Billions of dollars of highly sophisticated military equipment has been lost or significantly damaged since the U.S. and Israel began striking thousands of targets across Iran more than three weeks ago.
The bulk of the damage on the ground has been caused by Iranian ballistic missiles and drones.
Battle damage and replacement of losses over the first three weeks of the war likely costs roughly $1.4 billion to $2.9 billion, according to Elaine McCusker, a top Pentagon budget official during the first Trump administration who has been tracking the cost of the conflict for the American Enterprise Institute.
The Pentagon would likely look to replace several key assets, including a Kuwaiti F/A-18 Hornet jet fighter that mistakenly shot down three American F-15E Strike Eagles, a U.S. F-35A Lightning II stealth fighter that made an emergency landing, and six crew members of an Air Force KC-135 Stratotanker aerial refueler who were killed when their plane crashed.
Additionally, more than a dozen MQ-9 Reaper drones have been lost since the war began, including at least eight shot down by Iranian missiles, and a fire broke out on the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford.
The total cost of the damage is expected to be in the hundreds of billions of dollars, with the Pentagon seeking a $200 billion supplemental-spending request from the White House.
