U.S. loses a quarter of its main drones in Iran War, reviving weapons shortage concerns

[Financial News] The United States, which has been at war with Iran for nearly six months, has reportedly burned through a significant amount of its drone fleet as well as missiles during the conflict. The value of the drone losses is said to be at least 1 trillion won.
The Washington Post (WP) reported on the 13th local time, citing three government officials, that the U.S. military had lost about a quarter of its MQ-9 Reaper drones in the Iran War.
The MQ-9 is a drone used for long-endurance surveillance, reconnaissance and precision strikes. Depending on its sensors and weapons, each aircraft costs between $30 million and $50 million, or about 42.6 billion won to 71 billion won. Before the Iran War, the U.S. military had about 185 MQ-9s, including 165 in the Air Force and 20 in the Marine Corps. That figure does not include aircraft operated by U.S. intelligence agencies. An official who spoke with WP claimed that the U.S. military had lost at least 45 MQ-9s in the war. The potential financial loss from those aircraft is estimated at a minimum of $1.3 billion, or about 185 billion won.
WP said the MQ-9s were deployed heavily around the Strait of Hormuz. The outlet said the aircraft were relatively vulnerable to air defenses operated by Iranian forces and Iran-backed armed groups in Yemen and Iraq because they are slow and often fly at low altitudes. The official added, however, that not all of the lost MQ-9s were shot down. Some crashed after communications between the pilot and the drone were cut off.
Earlier, David H. Tabor, deputy chief of staff for plans and programs at the U.S. Air Force, told a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing in May that "the MQ-9 inventory has fallen to about 135." In response, the U.S. Marine Corps said it mainly operates MQ-9s in the Asia-Pacific region and that "no aircraft have been lost so far."
If the report is accurate, the burden on U.S. operations targeting Iran is expected to grow. CNN reported on the 4th, citing officials, that the U.S. military had used up about 80% of its Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile stockpile during the Iran War. On the 8th, The New York Times (NYT) reported that the stockpile of Patriot air-defense missiles had fallen from 2,330 rounds just before the war began to fewer than 1,700, and that missiles were being pulled from deployments in Asia and Europe.
The shortage is not limited to air-defense missiles. In its report on the 4th, CNN said the U.S. military had used up about half of the BGM-109 Tomahawk cruise missiles it held at the start of the war. The official also claimed that weapons such as the Precision Strike Missile (PrSM) and the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) had already been exhausted.
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