According to the Google search I just did, an average American hypersonic missile costs between 13 and 41 million dollars.

So that is between 131 and 410 of these. At that rate, and with enough disdain for my enemy and apathy for their people, I can just launch a shit load of them in the right direction and cross my fingers.

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serf 20 hours ago | parent [-]

the concept of 'The average hypersonic..' makes me laugh.

in actuality the concept of equating real life dollars to defense budgets makes me laugh, too. It's not really a money thing, it's a production thing; and even if it were to be considered as a money thing the values involved in no way reflect a real life value.

It's like the NASA hammer story/packard commission. They're not going to say no to a 435 dollar hammer versus a zillion dollar project, but it's not actually a 435 dollar hammer.. .

Similarly a 41 million dollar weapon only costs that much until a wartime powers clause forfeits your factory to state production..

	▲	m000 19 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> Similarly a 41 million dollar weapon only costs that much until a wartime powers clause forfeits your factory to state production. I seriously doubt such clauses still exist today. The entrenchment of the MIC in the US political structure is so deep and stretches for so long, that they have probably managed to avoid having such clauses by now. After all, that's their obligation to their shareholders. Also, the more high-tech the weapon, the more complex and fragile are its supply chain logistcs. So, scaling up the production of high-tech weapons is much harder, especially in wartime.