By David Oliver
In February President Trump sailed his “big beautiful armada” into the Gulf region to frighten the Iranians into agreeing to end its nuclear arms programme. They were ready to agree when Israel pulled the pin and threw the grenade to start Operation Roaring Lion, which left the United States playing catch up with its Operation Epic Fury.
The USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier had been in the Arabian Sea since 16 February. The Nimitz-class carrier is the flagship of the US Navy’s Carrier Strike Group Three (CSG-3), which included three Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers. The carrier USS Gerald R Ford, with CSG-12, left Souda Bay on Crete and had arrived off the Israeli coast on 27 February, after leaving an unsightly stain across the Mediterranean due to the ship’s eco-friendly toilets being blocked.
Caught off guard by Israel, Trump’s first mistake was failing to brief his Gulf States ‘allies’ of the dangers that the attack on Iran would cause them, and they were totally unprepared for its retaliation on their countries. This led to a ‘friendly fire’ incident when three USAF F-15E Strike Eagles were shot down over Bahrain on 3 March with its Patriot air defence systems.
During the first 36 hours of its strike against Iran, US forces fired more than 300 Tomahawk cruise missiles, at $2 million each, 340 Patriots, at $3.9 million each and 70 Talons at $12 million each to protect US bases in the Gulf States from Iranian ballistic missiles and drones. The first wave of bombing included the use of AGM-154 JSOW aerial bombs, each costing between $578,000-836,000.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies estimated that the first 100 hours of operations cost the US $3.7 billion: by day six this had risen to $11.3 billion.
On 4 March US Defense Secretary Hegseth said. “We are accelerating, not decelerating” and that the Iranian regime “are toast, and they know it, or at least soon enough, they will know it”.
Or would it? The second mistake Trump made was not to have his ‘big, beautiful armada” secure the Strait of Hormuz. On 10 March, it became clear that Iran had likely begun mining the strait, one of the world’s major maritime arteries, through which approximately one-fifth of global oil exports pass.
The US military claimed to have destroyed 16 Iranian minelaying vessels, but has no mine countermeasures ships of its own in the Gulf. Although the exact number of naval mines in Iran’s arsenal is not known, estimates suggest it has between 2-6,000 of Iranian, Chinese and Russian manufacture. Iran also has hundreds of small fast attack boats armed with anti-ship weapons.
European allies, meanwhile, have resisted Trump’s call for them to join a military mission in the Strait of Hormuz, which has not gone down well with the US administration. Europe has deployed ships, including frigates from Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and Germany as part of a broader presence near Cyprus and France’s President Macron has ordered the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier to set course for the Mediterranean.
Britain’s HMS Dragon, a Type 45 destroyer fitted with Sea Viper missiles, missiles is still on its way to Cyprus while air assets deployed to RAF Akrotiri include eight Eurofighters and six F-35Bs, plus three RN Wildcat helicopters and a single RN Merlin Crowsnest Airborne Surveillance and Control System (ASaC) helicopter.
The US has ignored requests from Gulf states to replenish their interceptor missile stockpiles for air defence systems. Bahrain, Qatar and the UAE have been hit hardest by Iranian ballistic missiles and drones. The UAE operating US THAAD and Patriot systems with PAC-3 missiles, as well as South Korean, Russian, and Israeli-made systems, meant that a significant portion of the stockpiles accumulated over the years was depleted within days of the conflict.
Added to the cost of losing four F-15E Strike Eagles, the USAF lost a KC-15R Stratotanker in a mid-air collision over western Iraq, while five more were damaged by a drone strike at the Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia.
Although UAS have been crucial US ISR and strike assets in its Iran campaign, a USN MQ-4C Triton, costing $160 million, was lost off southern Iran days before Operation Epic Fury was launched, while the USAF has lost 11 MQ-9 Reapers over Iran at an estimated value of US$330 million.
While Israel’s President Netanyahu wants to crush Iran and depose the Islamic regime leaders – which it has done very affectively so far – it is clear that Israel is not interested in regime change that would benefit its oppressed population and at the same time it is attempting to destroy the last remnants of Iran’s proxy, Hezbollah, in Beirut, all of which is being bankrolled by the US. The US State Department has used an emergency provision of the Arms Export Control Act to urgently approve the sale of 12,000 BLU-110A/B bombs to Israel at an estimated value of $152 million.
President Trump has said that the US military intends to sustain its assault on Iran for “four to five weeks” if necessary, insisting that it “won’t be difficult” for Israel and the US to maintain the intensity of the battle, even with the possibility of more American casualties. More recently he said that the war was all but won and help from NATO allies was not required. However, even before the US-Israeli attacks began, concerns had been raised about the state of US ammunition stockpiles, including when Washington was providing military aid to Ukraine in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Another problem the US has is how to replenish and rearm Trump’s “big beautiful armada”. This would involve stores and supplies, fuel, spare parts, ordnance and missiles being flown from the US, transported to ports that US Navy logistics and support ships can safely operate from, followed by replenishing at sea. A certain amount of these supplies can be flown on the carriers by C-2A carrier on-board delivery (COD) aircraft, but not enough to keep the fleet active. Following a fire that broke out on the USS Gerald R Ford on 12 March that injured sailors and caused significant damage, it is having to leave the Red Sea for repairs in Crete, reducing USN operational capability.
In dealing with Iran, the US has once again revealed a fundamental flaw in its approach, in that it has a plan for destruction but no blueprint for what comes next. Iran has a population of nearly 90 million people and a highly institutionalised state structure. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is deeply embedded in the country’s economic system and security apparatus and the assassination of senior political and military leaders, mainly by Israel, will merely activate a well-established succession and crisis-management mechanism within the system, which could even lead to the military assuming greater control over the country. Perhaps one day Trump will realise that Iran is not Venezuela: but then, pigs might fly!
© David Oliver 2026
Headline image: The Iranian frigate IRINS Dena was torpedoed by the USN submarine off Sri Lanka on 4 March. (MEHR)
Body image: IDF F-15I Eagles and USAF B-1B Lancers have been heavily involved in the bombing of Iran. (IDF)
