The most critical weapon systems the U.S. expended in the first 36 hours of the Iran campaign would take up to 30 months to replenish at current production rates, a new analysis reveals - exposing a gap between what America fires and what it can rebuild.

As reported by "Hvylya", the Payne Institute at the Colorado School of Mines has calculated replenishment timelines for every major weapon system used during Operation Epic Fury and Israel's Operation Roaring Lion. The picture ranges from manageable to deeply concerning.

At the extreme end, the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator - the heaviest bunker-buster in the U.S. arsenal - faces a 30-month replenishment window at current rates. Only around 25 have ever been produced, Boeing is the sole assembler, and the weapon is currently certified for delivery only by the B-2 Spirit, a fleet of just 20 aircraft. The B-21 Raider will provide an additional platform but will not reach operational status until 2027.

The Tomahawk cruise missile illustrates a different kind of bottleneck. Its F107 turbofan engine is "solely produced by Williams International," making the entire production chain dependent on a single company. THAAD interceptors require a "bespoke kill vehicle, which has no commercial analogue." Patriot PAC-3 production is split across the United States, Gulf partners, and Poland, which began manufacturing PAC-3 MSE launch tubes at its WZL-1 facility in 2024.

Some systems are being drawn from finite legacy stocks with no new production at all. The Israeli Popeye Turbo, also known as Crystal Maze II, is one such weapon - once fired, it cannot be replaced. The researchers said "emergency supplemental funding" alone cannot "instantly reverse decades of consolidated production lines and atrophied mineral processing capacity." The constraint, they argued, is "time, chemistry, and industrial physics."

U.S. Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had flagged concerns about American munition levels before the strikes began. Those concerns, the researchers noted, "are not new" - Red Sea operations had already shown that missiles were being spent faster than they could be replaced. The Iran campaign has turned a simmering industrial problem into an acute strategic crisis.

Also read: Weapons Meant for Ukraine: How the Iran War Reshapes Europe's Defense Priorities