3 ms·

I thought you must be wrong - $5K for a dumb arty round? But some googling indicates this is about right, and prices have even gone up since the Russian invasi

• blagie 3y ago
  I don't have real numbers for anything, but I tend to do analysis like the above quite often when evaluating business models. It's usually within a factor of 2x to 10x of being correct, so please don't take it as anything more than that: A typical round weighs around 40 kilos or 100lbs. For reference, from a quick web search, as commodities: - 100lbs of TNT would be around $500 - 100lbs of stainless steel is around $250 I'm not sure what materials go in (I'd assume better explosives and worse steel), but I think $250-$500 is a good estimate for price of raw commodities (not including anything beyond that). I would at least double that for having those shaped into an artillery shell, and add the cost of non-commodities (like a detonator), and you're easily at $1000. I would at least double that for the raw cost of distribution, sales, shipping, and logistics, and other overhead. We're probably at $2000. At that point, toss in 30% profit margin for everyone along the way (30% to manufacturer, 30% to distributor, etc.). You're probably now around $3500. I think that's a bare minimum baseline for what it would take to get a very, very dumb shell. This goes up if you want: - Anything at all fancy or high-tech - War profits - NREs covered (building a factory, which might be idle 95% of the time and spin up for wartime) - Military inefficiencies - Regulatory compliance, quality inspection, etc. Etc. You can hit $5k very easily.
  • beachy 3y ago
    That's a great analysis. I didn't think about the sheer quantities of materials needed.