"Our adversaries use $10,000 one-way drones that we shoot down with $2 million missiles," SOCOM commander Gen. Bryan Fenton testified to Congress today.
"That cost benefit curve is upside down."
"That cost benefit curve is upside down."
Comments
It’s stupid to try.
Probably the one mass producing civil drones today.
To produce that at scale is a different beast, and no amount of wartime economy builds the workforce and industrial capacity to do so at day one.
One cannot retool what isn‘t there.
The US switched to a service economy long ago, outsourcing most of the manufacturing to other countries.
Which makes the tariffs extra stupid, as trade deficits are ignoring the service surplus.
He's wrong.
It doesn't matter how much the enemy is spending at all. If you spend $2 million on a missile, you simply need to use it to prevent $2 million worth of damage.
Hard but not impossible.
The enemy's expenses don't factor in.
That isn't what a cost benefit analysis is, which is what he said.
That's the context that my comment was in.
The cost of the missile is the cost, yes.
The benefit is not "the price of what it destroys".
It's the price of what it defends.
That's all I meant.
He's saying "our enemies are using a cheap tactic that costs us a disproportionate amount to counter"
not "the cost of the missile outweighs the benefit of using it".
If warfare becomes a purely economic endeavor, then for the richer nation, every fight becomes a war of attrition.
And then when does it ever need to end? When can it?
I'm not saying it's irrelevant. I'm saying it's not a cost-benefit analysis.
If anything, it's like a cost-cost comparison?
Relative fighting power per dollar measurement?
Something other than what he said.
Did you notice you didn't mention the price of the drones? Because it's completely irrelevant?
The drones do not factor into that cost-benefit analysis.
He's saying, "we're not getting enough bang for our buck because we're only destroying these little drones".
That is completely, unequivocally wrong.
It's extremely expensive to recruit and train a US soldier to a deployable standard. Add in the loss of capabilities while you get a replacement in, you're pretty close to it.
A $2 million missile is still worth $2 million of mitigated losses.
The price of the drone didn't change that at all.
Yes, there's a question of fighting power per dollar, but that's not the same question at all.
1. Spend even more money to develop a cheaper system (that lines the pockets of as many contractors) to replace it
2. Let our troops die
3. GET THE HELL OUT OF FOREIGN ENTANGLEMENTS
Even the plain old 5" deck gun can shoot non maneuvering drones out of the sky.
So it's not entirely like that.
Oh well. Better spend several billion dollars to develop 10,000 dollar interceptors.
Is he saying the military doesn't need a trillion dollars or they need a trillion dollars to make cheaper counter measures
(Wait, what wars are US currently in?)
1) obvi defense contracts are insane and Raytheon and Lockheed-Martin et al. know it and love to see it but also
2) the tech to have a little $10k one way drone buzzing around is inherently way cheaper than the tech of having radars, tracking, intercept, etc to shoot them
military contracting is like printing money for every middle man involved
They are morons
This is kind of how we overcame the Soviets in the Cold War - we let them spend themselves into a bottomless pit, and the Soviet Union collapsed
Now the world is doing it to us - and we're too dumb to see it
Exact same statement and only a moron would utter it.
US body armor, when struck by military grade small arms, needs to be replaced. You can get through the firefight, but those plates are done for, you cannot rely on them again.
Also - you should get onboard the British Space Laser bus - although we might not be sharing that info with you at the moment.
this is really really really old news, like going back to 'Nam type news. it's just gotten much much worse, like everything else in this country
I predict another big contract going to Musk.
Plus he probably still tries to rub one out staring at a poster of "Rosie the Riveter"
That’s not how it works?
Hasn’t stopped him before.