Historic levels of air defense missiles were expended by U.S. Navy ships in the Middle East in defense of Israel and in protection of Red Sea shipping since October of 2023. This led Admiral James Kilby, Naval Operations acting chief, to testify in June that their ship-launched air defense interceptors — SM-3s — are being expended at an “alarming rate” in defense of Israel.
But just how alarmed should we really be?
To determine this we need to know how many missiles the U.S. had in its inventory prior to October of 2023, how many missiles were expended since then, and how many new missiles have been produced since the beginning of 2024 up through June of 2025.
First, the Navy released a report on how many standard missiles were expended from October 2023 to December 31, 2024 that allows us to make a reasonable guesstimate of how many standard missiles were used to defend Red Sea shipping against the Houthis in first six months of 2025 for a total from October 2023 of 168 SM-2s, 17 SM-3s and 112 SM-6s.
Meanwhile in 2024, Israel suffered two major attacks from Iran: 120 ballistic missiles in April and 180 ballistic missiles on Oct 1. Additional details revealed in this April USNI article, combined with the minimum number of interceptors launched per U.S. Navy interception, allows us to estimate that a total of 24 missiles were expended by a total of four different Arleigh Burke destroyers in 2024 to supplement Israel’s ballistic missile defense: let's say 12 SM-3s and 12 SM-6s.
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