The US military has reportedly spent a staggering number of Tomahawk cruise missiles in the first four weeks of the conflict with Iran, triggering concerns over depleted stockpiles in the face of a potential contingency in the Indo-Pacific.
Citing officials familiar with the matter, the Washington Post reported on March 27, 2026, that the US Navy warships and submarines have fired more than 850 Tomahawk cruise missiles since the United States launched “Operation Epic Fury” against Iran on February 28, 2026.
If true, the US may have fired more Tomahawks than it did in the Iraq war in 2003. According to publicly available information, about 802 Tomahawks were launched during the Iraq invasion of 2003, and 325 were launched during Operation Desert Storm.
Notably, Tomahawks were part of the opening salvo in pre-dawn strikes on Iran, with the US CENTCOM (Central Command) later publishing official footage of Arleigh Burke-class destroyers firing salvos of Tomahawks at targets inside Iran. These missiles were used to suppress Iranian air defences, destroy ballistic missile launchers and production sites, hit command-and-control centres, and neutralise naval facilities, according to reports.
Typically, degrading a layered, nationwide network requires massed precision strikes, particularly in the initial stage, which explains the widespread use of Tomahawk missiles.
In Operation Epic Fury, the missiles hit locations across the country, including Tehran, Isfahan, Qom province, Tabriz, Kermanshah, and western areas. In fact, the missile was allegedly used in a strike on a girls’ school in Minab.
These missiles have been favoured because they enable “stand-off” strikes, fly low to evade radar, and strike deep and hard.
However, the rapid depletion of Tomahawk stockpiles has raised concerns within the Pentagon, as the rate of expenditure is exponentially faster than the rate of production.
The worldwide supply of this crucial long-range attack weapon is now restricted to a few hundred units produced annually. According to reports, an estimated 2,330 Tomahawk missiles are produced annually at the maximum rate: BAE has a contract to build up to 530 missiles annually, while three Raytheon contracts each have a capacity of 600 missiles. The Defence Department and Raytheon recently signed a framework deal to scale up to 1,000 missiles annually for the US over several years, but that shall take a few years to materialise.
Although the WaPo report stated that the US military had between 4,000 and 4,500 Tomahawk missiles at the beginning of Operation Epic Fury, the exact number is classified.
It must also be noted that these missiles are expensive, costing $3.6 million a piece.
According to reports, the Tomahawks remaining in the Middle East were “alarmingly low,” while another stated that the Pentagon is getting closer to “Winchester,” which is military jargon for “out of ammunition” for its missile supply in the region.
Kelly Grieco, a senior fellow at the Stimson Centre, told CBS News, “It’s been recognised that we don’t have enough long-range strike capability, so we’ve been trying to build up these stockpiles, but we keep depleting them.”
Meanwhile, a US-based think tank, Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), wrote in its latest assessment: “850 missiles would account for around half of available launchers in the region— assuming two guided missile submarines with Multiple-All-Up-Round Canisters, alongside the destroyers with vertical launching system (VLS) cells. Because VLS cells also carry other types of missiles—for example, air defence missiles—this number could represent most of the Tomahawks on station. These launchers cannot be reloaded at sea. Ships would need to return to port with the requisite infrastructure once they are out of missiles.”
It further noted that the US Navy is set to receive about 110 Tomahawks in FY 2026, whereas its existing stockpile consists of just 3,000 units.
Experts believe that the rapid expenditure of Tomahawk cruise missiles would significantly degrade US combat capability in the short-to-medium term, primarily by eroding “magazine depth,” which refers to the ability to sustain precision strikes and forcing trade-offs in high-intensity conflicts such as one against China in the Western Pacific region.
Not Good News For The US
With advanced design features, precision, and operational flexibility, the Tomahawk is considered one of the most formidable weapons in the world. The missile is primarily designed to strike high-value, heavily defended land targets, such as command centres, airfields, and critical infrastructure.
It is an extremely adaptable weapon since it can be fired from surface ships, submarines, and, occasionally, ground-based launchers, as EurAsian Times previously noted in a detailed report. Notably, the Tomahawk’s design architecture minimises risk by enabling standoff strikes, which are crucial in modern conflict because airspace is saturated with multi-layered air defences.
The missile’s range is around 1,600 kilometres for the Block III/IV model and over 1,800 kilometres for the more recent Block V variant.
The Block IV version features an integrated datalink that enables target switching during flight and allows it to hover for an extended period. Meanwhile, the Block V incorporates advanced technological upgrades that enable the weapon to engage moving maritime targets while airborne, maintaining a low altitude to evade adversaries’ radar systems.
Tomahawk cruise missiles are capable of causing enormous damage, including the destruction of buildings and the creation of explosive craters up to 20 feet wide. It is an extremely lethal weapon with a standard warhead, which weighs about 450 kilograms. Additionally, it may hit within a 10-meter radius of the target due to its Circular Error Probable (CEP) of roughly 10 meters or less.
It is for this reason that the US needs a sufficient number of Tomahawks in its arsenal to fight a potential conflict with China, hypothetically, in the event of a Taiwan invasion. However, Raytheon’s production capacity, hampered by supply chain constraints, specialist labour shortages, and single-source components, cannot increase quickly enough to replenish supplies in the event of an Indo-Pacific crisis or the conflict in West Asia.
Experts, think tanks, and war games have emphasised that in the initial stages of a Taiwan scenario, the US military would have to heavily depend on massed long-range strikes to thwart Chinese amphibious or blockade efforts. They reckon that Tomahawks would have to be launched to target ships, ports, airfields, and missile facilities.
Moreover, the US military would need these long-range missiles to strike Chinese coastal radars, command-and-control (C2) nodes, air defence systems, missile launchers, and airbases on the mainland or artificial islands in the South China Sea. This would help open corridors for stealth bombers and other aircraft, as well as for follow-on strikes.
Tomahawks would prove useful for initial suppression and anti-surface warfare in a fight with China because they offer a proven, adaptable, long-range, precision-strike capability from both sea and land. Therefore, the rapid depletion of Tomahawks creates what is referred to as the “window of vulnerability,” since fewer missiles available mean less ability to suppress dense Chinese air defences or sustain a fight if conflict escalates.
Furthermore, the dearth of long-range ship-launched missiles would require the US to rely heavily on fighters launched from aircraft carriers, which may not augur well, given that China has a highly sophisticated Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) network along its shorelines.
Taiwan has reportedly expressed uneasiness over the unrestrained use of long-range missiles in Iran. It remains unclear whether the US would have enough to deal with China.
Even if the US has enough to stay in the war in West Asia, it may be biting into its chances in another theatre. Moreover, the Trump administration seems not to have an exit plan from the war yet, as demonstrated by his threats to bomb Iran’s power plants last week and the subsequent backtracking.
Iran, on its part, has managed to sustain the conflict longer than the US and Israel may have wanted. It remains to be seen whether Trump can wind down the hostilities soon enough, and if not, how many more Tomahawks his military will spend in the coming days?
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