U.S. Tomahawks are being used in Iran war faster than stockpile is being refilled

Washington — The U.S. has so far used hundreds of Tomahawk cruise missiles against Iran, according to two sources familiar with the matter, several times more than the number procured for the military each year. 

One of the sources said over 850 have been used so far in the conflict, a figure that is roughly nine times the number of Tomahawks the Pentagon buys on average each year. This number was first reported by the Washington Post. 

The maximum rate of production is estimated to be 2,330 per year: Three contracts from Raytheon each have a capacity of 600 and a BAE has a contract to produce up to 530 missiles per year, according to a report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, which cites Pentagon budget documents.

However, the actual procurement rate for the U.S. military is about 90 per year, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The Navy requested only 57 missiles for fiscal year 2026, according to Defense Department budget documents. 

In total, it's estimated the Pentagon has about 3,100 or so Tomahawk missiles in its inventory, according to Kelly Grieco, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center. 

"It's been recognized 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," Grieco told CBS News. 

Raytheon, or RTX, recently announced a framework agreement with the Defense Department to scale up to 1,000 missiles for the U.S. per year over several years. 

What is a Tomahawk missile and what U.S. military services use them?

A Tomahawk cruise missile, launched from Navy destroyers and submarines, can travel more than 1,000 miles and strike with remarkable precision, even against targets protected by sophisticated air defenses. Developed during the Cold War and continually upgraded since, it has become one of the Pentagon's most dependable long-range weapons. 

The missile is operated primarily by the U.S. Navy, but in recent years has also been adopted by the Marine Corps and the Army, reflecting a broader shift toward long-range precision weapons across the services. Allied militaries, including Britain's Royal Navy, also field the system. No evidence has come to light that would suggest that Iran uses or has obtained Tomahawk missiles for use. 

According to Pentagon data, the Tomahawk has been flight-tested more than 550 times and used operationally in over 2,300 strikes, according to Raytheon, the defense manufacturer. In conflicts from Iraq to Syria and recently in the U.S.-Israel war with Iran, Tomahawks are often used as the weapon of first resort when American commanders seek to hit distant or heavily defended targets without risking pilots. 

How much do Tomahawks cost? 

Costs can vary depending on what version of the Tomahawk the U.S. is purchasing but the missile costs around $2.2 million and a launcher is more than $6 million for ground-based versions. Tomahawks launched by the U.S. Navy from destroyers or submarines are capable of striking moving ships and can come in at more than $4 million.

Tomahawks are just one of the advanced munitions the U.S. has been using.

Democratic Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said at a hearing earlier this week that U.S. Forces have fired "thousands of Tomahawks, Precision Strike Missiles, and other long-range offensive weapons into Iran, while also using Patriot, THAAD, and Standard Missile interceptors at an alarming rate." 

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the U.S. is ramping up the defense industrial base in an effort to  produce critical munitions faster. 

"We're reviving our defense industrial base and rebuilding the arsenal of freedom," Hegseth said at a news conference last week, adding that new deals would cut "long lead times on exquisite munitions." 

"We're going to be refilled faster than anyone imagined," Hegseth said. 

How many Tomahawks has the U.S. used since the strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities in June 2025?

While there's no official cumulative total publicly available, the American military has used close to 1,000 Tomahawk missiles and perhaps even more between strikes on Iran, operations in Yemen and the Red Sea, Nigeria and other conflicts since June 2025, according to multiple news estimates and weapons experts. 

File: The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Thomas Hudner (DDG-116) fires a Tomahawk land-attack missile at sea on March 1, 2026. U.S. Navy / Getty Images

How fast can the U.S. produce Tomahawks missiles currently? 

Production of the Tomahawk cruise missile has struggled to keep pace with its growing use. In recent years,industry has produced only a dozen to a few hundred missiles annually for the U.S. under standard procurement cycles, according to Defense Department budget documents, a rate far below what could be expended in even a short, high-intensity conflict. Officials and defense analysts have long said that the constraint is not simply funding, but structural limits in a defense industrial base designed for predictable demand rather than rapid wartime expansion. 

How many Tomahawks would the U.S. like to produce in the future? 

Recent Defense Department notices show there's been an active effort to expand Tomahawk capacity. RTX announced last month annual Tomahawk production would increase to more than 1,000 per year under new agreements. 

But those efforts appear to run over multiple years and is not an immediate wartime snapback. 

Separately, a September 2025 Pentagon contract notice says Raytheon received funding for engineering to enhance the production capacity of the Tomahawk All Up Round missile system, with work to be completed in March 2028. 

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