US Patriot missile stocks in Europe are 'beyond critical' due to Iran war | Hacker News Reader

US Patriot missile stocks in Europe are 'beyond critical' due to Iran war

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21 pointshn_acker16 comments

The full title is:

> US Patriot missile stocks in Europe are ‘beyond critical’ due to Iran war, officials say

Despite four years of close observation and support of the war on Ukraine the message from the Iran conflict is that the US has not learned a thing about how to efficiently fight a war against drones.

The lower the stock, the higher next year’s military budget.

Military complex loves having a bigger budget every year. Social security solvency be damned.

I think the lessons have been learnt well. Just not the ones that serve average American.

German plant to produce them is about to come online in weeks and reach full production in a year so there's no reason to worry.

Can those munitions be provided to Ukraine without US approval?

The Iran war could escalate in under a year. The US produces ~1.6 MIM-104s per-day; Some 224 MIM-104s/day were expended in the opening days of the conflict.

I'd say there are arithmetically reasonable causes for worry.

How can Iran war escalate? Is there anything in which Iran is still relevant at all? At this point we can just forget of it. Of course, pipelines around Hormuz need to be finished but they are being quickly built right now. Surely cheap mass-produced interceptors for simple ballistic missiles are needed. Ukraine is working on them, it has to - in this sense, we can be confident in them simply because they are cornered and have no way around it.

The strait is still closed, import of fertilizer and bulk materials has effectively ceased: https://news.un.org/en/story/2026/08/1168190

The onus is now on the United States to escort ships in and out of the Strait with the US Navy, for shipping to resume for US allies. Otherwise, Iran has the initiative and the means to ransom anyone in the Strait for insurance. Israeli intelligence estimates say that the IRGC possesses as many as 80,000 operational UAVs[0] and can manufacture upwards of 400 Shahed 136 drones in a day. The United States does not have enough interceptors to escort ships even if that manufacturing was cut by 3/4ths. And there are no doubt tens-of-thousands of drones in reserve, earmarked for the littoral defense mission.

So, how can things escalate? Iran can use cheap weapons to terrorize global shipping for longer than the US Navy can sustain itself in the Gulf. MLRS artillery and drones can deny the Marine Corps a steady foothold or a safe supply chain to any of the Iranian shore islands. Tehran is too far away from America's allies to attempt a Thunder Run with the Army, and a demonstrable risk to the Air Force if they use drones or jets to support their ground formations.

If the goal of this war truly is to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, then America has to react. Iran has thousands of centrifuges in storage, domestic uranium mines and a stockpile of LEU and MEU[1] on standby.

[0] https://www.newsrael.com/posts/611y4wktzum

[1] https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profil...

Well, only way to stop Iran from having a nuclear weapon is denying them electricity. Trump can do it easily but it literally means "ending civilisation" (knock out all thermal plants and monitor with infrared sensors to ensure they are not restored, there is no way to hide a working power plant). But it means no city life. Maybe it will come to that. Iran needs to be made irrelevant, and this can be done by working around the strait by building enough pipelines, in 1-3 years they will be gradually commissioned, and Iran's leverage will no longer exist.

Shaheds can be launched on battery or generator power as long as there's gasoline. Iran's satellite targeting is managed through Chinese intermediaries[0], and Trump isn't going to bomb China over it. So the denial of naval traffic can continue effectively forever, considering that Shaheds can be made with lawnmower motors and homemade fiberglass.

Building pipelines is a contingency, because Iran's leverage over the strait will exist until the US dismantles the cell-like resistance structures of the IRGC. A few years of this will have disastrous effects on the tourism-dependent Gulf economies, and could force mass migration if desalination facilities are attacked and fertilizer is denied import. If the rich people leave and the poor people die, then Israel's victory over Iran is pyrrhic for America's allies and the global order. Escalation is therefore a sociopathic choice, for Americans.

[0] https://www.irishtimes.com/world/middle-east/2026/04/15/iran...

Shaheds are not at all a problem. Yours truly is one of perhaps hundreds of entities who work on them and in Ukraine, it is a solved problem - virtually none of them ever gets through (question now is how to fight them cheaper and while letting them slip through less Ukrainian territory before being shot down - but in Gulf states it won't a problem, distances are much longer there).

And after pipelines are built, straight will no longer be needed, and Iran will have to negotiate, or end up like Afghanistan (without electricity -> without functioning cities) - no one could call it a victory.

Shaheds are absolutely still a problem in the Gulf. They're the #1 tool used to disable maritime shipping, if it didn't work then the Strait of Hormuz would be open right now.

In your opinion, what is keeping the Strait of Hormuz closed if not the Shaheds? Why can't all of the trapped vessels leave if the Shaheds don't work and the mines are cleared? The OCIMF sees them as a very legitimate threat to maritime traffic: https://safety4sea.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/OCIMF-Loit...

> And after pipelines are built, straight will no longer be needed

The Strait will still be needed to import fertilizer, bulk goods, construction materials, cars and chemicals. Like I said; pipelines are a contingency that does not solve the maritime shipping problem except for crude. You can't send most imports through a pipeline.

The Gulf is also used for water desalination, which provides the majority of freshwater to many Gulf states. Without fresh water or food being produced, America's Gulf allies will have bigger problems on their plate than just making America/Israel happy. The UAE, Bahrain and Qatar are all begging to deescalate before they pay the price for American and Israeli adventurism.

Ships will carry interceptors, they are cheap, they are currently made for like 2-3K apiece. They can't handle jet-powered Shaheds, but those are a lot more expensive and won't be available in quantities nearly as big. And interceptors (electric too) for them are on the way, all that lacks is a range channel.

The US Navy has already expended thousands of interceptors. It didn't end the war, open the Strait or protect civilian traffic.

Iran will keep this precision strike capability. There are still ships, oil derricks and desalination plants that are within range of the Shaheds. Therefore, it seems to me that Iran has a direct mechanism to escalate the humanitarian suffering if the US also decides to impose a catastrophe on Iran. Your original claim that things cannot escalate seems to contradict your qualification of "perhaps" working in defense. There's a lot of escalation left on the table, and not enough interceptors to shoot down every Shahed.

And they're also wrecking shipfuls of seamen...

Putin must be laughing his *ss off

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