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I wonder how many ICBM can that get you... probably like 3 or something... - Found my answer: https://www.brookings.edu/what-nuclear-weapons-delivery-systems-r

I wonder how many ICBM can that get you... probably like 3 or something... - Found my answer: https://www.brookings.edu/what-nuclear-weapons-delivery-systems-really-cost/ https://www.brookings.edu/what-nuclear-weapons-delivery-syst... Not a lot...

brucethemoose2 4y ago
The US mass produced warheads and icbms like they were candy canes. The unit costs for NK are probably higher, though maybe not dramatically so with newer tech to help.
- HPsquared 4y ago
  Probably more hours of work to produce each one, but at a substantially lower hourly rate.
credit_guy 4y ago
Maybe a few dozen. Take the US Trident 2 [1]. Wikipedia lists a cost of $31 MM, in 2019 dollars, which would be about $37 MM today. With $1.3 BN you could buy 35 of those. But the North Koreans are not buying their missiles from Lokheed-Martin. They are building them in house, so you'd expect them to pay much less for labor and materials. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UGM-133_Trident_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UGM-133_Trident_II
- H8crilA 4y ago
  Arms procurement costs are very hard to pin down due to the cost of R&D and the cost of logistical packages. The same system can "cost" X but also 3X, 4X or sometimes even more if all of the real costs are properly included. Also, US strategic rocket weapons (ICBMs) are actually not the best in their class, as a result of post-soviet partial denuclearization. Many aren't even MIRV. This doesn't apply to submarines and bombers, those are top notch. Especially bombers, many decades ahead.
  - dwighttk 4y ago
    (NB: Trident is an SLBM)
    - H8crilA 4y ago
      You're right! I don't know why but I was thinking about the Minuteman all the time.
agloe_dreams 4y ago
..I mean...one of those in Seoul is WWIII and MAD of all of Asia...so like...isn't that enough?
- drewmol 4y ago
  I’d like to think that if it was from NK, it would likely be MAD of NK, but not all of Asia. If China was attacked for instance, they have the capabilities to ensure MAD of any other nation or all of them, via a network of nuclear armed submarines - from undetectable locations - even after the nuclear destruction of their mainland. This makes it pretty unlikely for another nation to fire nuclear weapons into China.

brucethemoose2 4y ago

The US mass produced warheads and icbms like they were candy canes. The unit costs for NK are probably higher, though maybe not dramatically so with newer tech to help.

HPsquared 4y ago
Probably more hours of work to produce each one, but at a substantially lower hourly rate.

credit_guy 4y ago

Maybe a few dozen. Take the US Trident 2 [1]. Wikipedia lists a cost of $31 MM, in 2019 dollars, which would be about $37 MM today. With $1.3 BN you could buy 35 of those. But the North Koreans are not buying their missiles from Lokheed-Martin. They are building them in house, so you'd expect them to pay much less for labor and materials. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UGM-133_Trident_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UGM-133_Trident_II

H8crilA 4y ago
Arms procurement costs are very hard to pin down due to the cost of R&D and the cost of logistical packages. The same system can "cost" X but also 3X, 4X or sometimes even more if all of the real costs are properly included. Also, US strategic rocket weapons (ICBMs) are actually not the best in their class, as a result of post-soviet partial denuclearization. Many aren't even MIRV. This doesn't apply to submarines and bombers, those are top notch. Especially bombers, many decades ahead.
- dwighttk 4y ago
  (NB: Trident is an SLBM)
  - H8crilA 4y ago
    You're right! I don't know why but I was thinking about the Minuteman all the time.

agloe_dreams 4y ago

..I mean...one of those in Seoul is WWIII and MAD of all of Asia...so like...isn't that enough?

drewmol 4y ago
I’d like to think that if it was from NK, it would likely be MAD of NK, but not all of Asia. If China was attacked for instance, they have the capabilities to ensure MAD of any other nation or all of them, via a network of nuclear armed submarines - from undetectable locations - even after the nuclear destruction of their mainland. This makes it pretty unlikely for another nation to fire nuclear weapons into China.