Missile launch! Hit the deck!

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I just figured out how much the AMRAAM costs. It's 655,000. U.S. dollars. 13 million for a F-16 fighter. And that was ten years ago!

Hence, my question: How many credits would, oh, say a Tallahassee fetch? :)
 
No it wasn't <G>

But the Tallahasee would be on a completely different level -- it's a cruiser, akin to a naval cruiser today rather than an F-16. :)
 
The stormfire was definately one of those 'overloaded' WC4 weapons -- you know, the ones that make the game too easy. Especially odd since it was supposed to be an obsolete old gun...
 
Here are some prices I've remembered over the years:

AIM-54 Phoenix long range air to air missile: $1 million.
Nimitz class nuclear powered aircraft carrier: $2-4 billion.
Los Angeles class nuclear powered attack submarine: $1 billion.
Ohio class nuclear powered ballistic missile submarine: $1.8 billion.
B-2 Spirit strategic bomber: $0.8-0.9 billion.
B-1 Lancer strategic bomber: $100 million.
A-10 Thunderbolt attack plane: $10 million.
F-14 Tomcat interceptor: $30 million.
Tu-95 'Bear' strategic bomber: 100 million rubles.

Here are some official arms sales:
50 Su-30K/MKI interceptors: $1.9 billion. Russian export to India.
3 billion pounds + for 60 Eurofighter Typhoons, option for 30 more. Eurofighter International export to Greece.
$2.1 billion for 16 F-16C Block 50 Fighting Falcons. US export to Greece.
$2.5 billion for 50 F-16D Block 50 Fighting Falcons to Israel, with option for 60 more. Supplied by US.
$125 million for 8 MiG-29As, delivered by Russia to Bangladesh.
$6.4 billion for 80 F-16C/D Block 60 Fighting Falcons. US export to United Arab Emirates.
$2 billion arms deal between US to United Arab Emirates. Deal includes 2000 examples of AIM-120B AMRAAM + unspecified number of AIM-9M sidewinder, GBU-12 Paveway II laser guided bombs, AGM-65 Maverick air to surface missiles, AGM-84 Harpoon anti-ship missiles, AGM-88 HARM anti-radar missiles + more ordnance.

[Edited by Penguin on 06-10-2001 at 16:29]
 
Russian tanks fetch 2 million. US tanks go for 4 million. French tanks run to 5 million. :D
 
Hmmm, I thought B-2's cost 2.2 billion dollars... because they were a big congressional complaint thing years back.
 
I'm pretty sure they cost 500 mil (in 1990, at least)...otherwise that'd be four times the cost as an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer. :)
 
The total amount of money spent on B-2s probably includes other essentials, like personnel training and upgrading existing facilities. Nevertheless 800 million to 2 billion dollars is a lot to pay for just 1 aircraft.
 
Just think about amount of social services such as
free health care and pension, which could be
arraged if that amount of money would placed elsewhere!
No wonder that politicans wan´t always cut military
funding. CIA Factbook states that US spends 3.2 % (276 billion $) of GDP in military expendure.
In Finland it is 2%(1.8 billion $)
 
Everything I can find seems to indicate that we paid the manufacturers of the B-2 44 billion dollars -- which would seem to exclude training, tax, tags and freight... <G>
 
Just a thought.

The reason the B-2 cost so much is "sunk costs". That is,
most of the $44 bil we Americans paid for that was paid for
research, development, proving the concept, building the
production line, and hiring and training the factory
workers.
The actual materials cost for the individual aircraft is
fairly low, compared to the amount of money already invested.

Thus, we paid X dollars for the ability to produce B-2s
and Y dollars to actually build 21 of them, where Y<<X.

Had we asked for a production run of more aircraft (say,
500), the
per unit costs would have been much lower. My guess would
be that it would be in the tens of millions per aircraft
rather than the hundreds of millions.

It's the same principle as to why a New York times best-seller can go for $10-20, while a college textbook of the same length will go for $60-70. There's a fixed cost associated with setting up the production line, and a shorter run means a higher per-unit cost.


Also: Someone mentioned how much better the world would be
if we had spent the money on social services and medicare the way many European countries do. Just a silly thought:

I believe the reason many European countries could
afford the
goodies instead of arms is because of the
existence of NATO, which deterred aggressors. The
principal mainstay of NATO's deterrence was the US
nuclear umbrella. Thus, in a sense, the B-2 made it
possible for there to be *more* social spending, since
the money that was used to build the nuclear deterrent
would have otherwise been spent on maintaining a large
conventional army in Europe.

Respectfully,

Brian P.
 
The problem with deterrence is that it keeps the threat intangible. It's all well and good for the brass to point out such and such a country poses a threat, but when the threat never eventuates people naturally ask why are we bothering?

Incidentally I believe the USAF orginally wanted 133 B-2s...
 
And the funniest thing of all, B2's can be detected by a small network of $200 000 mobile phone towers. Its believed thats how the Serbs detected some of them in Kosovo.

$44 billion defeated by something a fraction of the cost! All the expense on military...its sad. It should be spent on getting us to space, and used on a SPACE MILITARY!!! :D

Now I'm guessing everyone's going to agree with me. At least LOAF will. I'm sure of it! :)
 
The Serbs didn't detect any stealths over Kosovo. There's a reason why they're stealths and that reason still holds true today. The F-117 shootdown was pure luck - straight and simple.
 
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