The first 16 days of Operation Epic Fury have burned through coalition munitions at a pace that dwarfs anything Western defense planners prepared for. According to a Payne Institute tracking ledger cited in the analysis, American and allied forces fired 11,294 munitions at an estimated cost of $26 billion - a figure that would likely double when replacement costs are factored in.

The analysis, published by the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and reported by "Hvylya", describes the opening phase as a "fire alarm signalling a crisis of endurance." After an initial salvo of over 5,000 munitions in the first 96 hours, the conflict settled into a grinding pattern of attrition. Iranian missile and drone attacks dropped 80 to 90 percent from their initial peak but still averaged 33 missile and 94 drone strikes per day from day five onward.

The core problem, the authors argue, is not the total spent but what they call "a strategically ruinous cost-exchange ratio." The coalition intercepts cheap Iranian drones and missiles by expending multi-million-dollar interceptors that cost many times more than what they destroy. Ukrainian military advisors deployed to the region have observed the pattern firsthand and called it wasteful.

Replacing what has been fired will take years, not months. The U.S. Navy's experience in Red Sea operations showed that replenishing $1 billion in expended munitions required over $2 billion. Applying the same logic, the authors estimate that replacing the $26 billion in munitions will cost the coalition upward of $50 billion - for just 16 days of warfighting.

The analysis identifies over a dozen munition types being consumed at rates their manufacturers cannot sustain. Rheinmetall CEO Armin Papperger said on March 19 that global stockpiles are "empty or nearly empty" and warned that if the war continues another month, "we nearly have no missiles available."

The authors conclude that modern war must be measured in different units. The question is no longer whether a coalition can dominate the battlefield on any given day but whether it can keep firing on day 20 and day 60 while maintaining both an effective defense and an offensive capability.

Earlier, "Hvylya" explored how Ukraine's drone forces turned cost-per-kill into a decisive battlefield metric.