4 ms·

The cost of dropping a single smart bomb from an aircraft launched from an aircraft carriers needs to include the cost of everything needed to make it possible.

The cost of dropping a single smart bomb from an aircraft launched from an aircraft carriers needs to include the cost of everything needed to make it possible. Including the total build and operational cost of the carrier fleet itself. You might be surprised how insanely expensive it is compared with almost any other weapon system out there.

credit_guy 5y ago
It's not even close. Here's an example: Gulf War 1 [1]. The Coalition flew over 100000 sorties, dropping 88500 tons of bombs. The US Navy spent 288 Tomahawk missiles. Each such cruise missile has a 450kg warhead, so that's about 1300 tons, or 0.15% of the ordnance dropped from the air. Now here's the stunning part: that 0.15% of the contribution cost about 1/3 of the total bill: $0.9 BN out of $2.7 BN (GAO report [2] page 178). Let's look at it differently. The daily operating cost of an entire aircraft carrier strike group is about $6.5 MM ([3] p 5). That's the cost of 3 Tomahawk missiles. For this you can launch more than 100 sorties, and drop many, many bombs. There's simply no comparison between the bang for the buck of aircraft dropped bombs vs cruise missiles. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War_air_campaign https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War_air_campaign [2] https://www.gao.gov/assets/nsiad-97-134.pdf https://www.gao.gov/assets/nsiad-97-134.pdf [3] https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA575866.pdf https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA575866.pdf
- mbrodersen 5y ago
  You are not taking into account construction cost. For example: "The USS Ford is the most advanced aircraft carrier the US has ever built. The tally for the total cost is $13.3 billion". And that is just for the aircraft carrier. Even using your maintainance only numbers: 3 Tomahawk missiles a day is more than 1000 a year, more than 30000 Tomahawk missiles over the 30 year lifespan of an aircraft carrier. That is about 13500000 kg of warhead. If we add the construction cost of the aircraft carrier alone as well, we get an additional 6230769 kg of warhead from the Tomahawks adding up to 19 million kg of warhead. More than double the total dropped during Gulf War 1. You are welcome to also add the construction cost of the other ships needed to support the aircraft carrier. And also subtracting a percentage of the non-smart bombs since a lot of the bombs dropped during Gulf War 1 were non-smart i.e. a lot of them missed their targets.
  - credit_guy 5y ago
    Missiles need to be carried to the theater of operations too. They don't just teleport. For the US Navy a typical case would be an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer [1] or a Ticonderoga-class cruiser [2]. Both types of vessels cost $1 billion or more. They both have vertical launch systems (VLS) with respectively 96 cells and 122 cells. Wikipedia says that a typical Ticonderoga missile configuration will include 26 Tomahawk missiles. The other cells are used for surface to air missiles and anti-submarine missiles, so they are basically for defense purposes. You can replace a number of defensive missiles with Tomahawks, but not too many. A USS Ford carrier comes at $13 BN, but it weighs more than 100k tons. A latest version of Arleigh Burke destroyer costs $1.8 BN (according to wikipedia) and weighs less than 10k tons. You get 7 or 8 Arleigh Burkes for the price of a Ford. But a Ford brings dozens of bombers to the theater and can sustain 160 sorties per day for 30 days, which can drop many thousands of tons of ordnance on the enemy. The destroyers can shoot their (optimistically) 500 Tomahawks missiles, and then go home. Just as a point of comparison, let's take a look at the annual procurement in smart bombs (Joint Direct Attack Munitions = JDAM) and Tomahawk missiles ([3], page 23) For the last 3 years (2020, 21 and 22), the DoD bought 28k, 20k and 5k JDAMs at a price of $1.8 BN and 90, 122, and 60 Tomahawks for a total of $1.9 BN. So, if things get a bit intense, and you need to fire 300 Tomahawks, you've just blown through 3 years of procurement and about $2 Billion dollars. Given the option, you'd probably prefer 50k smart bombs, for the same price. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arleigh_Burke-class_destroyer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arleigh_Burke-class_destroyer [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ticonderoga-class_cruiser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ticonderoga-class_cruiser [3] https://comptroller.defense.gov/Portals/45/Documents/defbudget/FY2022/FY2022_Budget_Request_Overview_Book.pdf https://comptroller.defense.gov/Portals/45/Documents/defbudg...

credit_guy 5y ago

It's not even close. Here's an example: Gulf War 1 [1]. The Coalition flew over 100000 sorties, dropping 88500 tons of bombs. The US Navy spent 288 Tomahawk missiles. Each such cruise missile has a 450kg warhead, so that's about 1300 tons, or 0.15% of the ordnance dropped from the air. Now here's the stunning part: that 0.15% of the contribution cost about 1/3 of the total bill: $0.9 BN out of $2.7 BN (GAO report [2] page 178). Let's look at it differently. The daily operating cost of an entire aircraft carrier strike group is about $6.5 MM ([3] p 5). That's the cost of 3 Tomahawk missiles. For this you can launch more than 100 sorties, and drop many, many bombs. There's simply no comparison between the bang for the buck of aircraft dropped bombs vs cruise missiles. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War_air_campaign https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War_air_campaign [2] https://www.gao.gov/assets/nsiad-97-134.pdf https://www.gao.gov/assets/nsiad-97-134.pdf [3] https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA575866.pdf https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA575866.pdf

mbrodersen 5y ago
You are not taking into account construction cost. For example: "The USS Ford is the most advanced aircraft carrier the US has ever built. The tally for the total cost is $13.3 billion". And that is just for the aircraft carrier. Even using your maintainance only numbers: 3 Tomahawk missiles a day is more than 1000 a year, more than 30000 Tomahawk missiles over the 30 year lifespan of an aircraft carrier. That is about 13500000 kg of warhead. If we add the construction cost of the aircraft carrier alone as well, we get an additional 6230769 kg of warhead from the Tomahawks adding up to 19 million kg of warhead. More than double the total dropped during Gulf War 1. You are welcome to also add the construction cost of the other ships needed to support the aircraft carrier. And also subtracting a percentage of the non-smart bombs since a lot of the bombs dropped during Gulf War 1 were non-smart i.e. a lot of them missed their targets.
- credit_guy 5y ago
  Missiles need to be carried to the theater of operations too. They don't just teleport. For the US Navy a typical case would be an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer [1] or a Ticonderoga-class cruiser [2]. Both types of vessels cost $1 billion or more. They both have vertical launch systems (VLS) with respectively 96 cells and 122 cells. Wikipedia says that a typical Ticonderoga missile configuration will include 26 Tomahawk missiles. The other cells are used for surface to air missiles and anti-submarine missiles, so they are basically for defense purposes. You can replace a number of defensive missiles with Tomahawks, but not too many. A USS Ford carrier comes at $13 BN, but it weighs more than 100k tons. A latest version of Arleigh Burke destroyer costs $1.8 BN (according to wikipedia) and weighs less than 10k tons. You get 7 or 8 Arleigh Burkes for the price of a Ford. But a Ford brings dozens of bombers to the theater and can sustain 160 sorties per day for 30 days, which can drop many thousands of tons of ordnance on the enemy. The destroyers can shoot their (optimistically) 500 Tomahawks missiles, and then go home. Just as a point of comparison, let's take a look at the annual procurement in smart bombs (Joint Direct Attack Munitions = JDAM) and Tomahawk missiles ([3], page 23) For the last 3 years (2020, 21 and 22), the DoD bought 28k, 20k and 5k JDAMs at a price of $1.8 BN and 90, 122, and 60 Tomahawks for a total of $1.9 BN. So, if things get a bit intense, and you need to fire 300 Tomahawks, you've just blown through 3 years of procurement and about $2 Billion dollars. Given the option, you'd probably prefer 50k smart bombs, for the same price. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arleigh_Burke-class_destroyer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arleigh_Burke-class_destroyer [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ticonderoga-class_cruiser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ticonderoga-class_cruiser [3] https://comptroller.defense.gov/Portals/45/Documents/defbudget/FY2022/FY2022_Budget_Request_Overview_Book.pdf https://comptroller.defense.gov/Portals/45/Documents/defbudg...