U.S. and Israel Conducted 10 Times More Strikes in First Month of Iran Conflict Than in Entire Gulf War
Anduril CEO Brian Schimpf said U.S. forces fired roughly 850 Tomahawk missiles in four weeks against Iran while replenishing the missiles at about 90 per year. He spoke at Fortune’s Brainstorm Tech conference in Aspen on Monday.
BenzingaU.S. military supply chain and munitions replenishment rates are dangerously unprepared for sustained high-intensity conflict.
U.S. And Israeli forces conducted ten times as many strikes in the first month of the recent Iran conflict as during the entire Gulf War. He described the pace of strikes as a potential new normal.
U.S. Fired approximately 850 Tomahawk missiles during a four-week conflict with Iran. The Pentagon had been replenishing Tomahawk missiles at a rate of about 90 per year. Schimpf said modern conflicts focus less on destroying military assets and more on crippling economies.
“The economic warfare that is effectively the Strait of Hormuz, this is the new normal of what these conflicts are going to look like,” he said. Schimpf added that America’s biggest vulnerability may lie in its factories and supply chains rather than on the battlefield.
U.S. Economy. U.S. to be fully prepared. In March, Schimpf predicted in a Fortune profile of Anduril that the Strait of Hormuz could still be blocked by the time of the Brainstorm Tech conference.
Anduril raised $5 billion in a Series H round at a $61 billion valuation. The round was led by Thrive Capital and Andreessen Horowitz. Last week, Anduril cofounder Trae Stephens told Fortune he saw the company ideally going public in the next couple of years.
Schimpf declined to give a timeline for an Anduril IPO. Schimpf said some defense tech companies are raising at 50x or even 100x forward revenue. He said there is a bit of a bubble in defense tech valuations.
He said in any hot category roughly 90% of returns accrue to the top two players. Schimpf said Anduril is in a hype-y time and growing like crazy. He laid out a 3-point framework for contemplating an IPO: going public in the middle of a hype cycle, when growth is slowing, or when more than two years from profitability leads to a bad three-year stock return.
He said Anduril checks at least one of those boxes due to the current industry-wide hype cycle.
