🇮🇷⚔️🇺🇸 US lawmaker admits heavy losses of 39 US aircraft in failed Iran campaign

A senior US congressman revealed on Tuesday that Washington has lost 39 aircraft since the outbreak of hostilities with Iran on 28 February, citing data from a specialized defense publication. During a special Senate committee hearing, Democratic Congressman Ed Case questioned Pentagon officials regarding the staggering material costs of the conflict, noting that the reported losses are likely higher given that the data is nearly a month old.

The figures, originally published by defense outlet The War Zone, indicate that while the US Air Force conducted nearly 13,000 sorties during the war, the attrition rate has been significant.

The report claims that 39 aircraft were destroyed and 10 others sustained major damage, including the high-profile loss of a Boeing E-3 Sentry and an F-35A Lightning II fighter jet, which was reportedly hit while operating inside Iranian airspace. When pressed on the financial impact, Pentagon Chief Financial Officer Jay Hurst declined to provide immediate figures, stating that a "full diagnosis" is required before estimating the "retention cost" of the fleet.

🔗 The Cradle

🇺🇸⚓️ Virginia Subs Will Hit 2-A-Year Build Rate in 2030s, CNO Caudle Says

Shipbuilders are on track to deliver two Virginia-class attack submarines per year in the early 2030s, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle told defense appropriators on Tuesday.

Based on the current investment in the submarine industrial base and workforce and the expansion of distributed construction, Caudle estimated that builders General Dynamics Electric Boat and HII’s Newport News Shipbuilding will hit the two-a-year delivery rate for the attack boats by 2032.

Caudle’s comments are in line with the goal the service has set to achieve a rate of two Virginias and one Columbia-class nuclear ballistic missile submarine per year by Fiscal Year 2031 as a justification of $6.2 billion in submarine industrial base spending, according to the Navy’s long-range shipbuilding plan released on Monday.

Currently, the delivery rate for Virginia-class submarines is about 1.3 a year, USNI News understands. In 2023, then Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro said the Navy was set to meet a 2028 two-a-year rate for the submarines.

The build rate for the Virginia-class boats is key to the AUKUS security pact between the U.S., the United Kingdom and Australia. As part of AUKUS, the U.S. plans to sell several Virginia-class boats to the Australians starting in the 2030s while Canberra’s industrial base develops the domestic workforce and infrastructure to build its own nuclear-powered submarines.

Navy officials have said for years that the U.S. industrial base must build 2.33 attack boats per year, in addition to one Columbia-class boomer, for the U.S. to sell the attack boats to the Australians.

🔗 https://news.usni.org/2026/05/12/virginia-subs-will-hit-2-a-year-build-rate-in-2030s-cno-caudle-says