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by chris_mahan 4572 days ago
Not if you have 10,000 anti-artillery 100KW laser on vehicles. Let's say each one costs 1 million dollars, you would have to spend 10 billion dollars. Lets' say your operating costs are 3 billion a year (2 man crew at total cost of $100,000 each and another $100,000 for support, maintenance, and command, per unit). Over ten years the system would then cost 40 billion dollars, ($10B upfront + $3B/year x 10 years). This averages out to 4 billion a year. Per wikipedia, there are 25 million people in Seoul metropolitan area. This turns out to be $160/per person per year (or 43 cents per day per person).

You can bet the US government and the South Korean government are going to look seriously at that option.

1 comments

Let's say my numbers are off by a factor of ten, and each unit costs $10M, and the support is $3M, and the total cost is $40B/year over 10 years: that's still completely worth it, at $1600 per person per year, especially if Korea pays $20B and the US pays the other $20B.