US has destroyed only a third of Iran’s missiles, intelligence suggests

No, the President who always tells the truth told us it was total obliteration.

Soooo when will this special military operation actually end? Putin found out the hardest part of a 3 day war is the 1st 4 years.

While technically accurate, this is sort of a misleading headline. As the article says, 1/3rd is believed to be destroyed and another 1/3rd is inaccessible because they’re damaged or buried under rubble underground from the bombing. So that is 2/3rds of Iran’s missiles that have been taken off the board, so to speak. I know that’s not the same as what Trump said either which was “they have very few rockets left”.

But what percentage of *launchers*? Missiles are useless without the means to deliver them.

The US still has intelligence?

So once we destroy all of their missiles and leave…..won’t they just build more and then be in the same position they were before except now they hate us even more and know that they can close the strait in practice and not just in theory?

What percentage of LAUNCHERS were destroyed? Also 1/3 of missiles in a month is pretty good.

And what % of iranian missiles have been fired? For the downvoters its a simpe equation to calculate remaining iranian mumitions. First you start with what they had pre war Then you subtract what theyve fired Then you subtract what has been destroyed Then you subtract what is unusuable and unretrievble Then You add in monthly production. Probably not a favourable equation for Iran.

I dunno, maybe it was a bad idea getting rid of so many people at our various agencies who knew what they were doing.

The launchers matter more than the missiles

The title is highly misleading. MISSILES AND DRONES. Vast majority of ballistic missiles have been used, destroyed, or buried. Iran has fired off 2500 ballistic missiles I believe (which put a major dent in their stockpile) then another like 1000 in the Israel war. Far LESS of the drone stockpile has been destroyed, buried, or used.

That doesn’t matter. Priority will always be launchers. Also, 2 thirds of the missile stockpile being taken out isn’t bad (read the article)

I am not doubting that they could have destroyed a third of Iran' missiles and that another third have been at least damaged. but this article leaves a lot of questions on the table. How have they determined how many missiles Iran has left? Since the war started how fast can they replenish the stock of missiles and drones? Could they have been given any missiles or could they have missiles coming from their allies Russia and China? Also afaik the 'missile cities' are also factories able to produce more missiles (I could be wrong on this). The guardian article makes reference to a reuters article, however in the reuters article I was able to find (I will link below) a US official says it is difficult to gauge how many missiles Iran has left or has stockpiled. Reuters article: [https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-can-only-confirm-about-third-irans-missile-arsenal-destroyed-sources-say-2026-03-27/](https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-can-only-confirm-about-third-irans-missile-arsenal-destroyed-sources-say-2026-03-27/)

Wow, the Guardian with another intentionally misleading headline. Surely it’s just an honest mistake and not something they do any time the US or Israel is mentioned.

30% destroyed and 30% buried… but that’s drones and missiles. When you count just the long range ballistic missiles, 90+% are destroyed/buried.

Translation - we have zero idea how many missiles they have and they sure keep firing them..

12 weeks instead of 4 weeks, I can live with that. Key word here is missiles, not launchers.

Well the US had certainly destroyed 2/3rds of its intelligence.

Houthi’s are about to get hit.

How can public government statements and intelligence reports be so different?

how do they get shot without launchers, precious?

Hard to destroy missiles if you are busy bombing schools and civilian infrastructure

The US has only destroyed about a third of Iran’s missile and drone arsenal after a month of its war against Iran which aimed to degrade the country’s ballistic missile capabilities, according to a report by Reuters. About a third of Tehran’s missiles have been destroyed, and another third was likely to be damaged or buried in underground tunnels and bunkers, the report suggested. A similar assessment was made about the country’s drone arsenal. The report, based on five people familiar with US intelligence, suggests that while most of Iran’s missiles are immediately inaccessible, the country still has a sizeable stockpile. That contradicts Donald Trump’s statement on Thursday that Tehran had “very few rockets left” and statements from other US officials that the war has eliminated its ballistic missile capabilities. Iranian officials see its ballistic missile programme as a key deterrent, particularly given the vast military superiority of the US and Israel, which is within reach of its arsenal and views it as a direct threat. Iran has used ballistic missiles and drones to devastating effect over the last month, continuing to pound Israel and key energy and public infrastructure in the Gulf, and inflicting huge damage on the global economy. The US and Israel have said degrading Iran’s ballistic missile capacity is one of the chief aims of the war. IWashington has deployed thousands of more troops to the Middle East in recent days as the administration reportedly mulls a ground operation in Kharg island with the aim of reopening the strait of Hormuz. Trump said on Thursday: “The problem with the strait is this: Let’s say we do a great job. We say we got 99% [of their missiles]. 1% is unacceptable, because 1% is a missile going into the hull of a ship that cost a billion dollars.” Israel has made ballistic missile caches and launchers one of the primary targets of its aerial campaign in Iran. It says it has “neutralised” 335 or 70% of Tehran’s missile launchers. Iran has distributed its launchers across the country in an effort to evade Israeli detection and airstrikes. The number of launches has declined as Israel and the US continue to their bombing campaign, but missiles have still managed to hit Israel and the Gulf as interceptors also run out. Israel, the US and Gulf states have spent billions and expended critical interceptor stocks to block Iranian missile barrages. A US official, speaking anonymously, suggested that it would be impossible to assess Iran’s missile stockpile as much of it was stored underground. “I don’t know if we’ll ever have an accurate number,” they said. Iran fired 15 missiles and 11 drones at the United Arab Emirates on Thursday, according to the UAE defence ministry. The US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, said the vast tunnel network created an extra challenge in destroying Iran’s missile stockpile, but said the US military would continue regardless. “We are hunting them down methodically, ruthlessly and overwhelmingly, like no other military in the world can do, and the results speak for themselves,” he said earlier this month.

Surely the launchers are the more important target? Most of their missiles will be in secure bunkers. Which will only ever be of any use with the launchers.

NO, NO, NO! President Trump said we have totally destroyed their military capability! The greatest president in the history of planet earth would not lie.

Have they let the Iranians know?

They obliterated the intelligence community and agencies so they are just making it up.

"Intelligence Suggest", just stop, no one knows. This is all wild speculation either way, and we've been down this road before. Iran will either run out of missiles and some analyst who did a lot of guesswork with little information will be correct or they will keep shooting missiles and another analyst making another guess on little information will be the correct one.

Sorry, Intelli… what? Never until this year did it become clear how differently words are defined; "intelligence" is a stretch.

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Is that the same intelligence that said if you wipe out the leadership the people will rise up and iran will be free, or the same intelligence that said they werent a threat to the USA but Trump said they were 2 weeks away from a nuclear bomb. Its hard to believe the lies that's coming out of America . But if it is truly a third of Irans missiles , then they've 2 months supply left . If we cant get a ceasefire by then , the global economy is going to crash .

Who’s going to tell Trump

So Iran still has the potential to create A LOT of problems?

Israel seems to be giving much more accurate information when it comes to this kind of stuff atleast.

Zelenskyy will be more than willing to help (for a price).

I almost exactly might know that we’ve probably taken care of destroying nearly if not atleast a few of all of Irans missiles

It's not the missiles that matter, it's the transport erector launchers, and US intel has it at hundreds destroyed. The effect is ballistic missile launch volume is down over 90% since the opening days of the war. Of course, it's not the end of the story, since interceptor stockpiles are down too.

Is it bizarre that any random civilian like myself can see by the hour updates on the military movements in an emergent conflict? It had to be false, right? No way what they are saying an be accurate.

That’s what “totally obliterated” means?

Totally destroyed

Fake news it can only verify 1/3rd is destroyed because most of the sites they hit are underground

This must be an old headline because this war was over weekend ago.

This and the war in Ukraine remind me of WWI, where all the old world generals were using outdated strategies and their troops were getting decimated as a result. Countries like Canada performed comparatively better because their inexperienced generals had no preconceptions. Today we are seeing last centuries powers throwing billions of dollars worth of equipment at drone armies that might as well be infinite. The US can think what it wants, but Iran can dig in for years.

The word is totally obliterated, ok? They’re all totally obliterated….at least 1/3 of them.

It doesn't matter. I was told we won the war weeks ago.

Decades of preparation vs a whim.

But we won?

Great, so they’ll put US boots on the ground who will get their asses torn up by missiles with cluster warheads and an actual significant Iranian ground army.

Are we including the missies destroyed upon impact with our bases?

Neew shipments arriving from Russia and China for sure

So another three months.

I guess maths isn’t this administration’s strong point. 33% isn’t the same as 100%. It’s both a surprise and not really a surprise that they went to war with no actual plan.

Doesnt really matters how many missiles you destroy, aslong as you destroy the majority of the launchers.

Third of of missiles capacity in huge country like Iran that hide it's missiles under mountains in under a month is a huge achievement. Why people here talk like it's a bad thing?

And Russia (Putin and his future successors like it, a lot!)

i mean that is pretty good figures considering the fact the US didn't go after missile storage sites but rather missile launchers and transport. it doesn't really matter if you have a million missiles if you only have 10 launchers and if you launch a single missile that launcher will get taken out. the effect is you only have 10 missiles left. this isn't me moving the goal post or anything this is what they US army said they were going for since day one. the issue is this idea hasn't kept up with how modern warfare has evolved with the war in Ukraine. Drone warfare means the objective a missile does can be done with by a single person anywhere. this blunder would not have happened had the US been more involved in working with and sending arms to Ukraine. there is a reason Sweden has been so invested and willing to send arms to Ukraine and make deals for factories etc. you need to take part in conflicts where modern proper armies meet or you will be left behind in the rapid development of arms that happens on the frontline. Iran has been very involved on the arms front for Russia in that conflict and changed there focus to drones for themselves.

Warfighters need to warfight harder!