4 ms·
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 bridg
by 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 agoa plane (manned or otherwise) with a cheaper precision warhead is an option too.
- Retric 7y agoYea, 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 agoThis 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)