Ro-Bob's Blob · Standing Reference

Data and Method

The full working data behind our numerical pieces, with every figure classified, every source named, and every unresolved disagreement printed rather than tidied away.

Maintained by Robby Miller · ParleyBot Intelligence · Last revised 9 August 2026 · Contains a published correction · Revision log at the foot of this page

Where an article on this site rests on a dataset rather than on reporting, the dataset lives here in full. The purpose is not decoration. It is to let a reader or a fact-checker re-derive our numbers, find the point at which they diverge from ours, and see which choices we made where the sources disagree.

Nothing on this page is an argument. Interpretation belongs in the articles; this page holds only the figures and how they were obtained.

Articles resting on this data

The line Congress saved and nobody filled — 9 August 2026. Draws on Datasets 01, 02 and 03: Tomahawk procurement across four wars, the production capacity gap, and the collapse in buying between FY2019 and FY2025.

Where an article's argument depends on a figure recorded here, that dependency is stated in the article's method note and the figure is listed above. If a number below is later corrected, any article resting on it is corrected too, and both changes appear in the revision log.

How every figure is classified

Budget quantities are not one kind of number. Mixing them silently is the most common way a procurement series manufactures a trend that does not exist. Every figure below carries one of these labels.

Requested — the quantity in a President's Budget submission. What the administration asked for.

Appropriated — the quantity Congress funded in law.

Enacted — an appropriated figure as later recorded in a subsequent budget document's prior-year column.

Delivered — units physically handed over, which can fall in a different year from the money.

Contracted — units on a signed production contract, which may combine several fiscal years and several customers, including foreign ones.

Standing rule: where a fiscal year's quantity is available both as a request in its own budget book and as a prior-year figure in a later book, we use the later book. The request is what was asked for; the later column is what happened. This is not pedantry — see the FY2021 entry below, where the two differ by 33 missiles inside a single document.

Screening rules applied to counted datasets

1. One entry per episode, not per utterance or per report. Repetitions within a single news cycle collapse to one line.

2. Retrospective narration is not a new event. Describing something already logged does not create a second entry.

3. Conditionality required where the dataset counts threats: a consequence must be attached to something the other party does.

4. Re-issue counts only on a change of register or the attachment of a fresh deadline.

5. Same-methodology denominators. Never divide one analyst's numerator by another's denominator. Where this is impossible, the ratio is reported as an order of magnitude only.

6. Classify before comparing. Requested, appropriated, enacted, delivered and contracted figures are never compared across classes.

7. Replenishment is tagged to the war that consumed the rounds, not merely to the year the money appeared. Where the two differ, both are shown.

8. Contract quantities are not national procurement quantities. Contracts routinely bundle multiple services and foreign customers.

Dataset 01 — Tomahawk procurement, FY1998 to FY2027

Quantities are new-build all-up rounds on the Navy's weapons procurement line item 2101. Modification and recapitalisation funding, which upgrades missiles already held, is a separate line and is excluded throughout.

FY	Qty	Class	Note
1998	0	Appropriated
1999	624	Appropriated	Largest single-year buy in the series
2000	0	Appropriated
2001	0	Appropriated
2002	25	Appropriated
2003	350	Appropriated
2004	322	Appropriated
2005	298	Appropriated
2006	408	Appropriated
2007	355	Appropriated
2008	496	Appropriated
2009	207	Appropriated
2010	196	Appropriated	Exactly at sustaining rate
2011	417	Appropriated
2012	196	Appropriated	Exactly at sustaining rate
2013	196	Appropriated	Exactly at sustaining rate
2014	206	Appropriated
2015	243	Appropriated	Request was 100; Congress raised it
2016	149	Appropriated
2017	196 ?	Appropriated	Disputed — see below
2018	100	Appropriated
2019	0	Appropriated	No missiles procured
2020	90	Appropriated
2021	122	Enacted	Request was 155
2022	70	Enacted	Request was 60
2023	26	Enacted
2024	30	Enacted
2025	22	Enacted	20 recorded as delivered — different class
2026	57	Requested	War begins in this fiscal year
2027	785	Requested	58 discretionary, 727 by reconciliation

Internal consistency check — passed

The Congressional Research Service states that the Navy spent 5.87 billion dollars on 4,984 Tomahawk missiles from FY1998 through FY2018. The quantities extracted above for those twenty-one years sum to exactly 4,984. The series is internally consistent with the total published by the same source.

The sustaining rate

196 missiles per year is the figure given in 2015 by Representative Randy Forbes, then chairman of the House Armed Services Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee, as the quantity required to sustain the production line. It is independently corroborated by the procurement pattern itself: the Navy bought exactly 196 in four separate fiscal years.

Unresolved disagreement — FY2017

Two sources give different quantities for the same year while agreeing exactly on the money.

196 missiles — Congressional Research Service, Table B-2, sourced to Department of Defense P-1 procurement budget requests.

0 missiles — commercial budget aggregator drawing on line item 2101.

Both record 297.5 million dollars appropriated. Zero new-build rounds for that sum is implausible at prevailing unit costs, so we carry 196 and mark it disputed. This has not yet been checked against the primary exhibit and should not be treated as settled. A checker wanting to resolve it should pull the P-40 justification exhibit for line item 2101 in a budget book of FY2019 or later and read the FY2017 prior-year column.

A caution about the corroborating source

The commercial aggregator used to extend the series past FY2021 reproduces the Congressional Research Service dollar figures exactly on every overlapping year, and the quantities on seven of eight. But its page metadata is corrupted — it carries a programme description belonging to a different missile and misattributes the budget account. We have used it only where its figures could be cross-checked, and never as a sole source.

Dataset 02 — Rounds fired, by operation

These figures come from operational reporting, not from budget documents. They therefore sit in a different evidentiary class from Dataset 01, and any ratio between the two is reported as an order of magnitude only, never as a precise quotient. Rule 5 cannot be satisfied here and we do not pretend otherwise.

Operation	Fired	Basis
Desert Storm, 1991	288	Think-tank compilation of reported strike data. A congressional research account gives 290, launched from 12 submarines; a third cites over 300 Block II variants including 27 of the submunition type. Range 288 to 300.
Desert Fox, Dec 1998	325	Same compilation. A 70-hour campaign. An outlying report of 50 is unsupported elsewhere and is discarded.
Allied Force, 1999	218	Serbia and Montenegro.
Iraqi Freedom, 2003	802	Think-tank compilation. Richard Myers, as chairman of the Joint Chiefs, gave over 725 at the time. Both printed; the gap is likely invasion-phase against full-campaign scope.
Odyssey Dawn, 2011	112	US launches. Also reported as at least 161 and as 196 for US and UK combined.
Epic Fury, 2026	850+	First four weeks, 28 February to 27 March, per a national newspaper investigation citing people familiar with the matter. Later raised — see below.

Epic Fury is the largest Tomahawk campaign on record

More than 850 rounds in four weeks exceeds Iraqi Freedom's 802 across an entire invasion, which held the previous record. That comparison is drawn by the same think-tank analysis supplying the historical figures above, so numerator and denominator share a methodology and Rule 5 is satisfied for this particular claim.

Boundary warning on the 2026 figure

Three figures are in circulation and they do not measure the same thing.

More than 850 in the first four weeks, 28 February to 27 March. Newspaper investigation, sourced to people familiar with the matter. War-bounded and dated.

More than 1,000 by the ceasefire. Originally a financial newspaper figure, subsequently relayed in a think-tank assessment. Attribution note: this figure is often credited to the think tank, which was quoting the newspaper. We have made that error ourselves in an earlier edition and correct it here.

Close to 1,000 across strikes on Iran, operations in Yemen and the Red Sea, Nigeria and other conflicts since June 2025 — an eighteen-month, multi-theatre aggregate.

The third cannot be attributed to this war and is excluded under Rule 7. The first two are compatible: 850 in the opening month, passing 1,000 by the ceasefire. We use 850 where a four-week rate is the point and the later figure where cumulative depletion is.

Dataset 03 — Production rates, lead times and replenishment

Withdrawn figure. This dataset previously stated a maximum production capacity of about 2,330 missiles a year, built from three prime-contractor lines at 600 each plus a second manufacturer at 530, and derived from it a claim that actual buying ran at four per cent of capacity. No such figure appears in any source. It was not a misreading of a real number; it was not supported at all, and it should never have been published. It has been removed here and the article resting on it has been corrected. See the revision log.

Measure	Value	Basis and class
Recent annual production	under 200	Think-tank assessment, May 2026. Cause given as small past orders. Actual.
US-specific annual rate	~60–100	Wire service gives about 60 for the United States; a defence outlet gives 90 to 100. Actual, contested range.
Procurement average FY15–FY26	86	Same think-tank assessment, most orders from the Navy. Our Dataset 01 gives about 92 across that span; the gap is consistent with Navy-only against all-service. Actual.
Target production capacity	1,000+	Framework agreements signed 4 February 2026, up to seven years. Goal, not capability. Must never be used as a current-capacity denominator.
Production lead time	34 months	Department of Defense delivery projections.
FY2027 buy first deliveries	March 2030	Same projections.
Full pre-war replenishment	late 2030	Think-tank estimate.
Foreign orders on the same line	~800	Japan, Australia, Netherlands. Absent from US procurement documents.

The two competing sustainment figures

Roughly 90 a year is commonly given as the minimum needed to keep the line running. 196 traces to a 2015 argument by the chairman of the responsible House subcommittee, made in support of a funding increase — an advocacy figure, not a budget-document rate. It is corroborated only in the weak sense that the Navy bought exactly 196 in four separate years, which is as consistent with contract lot sizing as with a technical floor. Both are printed; neither is treated as settled.

Inventory estimates

Pre-war stockpile is given as the low 3,000s by one think tank and as 4,000 to 4,150 by a defence outlet. The Department of Defense does not disclose it. These are outside estimates and published depletion percentages depend entirely on which is chosen.

A boundary discrepancy in Dataset 01, unresolved

Two outlets give FY2023 Tomahawk procurement as 55. Dataset 01 gives 26, from the Navy weapons procurement line.

The likeliest explanation is scope: a single FY2023 contract modification for 111 Block V rounds split 50 to the Army, 48 to the Navy and 13 to the Marine Corps, so non-Navy buys were the majority of that lot. A Navy-only series will therefore understate national procurement from roughly 2023 onward, when land-based variants entered service.

We have not resolved this and it is a real limitation on Dataset 01's later years. Any ratio using a Navy-only numerator against an all-programme denominator breaches Rule 6 and is not attempted here.

Where to look next

Where to look next

Primary, quantities. Navy weapons procurement justification books, exhibit P-40, line item 2101. Published annually. Read the prior-year column of a later book, not the request column of the year in question.

Primary, programme history. Selected Acquisition Reports for the Tactical Tomahawk programme, which record contract lots, foreign military sales content and supplemental replenishment.

Secondary, consolidated. Congressional Research Service report R45996 on precision-guided munitions, appendices A and B, covering FY1998 to FY2021 by service and by programme.

Gaps we have not closed. Army procurement lines for land-based Tomahawk, which sit outside the Navy books entirely; foreign military sales quantities, which consume the same production capacity and appear in neither.

Revision log

8 August 2026 — created. Dataset 01 and Dataset 02 established. FY2017 flagged as disputed. FY2023 and FY2024 added from a commercial aggregator pending primary confirmation.

9 August 2026 — third revision, correction. Dataset 03 withdrawn and rebuilt. A stated maximum production capacity of about 2,330 a year, and the derived claim that procurement ran at four per cent of capacity, were unsupported by any source and have been removed. The article resting on them carries a correction notice. Replaced with sourced production rates, the 34-month lead time and the March 2030 first-delivery projection. The 196 sustainment figure downgraded from benchmark to contested advocacy figure alongside the more commonly cited 90. A boundary discrepancy in Dataset 01's FY2023 entry recorded as unresolved.

9 August 2026 — second revision. Article index added. First article resting on this data published.

8 August 2026 — first revision. Dataset 02 corrected against a think-tank compilation of strike data: Desert Fox moved from contested to 325, the outlying figure of 50 discarded; Iraqi Freedom given as 802 alongside the 725 attributed to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs; Desert Storm given as 288 with the range to 300 stated. The 2026 figure re-dated to a four-week window. Attribution of the later expenditure figure corrected from the think tank to the newspaper it was quoting, an error this desk had made in print. Dataset 03 added on production capacity, sustaining rate and actual procurement, with inventory estimates.

Corrections to this page are logged here rather than made silently. If you find an error, the fastest route to a fix is to say which figure and which source.

The approach, the six coverage domains and our scoring record — graded daily and reviewed each month — are set out on the About page.

No financial advice is expressed or implied.