Political & Elections

BigG · Guru

RE: Afghanistan Pakistan Drone Attacks

soccerguy315 · Guru

The Hellfire II, which the predator uses, costs $65,000. The basic Hellfire costs $25,000. Your link confirms they fire Hellfire missiles.

So, the up front cost is $20 million, but that is sunk. That means that each time they fly a mission, the price per mission comes down. Even if they lose one, they don't lose the satellite link or the ground control station.

I absolutely do not claim to be an expert on military hardware, but $1,000,000 per strike sounds very high to me.

To be at $1,000,000/mission, that means each Predator only goes on 5 missions ($20M/4 = $5M per Predator, if you include the other stuff you get for the $20M, each predator will come in even cheaper, which means fewer than 5 missions per Predator)

edit: just to be clear, I saw the numbers in the article, my issue is with them, not with you

-- Edited by soccerguy315 on Tuesday 22nd of February 2011 07:53:04 PM

BigG · Guru

I was using the numbers in the article.

This probably includes infrastructure and overhead.

This states four plus infrastructure costs $20 million.
http://www.af.mil/information/factsheets/factsheet.asp?fsID=122

Are we talking about the same weapon?

-- Edited by BigG on Monday 21st of February 2011 08:27:33 PM

soccerguy315 · Guru

how do the drone strikes cost $1 million each? The missiles cost like $50,000 for one. Does it cost $950,000 to fly the thing?

Drones are very useful, but their impact is tactical, not strategic. They have an important role to play.

BigG · Guru

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/20/AR2011022002975.html

Someone can check my math but;

That's about $204,000 per enemy casualty, with minimal or no risk to US personell.

If we need to kill 4 million "bad guys", that would cost about $820 billion over, say, ten years or about $80 billion a year.

Sounds like a bargain.

The idea that the Post has that only "high value" targets are worthwhile is wrong.
When one leader is killed, another will step up. Just kill them all and let Allah sort them out.

We seem to want to deny that we are in a "war of attrition". There is no quick strike or easy kill that will end the thing.

Plus building Predators is good for the economy.

-- Edited by BigG on Monday 21st of February 2011 03:53:07 AM