4 ms·

Time will tell, but I think the answer will depend on the situation. Sure, $1.5M is a lot, but it's able to deliver 400+kg of explosives at a distance of over 1

Time will tell, but I think the answer will depend on the situation. Sure, $1.5M is a lot, but it's able to deliver 400+kg of explosives at a distance of over 1000 km, while cruising at 800+kph at an altitude of 50m. I think any drone you design with those same parameters is going to cost about the same. Now, the re-usability is nice, but that isn't free. For instance, you need to either double the fuel capacity or cut the range in half, since you want your drone to be able to make the return trip. And now you have to worry about the reliability and maintainability of the engine and sensors. Plus, you have to think about survivability of your drone: how many sorties can you expect that drone to go on before it is shot down? Whether you want to use cruise missiles or drone swarms will depend on the increased cost to purchase and maintain drone vs. a cruise missile, and the odds that it will be shot down after dropping the bomb. In a low threat environment where you have air superiority you definitely want drones, but in a high threat environment where you need to penetrate an integrated air defense network, I'm not sure.

Retric 7y ago
The US had ~580,000 bombing missions in Vietnam each of which dropped several bombs on average. Doing that with cruse missiles would quickly hit 10+ trillion dollars. On top of that a cruse missile takes around an hour to reach a target making them of limited value vs a mobile target. They have real value vs thinks like air defenses or high value buildings, but building hundreds of thousands of them is never going to happen.
- GordonS 7y ago
  > The US had ~580,000 bombing missions in Vietnam each of which dropped several bombs on average. Doing that with cruse missiles would quickly hit 10+ trillion dollars. I rather hope the US never does anything like this ever again. To this day people in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos are still being injured, maimed or killed by the hundreds of millions of bomblets they dropped.
- detritus 7y ago
  The point being that, in an 'ideal' world, you wouldn't need anywhere near that number of cruise missiles, assuming they are able to effect accurately-targetted strikes.
- DuskStar 7y ago
  A cruise missile that hits the bridge the first time every time might still be more cost effective than saturation bombing the square mile surrounding the bridge until you get that one lucky bomb to connect, though. And that's what a lot of those bombing missions in Vietnam were - dumping bombs in the general vicinity of a target until you finally had one connect. With precision guided weapons, you don't need half a million bombing missions.
  - smegger001 7y ago
    a plane (manned or otherwise) with a cheaper precision warhead is an option too.
    - Retric 7y ago
      Yea, at 1/2 price your saving ~750k a pop. A 100 million dollar drone that costs another 100 million to keep running over 30 years breaks even at ~270 bombs. Alternatively, a 1 Billion dollar airplane that costs 500 million over 30 years to keep in the air breaks even at 2,000 bombs which seems sadly plausible. Though again flexibility to chose targets at the last minute is extremely valuable. Cruse missiles are simply a poor choice vs tanks.
      - DuskStar 7y ago
        This also assumes no risk of losing the plane, of course. If each sortie drops two bombs and has a 1% chance of airframe loss, that increases the cost/bomb for the drone by 500k or the stealth bomber by 5 mil. (which is part of why you use cruise missiles for suicide missions, of course)
- zaphirplane 7y ago
  I was going to say, you have a point in the 2nd paragraph, thou the 1st paragraph is comparing 1970s technology with a different generation. These days precision bombing is the norm for effectiveness and trying to adhere to Geneva conventions of reducing collateral deaths. Then I remembered the Iraqi death highway https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_of_Death https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_of_Death

Retric 7y ago

The US had ~580,000 bombing missions in Vietnam each of which dropped several bombs on average. Doing that with cruse missiles would quickly hit 10+ trillion dollars. On top of that a cruse missile takes around an hour to reach a target making them of limited value vs a mobile target. They have real value vs thinks like air defenses or high value buildings, but building hundreds of thousands of them is never going to happen.

GordonS 7y ago
> The US had ~580,000 bombing missions in Vietnam each of which dropped several bombs on average. Doing that with cruse missiles would quickly hit 10+ trillion dollars. I rather hope the US never does anything like this ever again. To this day people in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos are still being injured, maimed or killed by the hundreds of millions of bomblets they dropped.
detritus 7y ago
The point being that, in an 'ideal' world, you wouldn't need anywhere near that number of cruise missiles, assuming they are able to effect accurately-targetted strikes.
DuskStar 7y ago
A cruise missile that hits the bridge the first time every time might still be more cost effective than saturation bombing the square mile surrounding the bridge until you get that one lucky bomb to connect, though. And that's what a lot of those bombing missions in Vietnam were - dumping bombs in the general vicinity of a target until you finally had one connect. With precision guided weapons, you don't need half a million bombing missions.
- smegger001 7y ago
  a plane (manned or otherwise) with a cheaper precision warhead is an option too.
  - Retric 7y ago
    Yea, at 1/2 price your saving ~750k a pop. A 100 million dollar drone that costs another 100 million to keep running over 30 years breaks even at ~270 bombs. Alternatively, a 1 Billion dollar airplane that costs 500 million over 30 years to keep in the air breaks even at 2,000 bombs which seems sadly plausible. Though again flexibility to chose targets at the last minute is extremely valuable. Cruse missiles are simply a poor choice vs tanks.
    - DuskStar 7y ago
      This also assumes no risk of losing the plane, of course. If each sortie drops two bombs and has a 1% chance of airframe loss, that increases the cost/bomb for the drone by 500k or the stealth bomber by 5 mil. (which is part of why you use cruise missiles for suicide missions, of course)
zaphirplane 7y ago
I was going to say, you have a point in the 2nd paragraph, thou the 1st paragraph is comparing 1970s technology with a different generation. These days precision bombing is the norm for effectiveness and trying to adhere to Geneva conventions of reducing collateral deaths. Then I remembered the Iraqi death highway https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_of_Death https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_of_Death