$100 Billion in Weapons Is Arrayed Against Iraq : Arms: The price tag on the hardware in the gulf includes dropping $500 million in bombs daily.

The U.S. military could be hurling $500 million worth of missiles, shells and other ammunition at Iraqi forces each day, including $1.3 million for each cruise missile fired, defense specialists say.

The Pentagon said the United States launched 100 Tomahawk cruise missiles in Wednesday night’s initial attack on Iraqi targets.

The first U.S. aircraft reported shot down, a Navy F-A-18 fighter-attack jet, cost $31 million by itself.

William Kaufmann, an analyst at the Brookings Institution here, said the half-billion-dollar price tag for an average day’s munitions is primarily due to the sophistication of the U.S. military arsenal.

Phoenix missiles, air-to-air weapons that can be fired long before an enemy is sighted visually, cost close to $800,000 each. HARM missiles, fired by aircraft at radar systems, cost about $270,000 apiece.

Most of the shells that U.S. tanks fire cost about $2,000 apiece. The most expensive artillery shells, high-explosive projectiles called Copperheads, cost about $36,000 each, one analyst said.

Kaufmann estimated the value of American weapons in the gulf at about $102 billion. Analysts believe that the United States has at least 300 of the ship- and plane-fired Tomahawks in the Persian Gulf region.

“My guess is if you threw out $100 billion, it would be close to that,” said Alexis Cain, research director for the Defense Budget Project, a private group that analyzes defense spending issues.

One hundred billion dollars slightly exceeds the combined 1985 gross national products of Iraq, Israel, Egypt and Jordan.

Overall, the price tag for fuel, maintenance, personnel and equipment replacement costs is expected to be somewhat less.

The military’s costliest equipment, of course, is its ships. The most expensive vessels, aircraft carriers, cost about $3.5 billion each. There are six of them in the region.

All told, the Navy is believed to have about 100 ships in the region, including about 80 combat ships and 20 supply and command vessels.

Their costs vary, but they include $1-billion Aegis cruisers that carry the most modern radar and weapons systems.

Estimates of the number of American aircraft in the combat area range between 1,200 and 1,800. Their individual values range between $10 million and $70 million.

There also are about 1,700 helicopters stationed in the area, which cost between $6 million and $12 million each.

Estimates on the number of tanks range between 1,200 and 1,750. The tanks generally cost between $2 million and $4.4 million apiece.

The military also has about 2,700 armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles and 3,000 artillery pieces. M-2 Bradley fighting vehicles--lightly armed personnel carriers--cost about $1.2 million each.