The Secretary of the Navy this week told a congressional panel that the service has used nearly $1 billion in critical munitions in Middle East operations in the past year and a pending supplemental spending bill is key to replenish them.
“We currently have approaching $1 billion in munitions that we have need to replenish at some point in time so, therefore, the over $2 billion that’s provided for in the supplemental is entirely critical to our Navy and Marine Corps to be able to replenish those munitions and continue to provide the types of defensive measure we have the past six and a half months now,” Carlos Del Toro said while testifying before the Senate Appropriations’ defense subcommittee on April 16.
Del Toro also argued the fiscal year 2025 budget request numbers for munitions are adequate, but that was also before considering the recent attack by Iran and its proxies on Israel (Defense Daily, April 15).
He said that given the latest attack and tensions in the region requiring U.S. forces to help defend Israel and international shipping “it’s critical for Congress to pass the supplemental this week so that we can actually get the additional resources to be able to supplement those munitions that will be critical moving forward.”
The Senate passed its $95.3 billion supplemental bill in February, which includes $2.4 billion to support operations in U.S. Central Command, $4.8 billion to deter Chinese aggression and support Indo-Pacific partners like Taiwan, $14.1 billion in security assistance for Israel and $60 billion to continue sporting Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s invasion (Defense Daily, Feb. 13).
Del Toro agreed with comments by Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) that the supplemental helps strengthen the U.S. defense industrial base as it restores U.S. weapons stockpiles and produces more sophisticated weapons the U.S. needs going forward.
The Secretary reiterated the Navy has been firing Standard Missile (SM)-2s and SM-6s in activities in the Red Sea and to help defend Israel and confirmed it fired SM-6s to help defeat Iranian ballistic missiles fired at Israel.
“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 coming from Iran. So we need this supplemental to pass this week…These are investments in our industrial base, there’s no question about it.”
Del Toro’s statement confirmed reports that U.S. defensive actions last weekend were the first time the SM-3 was used in combat.
The RTX [RTX] SM-3 is designed to defeat ballistic missiles during the midcourse phase of flight outside the atmosphere and are launched from the Mk 41 Vertical launching System cells on Aegis ships or Aegis Ashore sites.