A recent US report said that the US Navy fired more air defense missiles during 15 months of combat operations in the Red Sea than it did in the previous 30 years, depleting the service’s stock of ammunition and even resorting to 5-inch rifle rounds to shoot down drones.

He stressed that the US Navy would need years to replenish its supply of missiles, which puts the service in a bad position if the United States and China went to war today.

The report, published by the US military website "Task and Propos", quoted retired Navy Commander Brian Clark of the Hudson Institute as saying that the US Navy has used more air defense missiles since the start of combat operations in the Red Sea in October 2023 than the service has used in all years since Operation Desert Storm in the 1990s.

"During that 15-month period, from October 19, 2023 to January 19, 2025, the Navy saw the largest number of battles at sea since World War II," he added.

“It’s amazing how the Navy survived without casualties, but the cost was enormous,” Clark said. “It’s estimated that the Navy spent over $1 billion on interceptors to shoot down these drone and missile threats.”

“Most estimates are that within a few days of combat, if there was an invasion of Taiwan, the United States—the Navy in particular—would run out of weapons,” Clarke said. “Here’s the problem: The weapons we’ve designed are hard to build for the industrial base, because they’re so specialized; they have a very specialized supply chain, and they’re made by hand, at low production rates.”

The Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) had launched Operation “Al-Aqsa Flood” against the “Israeli” occupation on October 7, 2023, followed by an “Israeli” aggression on the Gaza Strip and then Yemeni support for Gaza against this aggression, as the Yemeni armed forces began their support operations by targeting ships linked to Israel in the Red Sea with cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, drones and unmanned boats.

The report noted that “on October 19, 2023, the destroyer USS Carney engaged in a ten-hour engagement with 15 Yemeni drones and four cruise missiles in what the Navy described as “the most intense combat engagement by a U.S. Navy warship since World War II.”

Fire Control Officer ( AEGIS ) 2nd Class Justin Parker later recalled that he and other crew members were in their berths when they heard an announcement over Carney's intercom: "Clear weather decks." They soon heard Carney firing rockets along with her main gun. They knew immediately that this was not a drill.

“We’ve never done anything like this before — we’ve just trained for it,” said Gunnery Assistant 1st Class Charles Currie in a Navy news release. “There was a lot of adrenaline going on. This was real now.”

The situation in the Red Sea escalated rapidly as Yemeni forces intensified their attacks on commercial ships and warships linked to Israel.

In December 2023, the US Department of Defense announced that the Navy would be part of Operation Prosperity Sentinel, an international effort to protect commercial shipping in the Red Sea.

The report indicated that in late January, Yemeni forces announced a partial halt to attacks in the Red Sea following a ceasefire between the occupation and Hamas. The last announcement by the US Central Command about strikes against targets in Yemen was on January 8. The last announcement by Yemeni forces about US raids was at dawn on January 19, which targeted the Al-Azraqeen area on the outskirts of the capital, Sanaa.

According to the report, the Navy revealed in January that it had fired 160 rounds from its ships’ five-inch main guns as part of combat operations in the Red Sea. Clark said those main gun rounds were used to destroy Yemeni drones.

“They’ve been using guns to shoot down drones recently, especially hypervelocity projectiles,” Clark said. “The Navy originally built all of these hypervelocity projectiles as part of the railgun program. I think they used about 50 for air defense.”

He added that the hypervelocity projectiles are designed to hit the target, while other 5-inch shells explode near the target, showering it with shrapnel.

Not only are 5-inch shells less expensive than missiles, Clark said, but Yemeni drones often fly too low or too close to the ship to be hit by missiles.

"What often happens is that these very small drones get close enough to where the missile can't engage them in time, because the missile has a lower range as well," Clarke added.

According to the report, combat operations in the Red Sea have placed US Navy ships and sailors in the face of an unprecedented number of hostile drone attacks.

“No one ever imagined they would see drone [threats] on this scale,” Rear Admiral Kavun Hakimzadeh, then commander of the US Carrier Strike Group 2, told Jane’s, an open-source defence intelligence provider, in a November 2024 news report.

In January, the Navy revealed that it had fired nearly 400 munitions since October 2023 as part of combat operations in the Red Sea, including 120 SM-2 missiles, 80 SM-6 missiles , and a total of 20 Evolved Sea Sparrow (ESSM) missiles and SM-3 missiles . The unit cost of these missiles ranges from $12.5 million to $28.7 million for the SM-3 , about $4.3 million for the SM-6 , and up to $2.5 million for the SM-2 , according to The War Zone .

But by mid-2024, the Navy had switched to less expensive Sidewinders and Hellfire missiles to shoot down Yemeni drones, according to Janes. The Sidewinders and Hellfires typically cost about half a million dollars and about $150,000, respectively.

John Phelan acknowledged during his confirmation hearing as Navy secretary that the Navy is facing a shortage of ammunition.

“So if I am confirmed, I intend to focus on this very quickly and resolve it because I think we are at a dangerously low level from a stock perspective, as well as a new one,” Phelan said at the Feb. 27 hearing.