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We touched on this the other day – the Navy is doing yeoman’s work protecting the ships off Yemen from Houthi-launched The average cost of an Iranian-built Shahed-136 kamikaze drone is $50,000. A Standard Missile-2 surface-to-air missile, used by U.S. Navy destroyers for missile and anti-drone defense, meanwhile, costs $2.1 million — 42 times as much.<\/p>\n It doesn’t take an advanced degree in mathematics to realize the economics of war here favors the party launching drones over the one buying missiles to shoot them down.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Especially when the missiles are one-time use – $2.1 mil each time.\u00a0 But then in Ukraine:<\/p>\n In a report last week, the X social media account OSINTtechnical published video of a Ukrainian surface-to-air missile team using L3Harris’ Vehicle-Agnostic Modular Palletized ISR Rocket Equipment (VAMPIRE) launcher, which includes thermal sensors, to shoot down a Russian Shahed drone with an advanced precision kill weapons system (APKWS) rocket manufactured by BAE Systems.<\/p>\nIranian (oh, that’s right, they deny any complicity)<\/del> Houthi missiles. Damn fine work, but it is expensive<\/em>. The missiles and drones they fire cost\u00a0 $50 grand, the missiles we fire back – well, add a few zeroes. Plus they take a while to build.\u00a0 Now, in Ukraine they are shooting down the same sort of drones, but with missiles that cost about $20 grand. ‘Way better cost ratio there!<\/p>\n\n
APKWS is a laser-guided kit that attaches to a basic unguided Hydra 70 rocket, the most commonly used rocket in the U.S. military, cheaply converting the latter into a guided missile. How cheaply? Well, one recent Navy contract paid BAE to supply more than 10,000 APKWS rockets at an average cost of just $22,000 each.<\/div>\n<\/div>\nEach Vampire costs $2.85 million. But this launcher is reusable. The total Vampire-plus-APKWS cost would reach parity with the cost of a Shahed after just 100 missiles launched. And a Vampire-plus-APKWS combination would be cheaper than a Standard Missile after just two launches.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\nThat’s an enemy’s nightmare – that their weaponry can not only be neutralized, but by someone spending even less than them to do it, especially by something light and compact enough to mount on a pickup.\u00a0 Right now we are on the wrong side of the financial ratio – they shoot, we kill it, and we lose two million bucks when we do. But if killing their $50K missile costs us a net of $22K more or less…hmmm. Now you’re talkin’!<\/div>\n\n
And now they’ve proven effective in an active combat environment — and not just against drones. Media reports earlier this year showed a ship-mounted VAMPIRE shooting down a Russian cruise missile at sea.\u00a0 Motley Fool<\/a><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\nThe original article is an investing column, so unless you are looking for someplace to invest your shekels much of the column may be irrelevant. But from our viewpoint – if it helps us win at a fraction of the cost, seems to me the Military Industrial Complex is doing at least something<\/em> right.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"