seems realistic given 39 THAAD higher altitude interceptions were caught on video visible from Jordan. That means the other 24 intercepts took place at lower altitudes, THAAD can go as low as 35-40km, and as high as 150km.
Do they are just not firing the interceptors, but every interceptor was successful?
Yet in the much less intense aggression against Yemen, they spent more missiles?
I think they are trying to intercept with everything they got, using several arrow misiles and american ones against each Iranian ballistic one. I think it is even posible that they are left with as low 130 interceptors,