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“Our stockpiles of defensive and offensive weapons allow us to sustain this campaign as long as we need to,” Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said at U.S. Central Command headquarters on Thursday.
From a tactical perspective, the scale of the airstrikes unleashed in Operation Epic Fury indicates that the U.S. almost waited too long. Starting the campaign to take out Iran’s ballistic missiles and drones required strikes on almost 2,000 aimpoints in just the first few days. That’s one munition per aimpoint, and there could be thousands more to go.
It was now or never. Iran planned to stockpile missiles and drones and build a handful of nuclear weapons that no military force could reach. “Iranian negotiators said to us directly, with no shame, that they controlled 460 kilograms of 60% and they’re aware that that could make 11 nuclear bombs,” U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff said Tuesday.
The terrifying scale of Iran’s target set went unnoticed by most of the world until last Saturday.
Imagine how difficult this job would have been in a few years — especially with Russia and China helping Iran restock.
“This operation needed to happen because Iran, in about a year or a year and a half, would cross the line of immunity, meaning they would have so many short-range missiles, so many drones that no one could do anything about it because they could hold the whole world hostage,” Rubio said on Capitol Hill on Monday. “Look at the damage they’re doing now. And this is a weakened Iran … imagine a year from now,” he added.
With Iran’s command and control degraded and air defenses flattened, the southern air ingress approaches to the country are wide open. “And now, with complete control of the skies, we will be using 500-pound, 1,000-pound and 2,000-pound GPS–and laser-guided precision gravity bombs, of which we have a nearly unlimited stockpile,” Hegseth said at the Pentagon on Wednesday.
Here come the big bombs to take on hundreds of targets. Those targets include factories, weapons storage sites and every IRGC facility U.S. forces can find. And it’s all happening while a 2,000-mile arc of aerial defense continues.
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The U.S. is not running out of bombs for Operation Epic Fury. Here are seven systems seeing heavy action:
Joint Direct Attack Munition: JDAMs use GPS satellite guidance to hit precise coordinates. The combat-proven JDAM family of munitions is actually a kit. You take a Mk 82 500-pound free-fall gravity bomb, a Mk 83 1,000-pound bomb body or a Mk 84 2,000-pound bomb body, then attach a precision seeker and a tail kit with steering fins just before missions. Military munitions specialists — sometimes called AMMO troops — build the bombs before loading them onto the aircraft. In the Navy, for example, you can spot ordnance loaders on an aircraft carrier deck by their red jerseys. In 2003, U.S. fighter and bomber crews dropped 5,086 of the 2,000-pound GBU-31 JDAMs in Operation Iraqi Freedom. So yes, planners knew to stock up. A new wing kit doubled the range for the JDAM Extended Range variant. JDAMs can attack “off-axis,” meaning behind or to the side of the fighter or bomber.
GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb: Combining precision with powerful explosives, the Small Diameter Bomb weighs 250 pounds and has a remarkable 40-nautical-mile range when launched, along with the ability to strike moving vehicles. The bomb body is advanced, with a more powerful but compact explosive that limits collateral damage. Aircrews can change coordinates in flight for this GPS-guided munition. F-22 Raptors can drop SDBs while flying supersonic.
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Patriot and THAAD: U.S. forces are leading the defense against missile and drone threats. Patriot remains the gold standard for terminal-phase intercepts, and Hegseth noted inventories were in good shape. THAAD — Terminal High Altitude Area Defense — is also widely used.
Air-to-air missiles: For drones, there are many options, starting with fighter aircraft armed with AMRAAMs (Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles) and AIM-9 Sidewinders. Drones can be tricky to detect on radar, but recent experience in Ukraine means the U.S. has fresh identifying characteristics to work with. Once in range, the slow, hot, whirring pusher engine of Iran’s Shahed drones is not difficult to target. However, Hegseth noted counter-UAS systems have been pushed forward. You knew American technology was the foundation of Ukraine’s superb air defenses, right?
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VAMPIRE and Coyote: The VAMPIRE counter-drone system’s name says it all: Vehicle-Agnostic Modular Palletized ISR Rocket Equipment. That means it can go on almost any truck and fire different missiles. The Navy rushed it to Ukraine in 2023, and since then, “VAMPIRE users have successfully shot down hundreds of enemy drones,” according to manufacturer L3Harris. Other examples include Coyote, a small drone that can launch from a sonobuoy to destroy hostile drones or loiter to disable them with electronic jamming in its “non-kinetic” variant. Both have been tested against drone swarms.
To be sure, some Standard Missile-3 Block 1A and Block 2B variants have been heavily taxed. U.S. Navy Aegis destroyers launch SM-3s for exo-atmospheric, midcourse hit-to-kill shots against Iranian ballistic missiles.
On Feb. 4, the Pentagon anticipated the need and announced Tomahawk production would be boosted to 1,000 per year, AMRAAMs to at least 1,900, and SM-6 missiles to more than 500 annually, with SM-3 production accelerating to two to four times its classified annual rate. For obvious reasons, full munitions inventories are not public information.
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“Your joint force is steady, frosty, calm and focused,” Caine said.
And they have the weapons to carry out their missions.
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