3 ms·

One of the simplest missiles of all, the TOW [1] costs almost $20k. A friend who is a former Marine says it was common to fire half a dozen in practice. [1] ht

• Gravityloss 10y ago
  I've heard from people who work for military contractors that development is very expensive because everything is very inflexible and clamped down and there is so much paperwork.
• quantumhobbit 10y ago
  I wonder if that price is due to low production and that the price would come down with mass production in war. Maybe not the case here but I always assume this is the case with expensive new weapons that are likely mostly r&d costs being spread across relatively few orders in peacetime.
  • cstross 10y ago
    Partly, but mass production in time of war simply isn't a thing in this day and age — hot wars between roughly-comparable adversaries (as opposed to the asymmetric conflicts such as counter-insurgency campaigns) are generally over in double-to-triple-digit hours, a couple of weeks at most. So the policy of most developed nations' militaries is "come with whatever you've got" and don't plan on building more kit until it's over.
    • PJDK 10y ago
      Add to that statement a "probably...". For example WWII started with months of "phoney war" where both sides moved onto a war footing, followed by a short violent blitzkrieg. WWII is also shows powers capable of exercising restraint, even Hitler, conducting a war he was obviously losing, opted to not use chemical weapons. WWIII could be fought in a couple of hours or it could go on for years with neither side willing to press the biggest button.