America could theretically sustain other cheaper losses, like a few more F15s going down - but Trump is rightfully terrified of the political fallout of American pilots being capturred and torture videos showing up on Telegram.

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bluegatty 6 hours ago | parent [-]

They are not cheaper losses, because production capacity for those things is very limited.

Missiles are always easier to replace then platforms of any kind.

But yes - a single, lone captive could cause political devastation.

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bad_haircut72 6 hours ago | parent [-]

Im no military planner so Im not gonna get invested in this debate haha - and obviously a human death is a huge loss - but presumably you could drop a lot of bombs for each lost fighter, so the bang/buck (literally) would be better than with missiles.

	▲	bluegatty 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Planes aircrew high fixed/operating cost - lower unit costs on strikes. Missiles, more expensive - depending on. Missiles are not 'rocket science' - pun intended. They're expensive because of the overhead of military industrial complex. Russia is making ballistic missiles 'China style' - super fast, super cheap. Basically - much bigger than ATACMs, longer range, a bit less precise but vicious. Similar to Iran.