[whartung]

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.

[onthecanposting]

Dollars aren't directly convertible to warmaking power. The factories and skilled labor that make weapons are a scarce resource that don't scale with mere market capitalization.

That the Russian Federation has a small fraction of US GDP but has launched more cruise missiles in a single conflict (~7500) than the US has ever produced (4000 tomahawks) is an important example of this.

[dragonwriter]

> That the Russian Federation has a small fraction of US GDP but has launched more cruise missiles in a single conflict (~7500) than the US has ever produced (4000 tomahawks) is an important example of this.

The US has built a lot more cruise missiles than just its Tomahawks [0], and the US has a less cruise missile dependent doctrine because it is heavily invested in acheiving air superiority and delivering smart glide bombs, and shorter-range missiles that are much cheaper.

[0] ~7500 Harpoons, some large number I can't readily pin down of SLAM (AGM-84E) and SLAM-ER (AGM-84H/K) developed from the Harpoon, ~2000 AGM-86, ~1600 AGM-129, 2000+ AGM-158, plus some more developed ans retired in the first half of the Cold War

[ovi256]

The 7500 RU launched cruise missiles haven't achieved a tenth as much as the Tomahawks the US hit Iraq with. After that, Iraq didn't have a working integrated air defence any more.

The RU missiles have killed plenty of civilians though.

[cpursley]

Do keep in mind that Iraq had ancient SAMs (only about 75 of them) and practically zero ISR support. US coalition forces hit them hard from the get-go. Ukraine had/has several hundred modern(ish) SAMs with the ISR support of NATO. There's a reason the Russians don't fly too far into Ukraine.

[greedo]

The Ukrainian air defense was not even close to modern. It consisted largely of older S-300s, some Tor, Buk and Tunguska systems that were leftovers from the fall of the USSR. They had some even older systems (S-75, S-125, S-200). So this is largely 30+ years old, and not very well maintained.

[sudosysgen]

S-300 is not really comparable in terms of capability to S-75 and S-125. There is a quantum leap between decentralized networked mobile IADS with a combination of radar types and missile types and Iraq's S-125 systems.

S-300 is still a very capable system today and 1990s' S-300 systems are only really a generation behind modern systems. They're about as recent as the systems on Ticonderogas and Arleigh Burkes that are very much still in service today.

[greedo]

Yeah, I wasn't really trying to compare S-300 to the older systems. Just that they were some of the systems Ukraine had or have brought back into service after the invasion.

S-300 (and S-400 which is really enhanced S-300) in their most modern configurations are incredibly lethal systems against 4th Gen aircraft that aren't accompanied by extensive SEAD/DEAD resources and jamming. But Ukraine has 1st generation S-300P, from the 80s. These might have been upgraded to S-300PT-1, giving them cold launch with the newer 5V55KD missiles.

[cpursley]

Apparently the S-300s were maintained enough to spook the Russian AF. Also, there’s a variety of Western systems now.

[greedo]

I wouldn't be surprised if they've completely depleted their inventory of S-300 missiles (5V55KD). The Texeira leaks seemed to indicate they would run out by Summer/Fall of 2023, though with the supply of IRIS/Patriot/NASAMs etc, they might have reserved some of them.

[foogazi]

Can’t believe the Ukrainian AF is still flying after 2 years - Wow

6 hours from Russia and they still can’t take them out

[cpursley]

I think you might be conflating airforce with air defense. There’s not a lot of Ukrainian AF flights these days and when there is, it’s more often than not, one way (unfortunately) - and with loaned gear. It’s why they’re asking for F-16s and more AD.

[greedo]

It's hard to say that without having inside information. That Ukraine has managed to keep any of their aircraft flying in the face of far superior numbers is astounding. They are still managing to launch SCALP from SU-24m frequently (as frequently as the limited supply of these missiles allow). Considering they're probably outnumbered 5 to 1, that's either indicative of operational excellence on their part, or Russian inadequacy.

[jopsen]

True, but it's possibly fair to argue that its easier to scale up cheap drone production, than production of interceptors.

[ceejayoz]

At a certain point, US foreign policy tends to move from interceptors to flattening launch sites and key personnel.

[dragonwriter]

With actual attacks on US warships. we’re actually past the point that usually occurs.

[sudosysgen]

The point of these systems is that there's no launch site and it takes very little time to learn how to use them. The really key personnel are in Iran and very much difficult to assassinate (and easily replaced, too).

The drones are relatively light, cheap, and can be launched with nothing but springs and wood. There's no value in the launch locations and in fact you can launch them from anywhere.

[jopsen]

Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised.

[ethbr1]

The point is to have a deterrence gradient, so you always have (1) deescalate (lower), (2) match (proportionate), and (3) escalate (higher) responses, for any level of attack.

If there's a level at which you don't have all three options, there exist political situations that can leave you vulnerable.

E.g. if the US has no proportionate response to a Russian tactical nuclear strike on Ukrainian soil, it may hazard towards not escalating.

Similarly, why the talking points of US response strikes for the past few decades have generally been 'this was a proportionate response.'

But after the last warning to the Houthis, I expect the next ASBM or large drone that hits a civilian ship prompts a large US/UK (and maybe France and Germany) strike.

[ajuc]

> That the Russian Federation has a small fraction of US GDP but has launched more cruise missiles in a single conflict (~7500) than the US has ever produced (4000 tomahawks) is an important example of this.

By their fruits you'll know them. If Russia was able to destroy the enemy like USA did with half the number of missiles - they absolutely would. But they can't (mostly because USA has system where it takes minutes from recognizing targets to destroying them, and in Russia it takes hours - so they can only hit stationary targets reliably), so they have to go into quantity instead.

Also USA use bombs much more often (because they could - because they obliterated the air defence in the first hours which Russia still can't do).

[pclmulqdq]

The US conducts war with a scalpel. Russia does it with a rusty hatchet. Those cruise missiles from Russia are (relatively speaking) very cheap and inaccurate.

[greedo]

Russian cruise missiles (true ones, not Shahed drones) are not cheap. Kalibrs cost around $6 million USD, KH-101s around $13 million. And both are quite accurate. The issue the Russians are facing isn't inaccurate cruise missiles, but a lack of accurate targeting data (combined with wanting to use them in terror attacks as opposed to degrading Ukraine's military capabilities.)

[guimplen]

In all recent US wars civilian casualties vastly outnumber military ones. In the Ukrainian war civilian casualties constitute less than 10% of overall casualties. Outstanding precision for a rusty hatchet.

[dragonwriter]

Most recent US wars have spent most of their time in an asymmetric counterinsurgency phase, the Russo-Ukrainian war is (in style of warfare) basically a symmetric force-on-force international war.

These have very different dynamics, inherently.

[gpderetta]

We also don't know the full extent of civilian casualties.

[klooney]

Mosul, Fallujah, etc were quite bloody. You can't actually take cities cleanly, you can only win the propaganda war in your own sphere of influence.

[93po]

This reads like propaganda. The US military does a fine job of destroying entire countries

[getpokedagain]

It's actually worse. I read this as Russia accidentally hits civilians because they have no choice where as we do it with intention.

[meepmorp]

Russia hitting civilians isn’t really accidental. They’re quite happy to terrorize the population, and are quite comfortable deliberately committing atrocities (see Bucha, et al). Flattening whole cities is longstanding practice of theirs, too; it’s largely how they won Chechnya 2.

At best, their weapons aren’t terribly precise and they don’t particularly care about that.

[leosarev]

Using cruise missiles to terrorise civilian population will be incredibly stupid move. Hits into houses are usually accidental. If you want to terrorise civilian population, it's so much cost effective to use cheaper unguided rockets from MLRS systems or artillery shells. You have this news in your echo chamber, haven't you?

[pi-e-sigma]

I advise you to educate yourself. The US killed 300 thousand civilians in the second Iraq war using their 'precision' strikes. That compares to 10 thousand civilians who died so far in the Ukrainian war. Both of these numbers are provided by the US gov itself.

[jjtheblunt]

> Both of these numbers are provided by the US gov itself.

URL? that's got to be super interesting data.

[pi-e-sigma]

Wikileaks. Obviously US gov wouldn't say something like that publicly so you need to look into the leaked classified material.

[mnbion]

>Russia has launched more cruise missiles in a single conflict (~7500)

What is the source for that number? The only long-range weapons Russia has launched thousands of are the Iranian-made long-range suicide drones.

[dragonwriter]

> The only long-range weapons Russia has launched thousands of are the Iranian-made long-range suicide drones.

They've also used lots of (mostly, IIRC, air launched) ballistic missiles and (conventional) cruise missiles. The reason there have been deep strikes by Ukraine on Russian bomber bases are because those bombers were used to fire long range missiles into Ukraine.

Though the “suicide drones”, while designed as loitering munitions, are basically used as propeller driven cruise missiles rather than in a loitering role.

[mlyle]

I feel like your argument shows the opposite: there are significant economies of scale to making munitions. If we have to make a lot of interceptors, in the long run-- it's going to be much cheaper than it is currently.

[buzzdenver]

As an engineer, saying that $20k, the price of a cheap car, is 1/1000th of a GDP of a whole country does not pass the smell test. Google says that Yemen's GDP is $21.61b, so a drone is 0.0000925% of the GDP. In other words it's about a million drones per year for Yemen, and about 7.7 million interceptors per year for the US.

[darth_avocado]

The question isn’t how much each missile/drone costs. The question is, how many of those does each side have and how quickly can you get more?

Maybe $3M missile isn’t that costly to the US, but if you have like 1000 of them and it takes 6 months to replenish the stock, while the other side has 10000 drones that they can replenish in 3 months, you have a massive problem at your hand. (The same problem Ukraine is having re: stockpiling artillery shells that are sourced from US/NATO)

[Retric]

Edit: They where off by a factor of 1,000 for Yemen GDP.

That said if they were actually 0.1% GDP each then 10000 * 0.1% GDP each = 100% of GDP for 10 years. Which would obviously not happen.

[Log_out_]

The problem is also the stock value of the industrial military complex. If your artisanal rockets are out competed by smart flying sand with a stick, your actual evaluation is in for a correction, fiscally as tactically.

[ceejayoz]

> To be really pedantic, a $20,000 drone out of Yemen is 0.1% of Yemen GDP.

Yemen's GDP is $21B, not $21M.

[waffleiron]

Not 0.1%, you are off by a factor 1000. Their GDP is 20b not 20m. Would still be relatively more costly but a lot less extreme.

[lr1970]

> To be really pedantic, a $20,000 drone out of Yemen is 0.1% of Yemen GDP.

Are you saying that entire Yemen's GDP is just $20M ? Does not seem plausible.

[logicchains]

What percent of Iran's GDP is a $20k drone?

[JumpCrisscross]

> 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]

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.

[JumpCrisscross]

> conflict is actually not far from being constrained by production

If anyone is talking about escalation risk, production isn’t the bottleneck. We are nowhere close to being resource constrained in the Middle East.

> the US Navy may find itself with insufficient stockpiles to defend itself against the PLA

In a production contest it’s maximum sustainable flows, not stocks, that matter. (Stocks buy you time to get flows up.) To the extent challenging the PLA is a concern, boosting production to counter the Houthis is a net win.

> ability to defend against credible Chinese saturation attacks is already marginal

You’re arguing both ways. If their value is marginal, expending them now is fine.

Your broader point—I think—is correct. America doesn’t want to spread itself thin. But that’s a constraint at the CVN level. Once the carrier strike force is positioned, it’s immaterial whether it’s firing off missiles or guns.

Anyone positioning Iran et al v America et al is missing key pieces in the logistics of war.

[sudosysgen]

The stocks are not sufficient to buy time to get the flows. There are only around 500 SM-6 missiles (long range, suitable to protect large numbers of vessels at various distances, 5mm$ each), and there is only capacity to produce a few hundred for the short to medium term.

The older SM-2s may have more plentiful stocks, but most of them have been deemed too dangerous to use after causing serious damage in test firings, and there are only around 180 modernized versions available, and the missile itself is no longer produced.

Defending against a saturation attack means that the value experiences a step function. Either you have enough missiles to stop most low-tech enemy missiles, and you're going to be largely fine, or you don't, and your entire fleet might sink. It's not something you can afford to. The US Navy is never going to allow stocks to go under what is necessary to stop at least a long-range Chinese attack, and that means at least 600 missiles, which is a serious chunk of what remains.

Boosting production to counter the Houthis is surely something the US will do. It will take 2-3 years to bear fruit. In the meantime, stocks are not sufficient to tank Iran's capability to produce these kinds of missiles.

I think that the most likely outcome is either more shipping companies negotiating terms to transit unharmed, like China's COSCO has all but admitted to have done, or these detours to continue.

[greedo]

I totally missed your comment about SM-2s being deemed "too dangerous" to use." That's not really accurate. There have been two incidents with the SM-2 (2015 and 2018). The USN and the German Navy decided not to do any more test firings of these missiles, but they are cleared for wartime use. And they're being used now without issue so far.

I also would love to see why you think there's only 180 modernized versions, and what you consider modernized. My understanding is that all versions have been either upgraded or their upgrade is budgeted. If you think that the USN has only 680 SM-2 and SM-6 in inventory I don't know what to say. That would be only 10 or so Standards per Arleigh Burke. There are 73 Arleigh Burkes active with a capacity of 90 missiles. Even if they only allocate 50% of these VLS slots to SM missiles, that would require over 3K missiles. And this ignores the Ticos completely. I know the USN puts to see without filling all the VLS slots, but that would be a dangerous, ridiculous loadout that I can't see escaping Congressional scrutiny.

Raytheon says they've produced over 11k SM-2 missiles worldwide. I know that testing has consumed around 3K, leaving 8K for the USN and allies. Even being generous with FMS, I doubt Raytheon has sold more than 2K overseas. That would leave the US inventory around 6K. A far cry from 180.

[greedo]

SM-2ER are the majority of Standard missiles packed on USN ships. SM-6 is really intended to replace them since it can defend against ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and serve as a hypersonic ASBM. But it's expensive, so the SM-2 will soldier on, backed up by the SM-3 in the ABM role.

And the production capacity can easily be ramped up if there's enough funds.

[JumpCrisscross]

> US Navy is never going to allow stocks to go under what is necessary to stop at least a long-range Chinese attack, and that means at least 600 missiles

Agree.

> stocks are not sufficient to tank Iran's capability to produce these kinds of missiles

My core point is it never gets to Iran making missiles, the Houthis firing them and the U.S. doing nothing more than intercepting. Well before it becomes a production contest, the situation is resolved diplomatically or escalated.

> the most likely outcome is either more shipping companies negotiating terms to transit unharmed

This would be difficult for a Western company to do without risking sanctions.

[BWStearns]

> 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.

I wouldn't be so sure that the parts are locally sourced.

[0] https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/bizarre-theft-wave-tar...

[sudosysgen]

Not the same type of hardware. They might need larger engines for their reusable drones, but the ones they used for Shaheds are in-house clones (funnily enough, a Wankel engine for one of them). The Wikipedia pages for the suicide Shaheds has teardowns and sources.

[BWStearns]

huh cool. I guess the Wankel's found a niche that doesn't mind the short engine rebuild period.

[pi-e-sigma]

Yemeni rebels don't pay for these, though. It's free 'aid' from Iran. So arguing costs doesn't make much sense. Similarly mujahedeen in Afghanistan got free Stingers MANPADs

[boplicity]

You're embedded assumption is that Yemen would be paying for these drones.

Examined on its own, that's a bold claim.

[swashboon]

But its not Yemen, its Iran that's paying for it - with money from oil smuggled past sanctions.

[meiraleal]

Smuggled? Are you implying that any deal the US does not like is illegal? Wake up. This age is over.

[dragonwriter]

Shipping from Iran to Yemen is also vulnerable, however.

[nradov]

Most of the missiles and other weapons are being smuggled in relatively small boats. It simply isn't practical to stop and search most of them. In theory the US and other nations could declare a blockade and simply sink any vessel that enters Yemeni territorial waters, but that would be a major escalation and require a lot more naval forces to be deployed