The Cradle

AUG 14, 2026

At least 45 Reaper drones have been downed in the war, at a replacement cost of up to $2.25 billion

Washington has lost one-fourth of its entire MQ-9 Reaper drone fleet since the start of the war on Iran, the Washington Post reported on 13 August, citing anonymous US officials.

At least 45 MQ-9 Reaper drones, used to conduct surveillance and targeted strikes, have been shot down, accounting for around 25 percent of the US military’s supply.

Not all of those drones were shot down by Iranian air defenses, one official said, with an unspecified number of them crashing due to communication failures.

The Reaper drone is designed as both a surveillance and an attack drone and costs between $30 million and $50 million, depending on the type of hardware it carries.

Overall, the cost of losing these drones ranges from $ 1.35 billion to $2.25 billion.

The Ansarallah-led Yemeni Armed Forces (YAF) downed as many as 27 MQ-9 Reapers between October 2023 and April 2025, including seven in roughly six weeks in spring 2025 during the US air campaign launched in response to Yemeni pro-Palestine operations.

The scale of US losses in the war on Iran extends well beyond the drone fleet.

US forces have exhausted nearly their entire stock of accurate long-range missiles, Reuters reported on 4 August, adding that Washington used up virtually all of its Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) and Precision Strike Missiles (PrSM), each costing around $1 million.

US Central Command (CENTCOM) has nearly emptied the land-based missiles it held before the war and has been drawing replacements from US stocks elsewhere in the world.

The depletion has raised concerns over readiness for future wars and over Washington’s capacity to deter Russia and China.

The Pentagon puts the cost of the war on Iran at $37.5 billion, while other estimates and trackers place it above $113 billion so far.

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Via https://thecradle.co/articles/pentagon-lost-one-fourth-of-us-drone-fleet-in-war-on-iran