Most of the principal missiles employed by the U.S. Navy—comprising approximately 233 combatant ships and 60 auxiliary vessels—for land attack, air and missile defense, and surface warfare are launched from Vertical Launch Systems (VLS).

Tomahawk Block IV and Block V cruise missiles provide long-range land-attack capability, while SM-2, SM-3, SM-6, and ESSM missiles are employed for air and missile defense.

Certain variants of the SM-6 and ESSM can also engage surface targets. Consequently, the number of VLS cells aboard a warship largely determines the maximum number of missiles that can be carried in a combat-ready configuration.

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Unlike conventional ammunition magazines, these missiles are stored directly within the VLS cells themselves.

Every missile fired therefore immediately reduces the ship’s available combat load. Once a VLS cell is emptied, it cannot be reloaded at sea from another vessel. Instead, missiles must be vertically reloaded into the launch cells while the ship is in port using specialized heavy-lift equipment. As a result, the decisive challenge in a prolonged conflict is not merely the number of missiles that can be fired initially, but the ability to replenish depleted VLS cells throughout the course of the war.

U.S. VLS Capacity

Today, the U.S. Navy operates 70 Arleigh Burke (DDG-51)-class destroyers, each equipped with 96 VLS cells; three Zumwalt-class destroyers, each with 80 VLS cells; 17 Ticonderoga (CG-47)-class cruisers, each carrying 122 VLS cells; and 12 Virginia-class nuclear-powered attack submarines, each fitted with between 12 and 40 VLS cells, depending on the variant.

Assuming that all 102 VLS-equipped destroyers, cruisers, and submarines are operational and fully loaded, the U.S. Navy possesses an aggregate ready-to-fire capacity of approximately 10,000 VLS cells, averaging about 98 cells per platform.

VLS Capacity of U.S. Allies

The VLS capacity of the United States’ principal allies remains considerably smaller than that of the U.S. Navy. The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force operates approximately 16 Aegis-equipped destroyers with a combined VLS capacity of roughly 1,000 cells. The Republic of Korea Navy fields approximately 700–760 VLS cellsacross 17 major surface combatants.

By comparison, the Royal Navy possesses a much more limited VLS capability. Its six operational Type 45 air-defense destroyers collectively provide only about 288 VLS cells, highlighting the substantial disparity between the U.S. Navy and its closest European ally in terms of missile-launch capacity.

China and Russia’s VLS Capacity

An examination of China’s modern surface fleet—the principal naval competitor of the United States—shows that each of its approximately 10 Type 055 cruisers/destroyers carries 112 VLS cells, while its 35 Type 052D/DL destroyers each carry 64 cells and its 40 Type 054A frigates each carry 32 cells. These three classes alone account for approximately 4,640 VLS cells distributed across 85 surface combatants. When other VLS-equipped classes, both older and newer, are included, China’s total VLS inventory approaches or exceeds 5,000 cells.

China’s universal VLS architecture can launch a wide range of munitions, including HHQ-9 family surface-to-air missiles, YJ-18A anti-ship cruise missiles, and Yu-8 anti-submarine rockets. Although the majority of Chinese attack submarines launch cruise and anti-ship missiles through torpedo tubes, the country’s ballistic missile submarines employ vertical launchers for strategic missiles, while the new-generation Type 093B nuclear attack submarines are widely assessed to possess VLS capability for cruise missiles.

Russia presents a markedly different case. The anti-ship missile VLS capacity of the Russian surface fleet is estimated at approximately 500–700 cells. When air-defense VLS systems are included, Russia’s total vertical-launch capacity reaches roughly 1,200–1,500 cells. Nevertheless, the Russian Navy’s principal long-range strike capability derives not from its surface fleet, but from its Yasen– and Oscar-class submarines, as well as other submarines capable of launching Kalibr and Onyxmissiles from torpedo tubes. Consequently, assessing Russian naval missile power solely on the basis of VLS cell numbers would produce an incomplete and potentially misleading evaluation.

Varying Missile Payloads

The number of Vertical Launch System (VLS) cells alone does not accurately reflect the actual missile load carried by a warship. The cells aboard the same vessel can be loaded with different combinations of missiles depending on the mission profile. Consequently, a ship’s peacetime loadout may differ substantially from that employed during a high-intensity naval conflict.

Because the foremost responsibility of every warship is its own survivability, a significant proportion of its VLS cells is normally allocated to air and missile defense weapons, including SM-2, SM-3, SM-6, and ESSM missiles. The remaining cells are distributed among land-attack cruise missiles, anti-ship missiles, and anti-submarine warfare munitions according to the operational environment, the anticipated threat, and the assigned mission. As a result, two ships of the same class may carry entirely different missile loadouts despite possessing an identical number of VLS cells.

The United States Maintains a Clear Advantage in VLS Capacity

Although the U.S. Navy has fewer warships than the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN), it retains a decisive advantage in Vertical Launch System (VLS) capacity, possessing approximately twice as many launch cells. In other words, while the United States is numerically inferior in terms of platforms, it enjoys a substantially greater capacity to carry and launch long-range precision-guided munitions.

This advantage becomes even more pronounced when the capabilities of key regional allies are taken into account. Japan and South Korea together contribute approximately 1,700–1,800 additional VLS cells, significantly increasing the overall missile magazine depth available to a U.S.-led coalition in the Western Pacific. Nevertheless, evaluating the military balance solely on the basis of total VLS capacity would be misleading, as overall combat effectiveness depends on numerous additional factors, including force readiness, missile inventories, logistics, industrial production, and sustainment capabilities.

The U.S. Navy’s Low Combat Readiness

According to USNI Fleet Tracker data as of 20 July 2026, only about 100 of the U.S. Navy’s 233 combatant ships and 60 auxiliary vessels are forward deployed, with roughly 90 actively operating in their assigned mission areas. This indicates that the Navy’s immediately available operational force represents only about 30 percent of its total fleet.

A substantial proportion of the fleet is undergoing maintenance, modernization, or training, while other units remain committed to geographically dispersed theaters, including the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, the West Asia, and the Indian Ocean. Consequently, there is a significant disparity between the fleet’s nominal size on paper and the combat power that can actually be employed in a specific theater at short notice. The fact that, even during a major conflict involving Iran, nearly two-thirds of the fleet remains outside the primary theater of operations clearly illustrates this operational limitation.

Even if it is assumed that additional ships stationed at major naval bases could be rapidly prepared for deployment in the event of a large-scale war, the U.S. Navy’s effective combat readiness would rise to no more than approximately 50 percentunder the most optimistic assumptions. Furthermore, the Navy’s planned maintenance schedule is currently estimated to be nearly seven years behind, while many of the reserve vessels intended for wartime mobilization are more than forty years old. These structural deficiencies constitute one of the principal factors limiting the practical effectiveness of the United States’ numerical naval superiority.

The United States’ Real Challenge: Missile Production and Resupply

The U.S. Navy’s most critical challenge is not the number of Vertical Launch System (VLS) cells it possesses, but the speed at which expended air-defense and strike missiles can be replaced and delivered back to the fleet. In high-intensity naval warfare, victory is determined not by the first salvo, but by the industrial capacity to replenish depleted VLS cells as the conflict continues, the resilience of the supply chain, and the ability to deliver ammunition rapidly to the theater of operations.

The United States faces significant structural constraints in this regard. Limited production rates within the defense industrial base, shortages of skilled labor, bottlenecks throughout the subcontractor network, and dependence on critical raw materials—particularly rare-earth elements and other strategic minerals—make it difficult to expand missile production rapidly during wartime.

The origins of this weakness lie in the nature of the conflicts fought by the United States after the end of the Cold War. Military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria were conducted against opponents that possessed little or no credible air- and missile-defense capability. Consequently, procurement priorities shifted toward land-attack weapons such as the Tomahawk cruise missile, while demand for expensive air- and missile-defense interceptors—including THAAD, Patriot, SM-2, SM-3, and SM-6 missiles—remained comparatively limited. As a result, the U.S. defense industrial base never developed the production capacity required to sustain a prolonged, high-intensity air and missile defense campaign against a peer adversary.

According to a 2024 assessment published by The National Interest, by the end of 2023 the United States had procured approximately 12,000 SM-2, 400 SM-3, 1,500 SM-6, and 9,000 Tomahawk missiles. During the same period, however, at least 2,800 Standard-series missiles and 2,900 Tomahawks had already been expended in combat operations, exercises, and training. Consequently, the remaining inventory of roughly 17,000 missiles would have been sufficient to fill the U.S. Navy’s approximately 10,000 VLS cells only once at the beginning of 2024. Moreover, annual SM-6 production has remained at approximately 125 missiles since 2017, procurement of Tomahawkmissiles has steadily declined, and the FY2025 defense budget did not even include funding for new Tomahawk purchases.

Although the Trump administration has recognized this structural vulnerability and directed the defense industry to increase production, rebuilding missile inventories has become increasingly difficult. Stockpiles have been significantly depleted not only by support for Ukraine, but also by the conflicts involving Iran and the broader security crises across West Asia. Consequently, in any future conflict in the Pacific, the decisive factor for the United States will not be the number of warships or VLS cells it possesses, but rather its capacity to manufacture precision-guided munitions, replenish expended stocks, and sustain naval operations through a resilient industrial and logistical base.

The 2027 Scenario and Missile Loadouts

Assuming that the U.S. Navy achieves its long-term objective of 80 percent combat readiness by 2027 and deploys all available combat-ready forces to the Western Pacific, it would field approximately 80 VLS-equipped warships with a combined capacity of roughly 8,000 VLS cells. If China’s considerably higher readiness rate reaches 90 percent, the People’s Liberation Army Navy would likely deploy approximately 76 VLS-equipped surface combatants, resulting in a broadly comparable VLS capacity in the theater.

From the perspective of surface-launched missiles, the balance would therefore approach parity. Nevertheless, the United States would retain a significant qualitative advantage through its undersea strike capability. A force of 22 Virginia-class nuclear-powered attack submarines could contribute approximately 240 Tomahawk cruise missiles, providing a highly survivable and difficult-to-detect long-range strike capability. Thus, while the two navies may converge in terms of initial surface-launched missile capacity, the United States would continue to enjoy a decisive advantage in covert, submarine-based precision strike operations.

At the same time, air- and missile-defense interceptors would inevitably occupy the majority of the VLS cells aboard American surface combatants. Facing large-scale, coordinated missile attacks launched by China from land-based systems, aircraft, warships, and submarines, these defensive missile inventories would likely be consumed rapidly during the opening phase of the conflict. Even if U.S. surface forces remained outside the effective range of many Chinese anti-ship weapons, their inventories of land-attack and anti-ship missiles would also decline quickly as offensive operations continued. Consequently, the central challenge would no longer be the number of VLS cells available, but the speed with which expended missiles could be replaced and returned to combat.

Missiles Intended for the Pacific Are Being Expended in West Asia

The U.S. Navy’s Aegis-equipped cruisers and destroyers deployed in the Red Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean are not dedicated solely to those theaters. These same vessels would form the backbone of the air and missile defense architecture of U.S. carrier strike groups in any high-intensity conflict with China. Given the scale of the ballistic and hypersonic missile threat in the Western Pacific, it is reasonable to assess that each carrier strike group would require protection from four to five Aegis warships. Consequently, supporting 10–11 carrier strike groups would theoretically require approximately 40–55 VLS-equipped surface combatants.

The SM-2, SM-3, and SM-6 missiles carried by these ships provide layered defense against different categories of aerial threats. In particular, inventories of SM-3 and SM-6 interceptors are of critical importance for countering China’s DF-21D, DF-26,and DF-27 anti-ship ballistic missile systems, whose estimated ranges extend to approximately 5,000–8,000 kilometers.

Yet a substantial portion of the missile inventory that would be required for a future Pacific conflict has already been consumed in operations in the Red Sea, the Eastern Mediterranean, and the Iran conflict. Every SM-2, SM-3, and SM-6 interceptor fired against Houthi attacks or Iranian missile strikes on Israel simultaneously reduces the strategic reserves available for a potential confrontation with China. Because current production rates are insufficient to offset this rate of expenditure, what initially appears to be a regional logistical challenge has evolved into a strategic constraint on American global force planning.

Under established U.S. naval doctrine, ships generally employ two air-defense interceptors against a single incoming aerial threat in order to maximize the probability of a successful interception. This practice creates a serious imbalance in both quantity and cost, as missiles costing several million dollars each may be expended to destroy Houthi unmanned aerial vehicles valued at only a few hundred thousand dollars.

Faced with these pressures, the U.S. Navy is pursuing the integration of Patriot PAC-3 MSE interceptors into the Aegis Combat System alongside the existing Standard Missile family. This initiative reflects not only an effort to establish a deeper and more resilient layered air-defense architecture, but also growing concern over the adequacy of existing interceptor inventories and the industrial capacity required to counter China’s expanding arsenal of ballistic and hypersonic missiles.

The Critical Issue Is Not VLS Capacity, but Missile Production and Reload Capability

The conflicts that began in late 2023 and culminated in the large-scale U.S.–Israel–Iran war of 2026 have demonstrated that the principal challenge facing the U.S. Navy is not the number of Vertical Launch System (VLS)cells it possesses. With approximately 10,000 VLS cells, the United States retains the world’s largest sea-based missile-launch capacity. However, once the initial salvos have been fired, the decisive factor is the ability to manufacture, transport, and reload SM-2, SM-3, SM-6, ESSM,and Tomahawk missiles quickly enough to restore depleted combat loads.

Operations against the Houthis in the Red Sea, Iranian missile attacks on Israel, and the subsequent 2026 conflict have consumed a significant portion of the high-value air-defense and strike munitions originally intended for a potential conflict in the Western Pacific. As a consequence, the strategic missile reserves required to deter or defeat China have begun to erode without a single missile being fired in the Pacific theater.

The challenge extends well beyond declining inventories. The production tempo of the American defense industrial base remains substantially below the rate of operational consumption. The industrial infrastructure developed in the post-Cold War era was never designed to sustain simultaneous, prolonged wars of attrition in Europe, West Asia, and the Indo-Pacific. Furthermore, U.S. production lines for SM-2, SM-3, and SM-6 interceptors must also satisfy growing demand from allies, including Japan, South Korea, Australia, and other partner nations. Long manufacturing lead times are therefore as strategically significant as the high cost of these weapons. In the case of specialized interceptors such as the SM-3, replacing expended stocks may require several years.

For this reason, the defining variable in future naval warfare will not be the number of missiles that can be launched on the opening day of a conflict, but the industrial and logistical capacity to replenish empty VLS cells rapidly and sustain combat operations over time. Ultimately, the balance of naval power in the twenty-first century will be determined less by platform numbers than by the ability to produce munitions, regenerate inventories, and maintain an uninterrupted logistical flow throughout a prolonged war.

Conclusion

The 2026 Iran War exposed not only the strain placed on U.S. air and naval forces, but also the extent to which America’s inventories of precision-guided munitions have been depleted. According to open-source assessments, the U.S. Navy expended hundreds of SM-2, SM-3, SM-6, ESSM, and Tomahawk missiles during the campaign. In addition to conducting strike operations, Aegis-equipped destroyers and cruisers assigned to carrier strike groups carried out sustained air and missile defense missions against Iranian ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and unmanned aerial vehicles.

Prior to the conflict, open-source estimates suggested that the United States possessed approximately 1,160 SM-6, 410 SM-3, 3,100 Tomahawk missiles, and several thousand SM-2 and ESSM interceptors. A substantial proportion of these inventories is believed to have been consumed during the war. According to CNN International, the United States expended roughly half of its THAAD and Patriot interceptor inventories and approximately one-third of its Tomahawk stockpile during the campaign. The approximate unit costs of these weapons are $28.7 million for the SM-3, $15.5 millionfor THAAD, $5.3 million for the SM-6, $3.9 million for the Patriot PAC-3, $2.6 million for the Tomahawk, and approximately $2 million for the ESSM Block 2.

More significant than their financial cost, however, is the time required to replace them. Given current production capacity, replenishing expended inventories is estimated to require lead times ranging from 3.5 to 5.5 years. Production bottlenecks—particularly for critical systems such as the SM-3, SM-6, and Tomahawk, which constitute the backbone of U.S. naval air and missile defense—raise serious questions regarding the sustainability of American missile inventories in a prolonged, high-intensity maritime conflict. These realities demonstrate that in any future large-scale war in the Pacific or elsewhere, ammunition stockpiles have become a strategic variable every bit as important as the number of ships, aircraft, or other combat platforms.

This strategic reality became unmistakably clear on 25 July 2026, when U.S. President Donald Trump decided to halt offensive operations against Iran after thirteen days of intensive air strikes. According to The New York Times, the decision was influenced by several factors: the rapid depletion of Patriot interceptor stocks, the increasing vulnerability of U.S. military bases in the Gulf, the growing risk of regional escalation, and the realization that the campaign had strengthened domestic cohesion within Iran rather than producing the anticipated political outcome. In other words, Washington reduced the tempo of operations not because it had lost military superiority, but because it recognized that the cumulative costs of munitions expenditure, logistics, and industrial replacement were becoming increasingly inconsistent with its strategic objectives.

The decision underscored a fundamental lesson of modern warfare: success in contemporary naval and air campaigns depends not only on possessing technologically advanced weapons, but also on maintaining the industrial capacity and logistical infrastructure necessary to produce, replenish, and deliver those weapons on a sustained basis. In the great-power competition of the twenty-first century, the decisive measure of military power is not simply the size of a fleet, but the resilience of the industrial, logistical, and munitions ecosystem that enables that fleet to remain in combat over time.

The great naval wars of the twenty-first century are therefore moving beyond the platform-centric logic that dominated the Cold War. The decisive question is no longer how many aircraft carriers, destroyers, or Vertical Launch System (VLS) cells a navy possesses. Rather, the determining factors are whether a nation has the industrial capacity to replenish depleted missile inventories, the logistical capability to deliver those munitions across transoceanic theaters, and the economic resilience to sustain simultaneous operations on multiple fronts for an extended period.

The conflicts involving the Houthis and Iran have demonstrated that possessing the world’s most powerful navy is no longer sufficient to guarantee strategic success. For China, every American SM-2, SM-3, SM-6, ESSM, and Tomahawk missile expended in West Asia represents one less missile available for a potential conflict in the Western Pacific. In this sense, the ammunition consumed in today’s West Asia battlefields is simultaneously shaping the strategic balance of tomorrow’s Pacific war.

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This article was originally published on Mavi Vatan.

Ret Admiral Cem Gürdeniz, Writer, Geopolitical Expert, Theorist and creator of the Turkish Bluehomeland (Mavi Vatan) doctrine. He served as the Chief of Strategy Department and then the head of Plans and Policy Division in Turkish Naval Forces Headquarters. As his combat duties, he has served as the commander of Amphibious Ships Group and Mine Fleet between 2007 and 2009. He retired in 2012. He established Hamit Naci Blue Homeland Foundation in 2021. He has published numerous books on geopolitics, maritime strategy, maritime history and maritime culture. He is also a honorary member of ATASAM. 

He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

Featured image is from the author

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