The Navy saved $1 billion in ammunition costs and repelled 130 direct attacks in just half a year

Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro said Tuesday there have been 130 direct attacks on American warships in the Middle East over the past six months and that the Navy is out $1 billion in critical munitions because of it, a funding shortfall he is hoping Congress will soon cover.

“All roads lead back to Iran,” he told lawmakers at a Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee 2025 budget hearing in which he urged lawmakers for more money.

“Over the course of the last six months, we have encountered over 130 direct attacks on U.S. Navy ships and merchant ships,” Del Toro said. “The munitions that are critical to these counterstrikes are extremely important to the Department of Navy. We currently are approaching $1 billion in munitions that we need to replenish at some point in time. The over $2 billion that’s provided for in the supplemental [budget] is direly critical to our Navy and Marine Corps to be able to replenish those munitions and continue to provide the types of defensive measures that we have in these past 6 1/2 months.”

The strain on the Navy’s stockpile has been on the minds of lawmakers and defense analysts since October, when Hamas’s attack on Israel led to U.S. forces taking up positions in the Red and Mediterranean seas.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee, also urged the need to pass the national security supplemental that has been stalled in the House for months.

“Iran’s attacks over the weekend are a very stark reminder of the precarious moment that we are in, the pressing challenges we and our allies face across the globe, including the further escalation of hostilities in the Middle East and the urgent need to pass the national security supplemental,” she said.

Murray also blasted House lawmakers for acting glib with global security and the lives of service members on the line.

“After so many months of needless delay from House Republicans, we’ve got to get this done,” she said. “We need to get it right — as everyone in the room knows, the details matter — and show the world that there is bipartisan support to stand with our allies.”

First use of SM-3s in Iran defense

During the hearing, Del Toro also confirmed the first-ever use of Standard Missile 3s in combat by U.S. forces defending Israel from last weekend’s attack by Iran.

Del Toro said naval forces fired the SM-3s to engage Iranian ballistic missiles that were launched from Tehran and surrounding areas.

“We’ve been firing SM-2s, we’ve been firing SM-6s, and just over the weekend, SM-3s, to actually counter the ballistic missile threat that’s come from Iran,” he said.

Iran’s Saturday assault on Israel involved hundreds of drones, ballistic missiles, and cruise missiles. The attack was the first time Iran had launched a direct military assault on Israel despite decades of animosity. An Israeli military spokesman said 99% of the Iranian drones and missiles had been intercepted.

U.S. officials said the USS Arleigh Burke and USS Carney, both operating in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, destroyed four Iranian ballistic missiles, but it wasn’t clear how that was done.

USNI News reported the use of SM-3 but did not have named sources. Del Toro’s comments Tuesday mark the first public acknowledgement the SM-3 had been used.

The SM-3s were first deployed in 2004 on U.S. cruisers and destroyers. They have been part of the U.S. ballistic missile defense network across the world since 2011 and are an element of the Navy’s Aegis Combat System, which uses a kinetic kill vehicle to detect, hit, and destroy short-to-intermediate-range ballistic missiles. The SM-3 can eliminate targets beyond Earth’s atmosphere.

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“SM-3s are unique due to being the only Standard Missile designed to operate in the vacuum of space,” the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank wrote in its Missile Defense Project.

Despite being around for more than a decade, the SM-3s had never been used in a real-world situation.