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The US interceptor missiles are something like 3 million dollars each. The Houthis drones are closer to 20 thousand. Eventually they will win on economic ground

The US interceptor missiles are something like 3 million dollars each. The Houthis drones are closer to 20 thousand. Eventually they will win on economic grounds.

0cf8612b2e1e 3y ago
When has America ever backed down on spending money for war?
- Scarblac 3y ago
  Right now, for Ukraine.
  - 0cf8612b2e1e 3y ago
    Fair. Though I would slightly defend my position that qualifies as aid instead of letting America pull the trigger.
  - pi-e-sigma 3y ago
    It was the same in Vietnam. It even caused the US to end US dollar gold standard
georgeplusplus 3y ago
Judging by how broken the US economy seems, I’d say that’s already here.
- pc86 3y ago
  What economy have you been looking at?
  - georgeplusplus 3y ago
    The economy where people cannot afford housing. The economy where consumer credit card debt just hit 5 trillion. The economy where high skill jobs like people on this forum can’t find work. If you think this is a healthy economy you’re either too rich to care, or being lied to by whatever news outlet you read.
  - throwaway29812 3y ago
    The economy of feels
JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> US interceptor missiles are something like 3 million dollars each. The Houthis drones are closer to 20 thousand That’s a 150x cost difference. Well within an order of magnitude of America versus Iran’s economies and defense budgets. Which is irrelevant, since before this becomes a production problem it would become the diplomatic ones of bombing Houthi supplies in Yemen and intercepting IRGC vessels on the high seas.
whartung 3y ago
To be really pedantic, a $20,000 drone out of Yemen is 0.1% of Yemen GDP. A US interceptor of 0.000013% of US GDP. So, yes, I know, LOTS of details (like Iran) here, but the overall point being even if our $3M missile is more than their $20K drone in absolute dollars, we can afford it more than they can.
- logicchains 3y ago
  What percent of Iran's GDP is a $20k drone?
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > What percent of Iran's GDP is a $20k drone? About what a third of $3mm is to the U.S. (15x larger) or U.S. defense budget (50x larger). A 3x production-cost advantage in an economically unconstrained conflict is not an advantage. It’s at best a Twitter PR point.
    - sudosysgen 3y ago
      The conflict is actually not far from being constrained by production, which is difficult to scale up for a 3mm$ munition, because private contractors expect lengthy contracts to justify long term amortization of increased capital expenditure. Given that Iran is producing thousands to tens of thousands of these missiles every year, and is looking to expand production even more, there actually really is a risk that the stockpiles will not keep up, after which dozens of billions of dollars will have to be expended to seriously ramp up production. This dynamic is also the reason why it's been so difficult to ramp up artillery production in support of Ukraine. Additionally, given that the expensive parts in these drones seem to be homemade in Iran (engines, fuselage, even some of the electronics), and given the sanctions, USD equiv. GDP isn't a great metric since there's no free market to convert Iranian production to USD. Then there's the problem that these missiles are sorely needed in case of a war in China, so actually going through a significant expenditure, even if money is allocated to increase production in 2-3 years, means that the US Navy may find itself with insufficient stockpiles to defend itself against the PLA, should the need arise. Its' ability to defend against credible Chinese saturation attacks is already marginal.
ALittleLight 3y ago
That assumes the US won't fight back. US contributes ~6% of Yemen GDP in foreign aid. Yemen is a big food importer. US could shut off foreign aid and blockade Yemen and collapse their economy - they wouldn't be able to afford food, let alone 20k drones. The Houthi strategy isn't an economic strategy, it's a "hope the US isn't willing to kill us" strategy.
- logicchains 3y ago
  >US could shut off foreign aid and blockade Yemen and collapse their economy - they wouldn't be able to afford food, let alone 20k drones Yemen's already in famine: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine_in_Yemen_(2016%E2%80%93present) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine_in_Yemen_(2016%E2%80%.... The drones are supplied by Iran.
- hef19898 3y ago
  Yes, of course, let's starve even more people, that will sure gain us more friends...
  - robotomir 3y ago
    There is a non-zero chance we are headed for a situation where global warming and sea level rise will make hundreds of millions, mostly from equatorial regions, desperate refugees. It could be that an attitude of self-righteousness might become impossible to maintain. Friends come and go.
    - hef19898 3y ago
      So, you propose to do what? Let those people drown? Or actively shooting them? Or maybe proactively let the starve? Either way, it would be genocide.
      - robotomir 3y ago
        Yes, we might need to shoot at them.
mmmBacon 3y ago
While the Houthi drone itself is inexpensive, the cost to the economy of a drone hitting shipping is substantially greater than the $3M cost of the US interceptor missile.
- egorfine 3y ago
  Good.How about ten drones ($200k) and ten interceptors ($30m)? Is the cost of the economy still greater? Alright, let's up the numbers. Forty drones vs forty interceptors, $800k vs $120m. Do the numbers still work for the US? Like, would Yemen gladly pay $800k to kill an american vessel? I guess yes. Would it be economically effective to spend $120m on a protection of said vessel? Perhaps not. So, at a certain number between one and forty drones the economy stops making sense. This is what happens here in Ukraine as well: russian drones are cheap and readily available, while interceptors are expensive af and quite scarce.
  - mmmBacon 3y ago
    According to this: https://www.freightwaves.com/news/22b-worth-of-cargo-is-now-stuck-on-container-ships-off-california/amp https://www.freightwaves.com/news/22b-worth-of-cargo-is-now-... the average value of goods per container ship is ~$350M per ship not including the value of the ship itself. However I think the impact to the economy from a missile hitting a ship far exceeds the value of the goods, the ship, and the cost of any missiles used to defend those goods.
EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 3y ago
$3M each is what DoD is charged, or maybe an export price, for low quantities. Real marginal cost of mass production is much lower.
- bluGill 3y ago
  That is the big question here. How much can/should the US scale production. We know from several current wars the cheap drones are a big issue. So we need to come up with a solution. Can we develop a new anti-drone weapon system that is cheaper? Can we mass produce these missiles and thus get them much cheaper? Some other option I'm not aware of? Whatever, the fact is every half-competent wannabe general now knows that drones are cheap to build and expensive to defend against. The US needs to respond somehow or we will lose to them.
  - anon84873628 3y ago
    In a previous similar thread, it was mentioned that directed energy weapons could be an effective & efficient response to drones, and have already been in development and testing by the US military for some time.
  - greedo 3y ago
    Drones are cheap. EW is even cheaper. The US has multiple C-UAS systems in use and even better ones in development. Some are just EW systems, some are cheapo gun based systems, and other are directed energy weapons. Missile based systems are the best but also the most expensive of the currently deployed solutions. The cheapest missile system is probably the APKWS that we've shipped to Ukraine. This uses a laser to guide the missile to the drone. But for countering FPV/Mavic type drones, even those are overkill. Just jam the entire area on the frequencies in use, and deny everyone drone use. It's important not to draw too many conclusions from the Ukraine war. The combatants are fighting a much different fight on both sides than what the US would do.
    - sudosysgen 3y ago
      EW is very much not magic, and both Russia and Ukraine absolutely do use it. The problem with barrage jamming is that it's extremely locatable and your jammer just ends up getting blown up. The solution is to have many smaller jammers, but then range is decreased dramatically, and it can still be economical to just bomb them, possibly with an anti radiation munition (slapping such guidance on a drone is not expensive). That said, the range is sufficiently small that it doesn't matter - cheap systems can just use visual odometry and inertial sensors and fly themselves the remaining 300 meters to the target. There are videos of Russian lancets operating exactly like this, flying high, locating a target, and then autonomously homing in as they get into jamming range. The idea that neither Russia nor Ukraine tried just EW is quite ridiculous. It's well known that Russia had excellent EW, there was a report in the Texeira leaks that Ukraine could no longer use Excalibur guided shells because Russian long range jamming rendered them useless - the GPS jamming made them unable to arm, and that even US guided HIMARS missiles and JDAMs had to rely on inertial sensors for much of the trajectory with significantly reduced accuracy.
dragonwriter 3y ago
No, they won't, because the immediately coming war between the US-led coalition organized to reopen the sea lanes and the Houthis is not going to be conducted by simply trying to intercept attacks.
mnbion 3y ago
This doesn't take into account the cost of smuggling the drones from Iran to Yemen. There is a reason cocaine is an order of magnitude cheaper in Colombia than in Miami.
gonzo41 3y ago
You're grossly underestimating the US military. Do you remember the 20T for Trillion spend in the mid east on 2 optional wars for 20 years.
GhostVII 3y ago
Id imagine the marginal cost is a lot lower than that though
more_corn 3y ago
US is in no danger of ever running out of money for missiles.

The US interceptor missiles are something like 3 million dollars each. The Houthis drones are closer to 20 thousand. Eventually they will win on economic grounds.

0cf8612b2e1e 3y ago

When has America ever backed down on spending money for war?

Scarblac 3y ago
Right now, for Ukraine.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 3y ago
  Fair. Though I would slightly defend my position that qualifies as aid instead of letting America pull the trigger.
- pi-e-sigma 3y ago
  It was the same in Vietnam. It even caused the US to end US dollar gold standard

georgeplusplus 3y ago

Judging by how broken the US economy seems, I’d say that’s already here.

pc86 3y ago
What economy have you been looking at?
- georgeplusplus 3y ago
  The economy where people cannot afford housing. The economy where consumer credit card debt just hit 5 trillion. The economy where high skill jobs like people on this forum can’t find work. If you think this is a healthy economy you’re either too rich to care, or being lied to by whatever news outlet you read.
- throwaway29812 3y ago
  The economy of feels

JumpCrisscross 3y ago

> US interceptor missiles are something like 3 million dollars each. The Houthis drones are closer to 20 thousand That’s a 150x cost difference. Well within an order of magnitude of America versus Iran’s economies and defense budgets. Which is irrelevant, since before this becomes a production problem it would become the diplomatic ones of bombing Houthi supplies in Yemen and intercepting IRGC vessels on the high seas.

whartung 3y ago

To be really pedantic, a $20,000 drone out of Yemen is 0.1% of Yemen GDP. A US interceptor of 0.000013% of US GDP. So, yes, I know, LOTS of details (like Iran) here, but the overall point being even if our $3M missile is more than their $20K drone in absolute dollars, we can afford it more than they can.

logicchains 3y ago
What percent of Iran's GDP is a $20k drone?
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > What percent of Iran's GDP is a $20k drone? About what a third of $3mm is to the U.S. (15x larger) or U.S. defense budget (50x larger). A 3x production-cost advantage in an economically unconstrained conflict is not an advantage. It’s at best a Twitter PR point.
  - sudosysgen 3y ago
    The conflict is actually not far from being constrained by production, which is difficult to scale up for a 3mm$ munition, because private contractors expect lengthy contracts to justify long term amortization of increased capital expenditure. Given that Iran is producing thousands to tens of thousands of these missiles every year, and is looking to expand production even more, there actually really is a risk that the stockpiles will not keep up, after which dozens of billions of dollars will have to be expended to seriously ramp up production. This dynamic is also the reason why it's been so difficult to ramp up artillery production in support of Ukraine. Additionally, given that the expensive parts in these drones seem to be homemade in Iran (engines, fuselage, even some of the electronics), and given the sanctions, USD equiv. GDP isn't a great metric since there's no free market to convert Iranian production to USD. Then there's the problem that these missiles are sorely needed in case of a war in China, so actually going through a significant expenditure, even if money is allocated to increase production in 2-3 years, means that the US Navy may find itself with insufficient stockpiles to defend itself against the PLA, should the need arise. Its' ability to defend against credible Chinese saturation attacks is already marginal.

ALittleLight 3y ago

That assumes the US won't fight back. US contributes ~6% of Yemen GDP in foreign aid. Yemen is a big food importer. US could shut off foreign aid and blockade Yemen and collapse their economy - they wouldn't be able to afford food, let alone 20k drones. The Houthi strategy isn't an economic strategy, it's a "hope the US isn't willing to kill us" strategy.

logicchains 3y ago
>US could shut off foreign aid and blockade Yemen and collapse their economy - they wouldn't be able to afford food, let alone 20k drones Yemen's already in famine: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine_in_Yemen_(2016%E2%80%93present) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine_in_Yemen_(2016%E2%80%.... The drones are supplied by Iran.
hef19898 3y ago
Yes, of course, let's starve even more people, that will sure gain us more friends...
- robotomir 3y ago
  There is a non-zero chance we are headed for a situation where global warming and sea level rise will make hundreds of millions, mostly from equatorial regions, desperate refugees. It could be that an attitude of self-righteousness might become impossible to maintain. Friends come and go.
  - hef19898 3y ago
    So, you propose to do what? Let those people drown? Or actively shooting them? Or maybe proactively let the starve? Either way, it would be genocide.
    - robotomir 3y ago
      Yes, we might need to shoot at them.

mmmBacon 3y ago

While the Houthi drone itself is inexpensive, the cost to the economy of a drone hitting shipping is substantially greater than the $3M cost of the US interceptor missile.

egorfine 3y ago
Good.How about ten drones ($200k) and ten interceptors ($30m)? Is the cost of the economy still greater? Alright, let's up the numbers. Forty drones vs forty interceptors, $800k vs $120m. Do the numbers still work for the US? Like, would Yemen gladly pay $800k to kill an american vessel? I guess yes. Would it be economically effective to spend $120m on a protection of said vessel? Perhaps not. So, at a certain number between one and forty drones the economy stops making sense. This is what happens here in Ukraine as well: russian drones are cheap and readily available, while interceptors are expensive af and quite scarce.
- mmmBacon 3y ago
  According to this: https://www.freightwaves.com/news/22b-worth-of-cargo-is-now-stuck-on-container-ships-off-california/amp https://www.freightwaves.com/news/22b-worth-of-cargo-is-now-... the average value of goods per container ship is ~$350M per ship not including the value of the ship itself. However I think the impact to the economy from a missile hitting a ship far exceeds the value of the goods, the ship, and the cost of any missiles used to defend those goods.

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 3y ago

$3M each is what DoD is charged, or maybe an export price, for low quantities. Real marginal cost of mass production is much lower.

bluGill 3y ago
That is the big question here. How much can/should the US scale production. We know from several current wars the cheap drones are a big issue. So we need to come up with a solution. Can we develop a new anti-drone weapon system that is cheaper? Can we mass produce these missiles and thus get them much cheaper? Some other option I'm not aware of? Whatever, the fact is every half-competent wannabe general now knows that drones are cheap to build and expensive to defend against. The US needs to respond somehow or we will lose to them.
- anon84873628 3y ago
  In a previous similar thread, it was mentioned that directed energy weapons could be an effective & efficient response to drones, and have already been in development and testing by the US military for some time.
- greedo 3y ago
  Drones are cheap. EW is even cheaper. The US has multiple C-UAS systems in use and even better ones in development. Some are just EW systems, some are cheapo gun based systems, and other are directed energy weapons. Missile based systems are the best but also the most expensive of the currently deployed solutions. The cheapest missile system is probably the APKWS that we've shipped to Ukraine. This uses a laser to guide the missile to the drone. But for countering FPV/Mavic type drones, even those are overkill. Just jam the entire area on the frequencies in use, and deny everyone drone use. It's important not to draw too many conclusions from the Ukraine war. The combatants are fighting a much different fight on both sides than what the US would do.
  - sudosysgen 3y ago
    EW is very much not magic, and both Russia and Ukraine absolutely do use it. The problem with barrage jamming is that it's extremely locatable and your jammer just ends up getting blown up. The solution is to have many smaller jammers, but then range is decreased dramatically, and it can still be economical to just bomb them, possibly with an anti radiation munition (slapping such guidance on a drone is not expensive). That said, the range is sufficiently small that it doesn't matter - cheap systems can just use visual odometry and inertial sensors and fly themselves the remaining 300 meters to the target. There are videos of Russian lancets operating exactly like this, flying high, locating a target, and then autonomously homing in as they get into jamming range. The idea that neither Russia nor Ukraine tried just EW is quite ridiculous. It's well known that Russia had excellent EW, there was a report in the Texeira leaks that Ukraine could no longer use Excalibur guided shells because Russian long range jamming rendered them useless - the GPS jamming made them unable to arm, and that even US guided HIMARS missiles and JDAMs had to rely on inertial sensors for much of the trajectory with significantly reduced accuracy.

dragonwriter 3y ago

No, they won't, because the immediately coming war between the US-led coalition organized to reopen the sea lanes and the Houthis is not going to be conducted by simply trying to intercept attacks.

mnbion 3y ago

This doesn't take into account the cost of smuggling the drones from Iran to Yemen. There is a reason cocaine is an order of magnitude cheaper in Colombia than in Miami.

gonzo41 3y ago

You're grossly underestimating the US military. Do you remember the 20T for Trillion spend in the mid east on 2 optional wars for 20 years.

GhostVII 3y ago

Id imagine the marginal cost is a lot lower than that though

more_corn 3y ago

US is in no danger of ever running out of money for missiles.