Iran’s missile arsenal cannot be read as a single block.
The system was built over years as a multi-category network, differing by fuel type, range, mission profile, and degree of readiness. In any serious military assessment, the question is not only how many missiles Iran has, but also:
•Which category remains most effective?
•Which type is faster to prepare?
•Which launchers are still able to fire under air pressure?
•And what has actually been degraded: the missile, the launcher, or the command-and-storage network?
By that logic, Iran’s missile force can be divided into three main layers:
1.Short- and medium-range ballistic missiles powered by liquid fuel
2.Short- and medium-range ballistic missiles powered by solid fuel
3.Land-attack cruise missiles that give Iran alternative strike paths at low altitude
The most sensitive issue in this classification is the difference between solid and liquid fuel.
Solid fuel allows much faster preparation and launch, reducing the time between the firing order and execution.
Liquid fuel, by contrast, usually requires more time and more preparation, making it more exposed in an environment under dense air and satellite surveillance.
Detail
First: the liquid-fuel category
This is the relatively older category in Iran’s arsenal, but it still matters for deterrence and longer-range strikes.
Its best-known systems include:
•Shahab-1: about 300 km
•Shahab-2: about 500 km
•Qiam-1: between 700 and 800 km
•Shahab-3: about 1,300 km
•Ghadr: about 1,600 km
•Emad: about 1,800 km
•Khorramshahr: between 2,000 and 3,000 km depending on the variant
These missiles give Iran the ability to strike distant regional targets, but they are less flexible than newer-generation systems because they take longer to prepare and are more likely to be detected before launch.
Second: the solid-fuel category
This is the most important category operationally in any modern war.
It is the one military planners view as the most dangerous backbone of Iranian missile power because it is:
•Faster to prepare
•Easier to conceal and move
•Better suited to launch from mobile platforms
•Less vulnerable to pre-launch targeting
This category includes both shorter- and medium-range missiles, among them:
Short- and medium-range missiles closest to the regional battlefield:
•Fateh-110: about 300 km
•Fateh-313: about 500 km
•Raad-500: about 500 km
•Zolfaghar: about 700 km
•Dezful: about 1,000 km
Longer-range medium systems:
•Qassem Basir: about 1,200 km
•Haj Qassem: about 1,400 km
•Kheibar Shekan: about 1,450 km
•Fattah-1: about 1,400 km
•Sejjil: about 2,000 km, in a two-stage configuration
A key technical point stands out here:
Sejjil is not a liquid-fueled missile. It is a solid-fueled missile.
That matters because confusing it with liquid-fueled systems leads to incorrect conclusions about the state of Iran’s remaining missile stockpile.
Third: land-attack cruise missiles
This category does not play the same role as ballistic missiles, but it gives Iran flexibility to open parallel threat axes, especially through low-altitude flight.
The most prominent include:
•Ya Ali: about 700 km
•Hoveyzeh: about 1,350 km
•Soumar
•Paveh: about 1,650 km
These missiles are useful for exhausting air defenses and opening nontraditional attack paths, but they do not replace the central role of ballistic missiles in Iran’s strike doctrine.
What do these categories mean militarily?
In a strictly military reading, the value of Iran’s arsenal does not lie in the number of missiles alone, but in the balance between:
•Older missiles that are slower to prepare
•Newer missiles that can be launched more quickly
•Fixed or semi-fixed launchers
•Mobile launchers with better survivability
•A cruise layer that opens a parallel threat track
That is why any drop in the pace of salvos does not automatically mean the missiles themselves have run out.
The decline may result from one or more of the following:
1.Destruction of launchers
2.Strikes on missile storage sites or transport nodes
3.Weakening of command and control
4.Difficulty moving launchers in a heavily monitored environment
5.An Iranian decision to conserve fire and hold back certain types for a later phase
How many does Iran have? And how many are left?
This is where the picture becomes more complicated.
Open sources do not provide a single agreed final number.
Before the war, estimates varied widely:
•One Israeli estimate put the stockpile at around 2,500 missiles
•Other estimates raised the figure to around 6,000
That large gap shows that the total number itself is not a settled fact in public, but rather the subject of open intelligence estimation.
As for what remains now, there is no reliable public database that breaks down the remaining inventory by category and type.
But the broad direction repeated in expert assessments is this:
•Iran’s stockpile has suffered clear attrition
•Its launch capacity has declined compared with the opening phase of the war
•But there is no published professional evidence showing that the arsenal has completely collapsed
•Nor is there a reliable expert basis for specifying exactly how many missiles remain in each family
More precisely:
What is available publicly allows for judging the trend, not issuing a final inventory.
The most important military assessment
If one had to identify the true center of gravity in Iran’s arsenal today, the most professionally grounded answer would be:
•Solid-fueled short- and medium-range ballistic missiles are the most operationally dangerous category
•Liquid-fueled missiles still matter for depth and payload, but they are less flexible and more exposed
•Cruise missiles represent an important supporting layer, but they are not a substitute for the ballistic backbone
The strictly military conclusion is that Iran still possesses a layered missile arsenal, but the war has shown that its real value no longer lies in numbers alone. It lies in concealment, preparation speed, launcher survivability, and the continuity of command-and-control networks.
From that angle, the key question is no longer: how many missiles are left?
It is: which category is still truly capable of launching under fire?
