4 ms·
How about if instead of a machine gun it just explodes when it gets close? Looks like we're back to missiles.
by VectorLock 5y ago
How about if instead of a machine gun it just explodes when it gets close? Looks like we're back to missiles.
- credit_guy 5y agoYes, but then it's not cheap anymore.
- VectorLock 5y agoAre guns cheaper than explosives?
- credit_guy 5y agoNo, guns are more expensive, but they are reusable. You can fire north of 10000 rounds with a gun. The individual rounds are very cheap in the dollar range. A drone that carries and explosive and meets another drone and blows up is quite an expensive solution. You'd prefer a gun any day.
- VectorLock 5y agoSeems like then you're at cross purposes where you want an expensive gun on an inexpensive, vulnerable/disposable vehicle.
- credit_guy 5y agoGuns are nowhere near as expensive as fixed wing drones. Here, for a sense of scale are some costs: - bullet: cents - Kalashnikov rifle: hundreds of dollars - 500 pound unguided gravity bomb: a few thousand dollars - 50 cal machine gun: 20k dollars - 500 pound guided gravity bomb: 40k dollars - Cessna 172 civilian plane: 400k dollars - AIM-9X air-to-air missile: 400k dollars - Houthi Samad drone: unknown, but probably hundreds of thousands of dollars - Turkish Bayraktar TB2 drone: depending on client and delivery package, between $1 million and $5 million - Tomahawk missile: $9 million (wikipedia says $2 mil, but that's out of date; the latest DoD budget [1] shows the Pentagon will buy 60 Tomahawks in 2022 for $551 MM, see page 23) [1] https://comptroller.defense.gov/Portals/45/Documents/defbudget/FY2022/FY2022_Budget_Request_Overview_Book.pdf https://comptroller.defense.gov/Portals/45/Documents/defbudg...