Media: US rapidly depletes its air-defence stocks

The US Army launched an estimated 96 to 160 PAC-3 MSE interceptors from Patriot air-defence batteries in Jordan during an overnight attack involving 32 to 40 Iranian ballistic missiles, rapidly depleting its air-defence stocks, The Hormuz Letter reports.

The report said, according to preliminary estimates, the figures suggest that three to four interceptors were fired at each incoming missile.

With each PAC-3 MSE costing roughly $4 million, the estimated expenditure in a single wave could range from $380 million to $640 million.

A fully loaded Patriot battery can carry about 72 to 96 PAC-3 MSE interceptors. Two batteries, together with locally available reloads, would provide several hundred interceptors in Jordan, meaning the latest engagement may have consumed roughly one-third to one-half of that stockpile.

Without additional supplies from the Gulf region or the US mainland, two or three more attacks on a similar scale could significantly deplete the Patriot interceptors available in Jordan.

The scale of the remaining stockpile would depend on how fully the batteries were supplied before the latest attack. Each PAC-3 MSE interceptor reportedly takes about two years to manufacture.

By Bakhtiyar Abbasov