The Navy’s marketing campaign in opposition to Houthi militants uncovered a severe deficiency as America’s fleet lacks the missiles to maintain fight whereas getting ready for a possible struggle with China and different adversaries.
Between October 2023 and January 2025, Navy ships fired extra defensive missiles at incoming Houthi drones and rockets than they utilized in three many years following Desert Storm. Additionally they launched lots of of offensive strike missiles at Houthi positions in Yemen.
The Dwight D. Eisenhower Service Strike Group alone fired 155 missiles defending in opposition to assaults and 135 Tomahawk cruise missiles putting enemy targets throughout its deployment from November 2023 to June 2024.
“We’re at a dangerously low degree from a stockpile perspective,” Navy Secretary John Phelan advised senators throughout his affirmation listening to again in February, pledging to sort out the scarcity instantly.
Manufacturing Cannot Preserve Tempo With the Navy’s Fight
The Navy’s total fleet has about 10,000 vertical launch platforms that fireplace these missiles. However the service does not have sufficient missiles left in stock to fill these cells even as soon as.
By means of 2023, the U.S. procured roughly 12,000 SM-2s, 400 SM-3s, 1,500 SM-6s, and 9,000 Tomahawks since these weapons entered service, in response to The Heritage Basis. However a minimum of 2,800 Commonplace Missiles and a couple of,900 Tomahawks have been expended throughout numerous operations through the years — and lots of extra have been retired, utilized in coaching, or reached the tip of their service lives.
Present manufacturing charges imply the scarcity will persist. Pentagon paperwork present the Navy purchased 68 Tomahawks in fiscal yr 2023, 34 in 2024, with plans for 22 by way of 2025 and 57 in 2026.
Operation Iraqi Freedom’s opening salvoes used roughly 800 Tomahawks. Changing that expenditure would take over a decade at immediately’s charges.
Fluctuating Navy orders have created unstable manufacturing traces and deterred producers from increasing their capability. Every Tomahawk requires as much as two years to construct resulting from specialised elements and restricted suppliers for elements like rocket motors.
The China Drawback
Retired Navy Cmdr. Bryan Clark of the Hudson Institute warned in Congressional testimony that present missile depletion places the Navy in a nasty place if a battle with China materialized immediately.
The Pink Sea operations utilized over $1 billion in munitions defending transport lanes in opposition to a non-peer adversary. China’s Individuals’s Liberation Army Navy operates superior anti-ship missiles, hypersonic weapons and large drone swarms that might demand a a lot bigger variety of protection techniques.
An outbreak of hostilities with China would enhance the missile utilization charge to a magnitude properly over Pink Sea ranges, additional depleting the Navy’s already diminished stockpile.
A number of ships just lately tailored their protection techniques to protect the restricted shares of munitions. By mid-2024, the Navy shifted to Sidewinders and Hellfires for drone protection as a substitute of multimillion-dollar Commonplace Missiles. Crews additionally employed 5-inch deck weapons to guard the vessels from drone threats.
Protection contractors are responding. Raytheon invested over $115 million to extend Commonplace Missile manufacturing capability by 67 p.c at its Huntsville, Alabama, facility. The corporate additionally invested $53 million to enhance its Decrease Tier Air and Missile Protection Sensor (LTAMDS) facility in Massachusetts. In the meantime, Northrop Grumman opened a facility in West Virginia able to producing 300 strike missiles yearly.
The Navy additionally introduced plans for a Naval Modular Missile program utilizing widespread elements to spice up manufacturing effectivity.
Congress has additionally allotted funds to assist these initiatives. An April 2025 protection invoice included $4.5 billion for munitions industrial base grants and $200 million for strong rocket motor infrastructure.
However these investments would require years earlier than they’re prepared whereas abroad threats demand speedy readiness.
Strategic Calculations
America’s navy dominance over previous few many years led to the belief that future conflicts can be brief and decisive, not grinding campaigns of attrition. The Houthi assaults within the Pink Sea challenged that pondering.
The USS Carney spent 10 hours on Oct. 19, 2023, taking pictures down 15 drones and 4 cruise missiles — what the Navy known as “essentially the most intense fight engagement by a U.S. Navy warship since WWII.” The ship confronted 51 engagements throughout its total deployment.
That sustained tempo, repeated throughout a number of ships for over a yr, depleted missile shares that had been constructed over many years.
Pentagon planners now face the truth that the Navy should concurrently defend world commerce, deter China, assist operations in a number of theaters whereas rebuilding its depleted inventories — all whereas manufacturing capability stays insufficient.
Former Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro advised the Senate Appropriations Committee in April 2024 the service wanted greater than $2 billion simply to interchange Pink Sea expenditures. That does not account for future missions or strategic reserves for operations within the Pacific.
The Houthi marketing campaign confirmed that the fleet can struggle successfully by way of tactical adaptation and crew proficiency. However proficiency alone can not exchange important munitions when going through a peer adversary with an industrial capability 200 instances bigger than America’s shipbuilding capabilities.
Till manufacturing capability matches operational calls for, each missile fired at enemy drones is one fewer obtainable to discourage Beijing or different peer adversaries.
