US commits nearly all of stealthy long-range missiles to Iran war

A JASSM-ER is fired from a US Air Force F-16 over the Gulf of Mexico in September 2018.

Photo: US Air Force The next steps in the US military campaign against Iran will commit nearly its entire inventory of stealthy JASSM-ER cruise missiles, drawing them from stockpiles devoted to other regions.

The order to pull the US$1.5 million weapon from Pacific stockpiles was issued at the end of March, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter.

Missiles at US facilities elsewhere, including the continental US, will be moved to US Central Command bases or Fairford in the UK, said the person, who was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive details.

After the moves, only about 425 JASSM-ER out of a pre-war inventory of 2,300 will remain available for the rest of the globe.

That would be roughly enough for 17 B-1B bombers on a single mission.

Another 75 or so are “unserviceable” because of damage or technical faults.

The JASSM-ER, or Joint Air-to-Surface Missile-Extended Range, can fly more than 965km (600 miles) and was designed to hit targets at safer distances to avoid an enemy’s air defences.

Along with the shorter-range JASSM – which has a range of about 400km (250 miles), about two-thirds of US stockpiles have been committed to the Iran war, the person said.

Supplies of missile interceptors and long-range strike weapons have been at issue since the US and Israel launched their air campaign on February 28.

Replacing what has been used would take many years’ worth of production at current levels.

The US has been using large numbers of long-range weapons like JASSM-ER for strikes, limiting the risk to service members but reducing stocks of systems meant for more capable adversaries such as China.

The US and Israel have said they destroyed a significant portion of Iran’s air defences, allowing them to use cheaper weapons to hit targets in the country.

But a US F-15E strike fighter was shot down on Friday.

Soon afterward, an A-10 attack jet was downed and two combat search-and-rescue helicopters were hit by Iranian fire, US media reported.

US operations through the first four weeks of the war consumed more than 1,000 JASSM-ERs, the person said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

US aircraft also fired 47 during the raid to capture Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, the person said.

The US has allocated funds to buy more than 6,200 JASSMs since 2009, and production of the baseline JASSM for US

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