Missile crisis: The hard truths about America’s military arsenal

September 13, 2026 / 9:17 AM EDT / CBS News

On the floor at Lockheed Martin's production facility in Camden, Arkansas, Tim Cahill, head of the company's missile division, showed "Sunday Morning" the latest model of the Patriot air defense missile, a state-of-the-art weapon designed to shoot down the deadliest of threats: an incoming ballistic missile. It destroys an incoming missile by impact – a classic "bullet hitting a bullet" scenario.

"It's going to vaporize pretty much whatever it hits," Cahill said.

Each of these "bullets" costs about $4 million, and Lockheed Martin is currently turning out 750 of them a year – not nearly enough to replenish the estimated 1,500 fired in the war against Iran.

Mark Cancian, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, has compiled estimates of the Patriot and six other critical weapons (including the Tomahawk; the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missile, or THAAD; and the long-range Precision Strike Missile, or PrSM) used against Iran. He says the cost of munitions already fired off against Iran is in the vicinity of $25 billion.

"If they fire a ballistic missile, we have to use one of our high-end systems to defend," Cancian said.

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Original source: https://www.cbsnews.com/entertainment/