Why is a patriot missile system so expensive to make? a single one costs about a billion dollars. in contast, and Abrams tank costs 25 million, which is 40 times less. what makes them so incredibly expensive? is it the electronics?
>why is the greeey person selling their product at 10x their valueBecause greedy persons are greedy and the only thing a greedy person truly loves is that of money.Truly a greedy person wont lower the price of life saving air defense even for his home country in which his mother lives which getting hit by bombs.The greedy person would sooner sell out their mother for a pouch of silver than do a single good deed in their entire life.The one behind raytheon is a greedy person
>>65108800>is it the electronics?Yes.
>>65108800Because you're comparing the cost of one tank to the cost of a entire Patriot battery, which consists of a dozen vehicles, 90 personnel, and 150+ missiles.
Because Pat batteries isnt just 1 launcher on a truck. you have Fire control, communications, power, the radar itself and 8 launchers, each 1 needing their own truck to move and position. Lets not also forget the required training, spare parts and of course the missiles themselves. Grim Reapers did a pretty solid interview with a pat operator.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qp0JBQGUsqU
>>65108800The fact that it's multiple vehicles and systems vs 1 tank and the fact that we've built thousands of Abrams that large parts of the cost has benefited from economies of scale vs Patriots that hasn't or not to the same level.
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>>65108800>CSIS further suggests future U.S. PATRIOT battalions (a U.S. PATRIOT battalion consists of four PATRIOT batteries) could cost up to $1.27 billion dollars apiece without missilesAn entire Patriot battery only costs $318 million.
>>65108800Because it actually works.
peace dividend incentivized making things extra slow and expensive to keep factories open and experts employed. There are positives to this but also negatives to make the same system for 40 years as your enemies have the creative advantage of starting from scratch
>>65108839
>>65109003That seems dumb. They could also keep the factories open by producing 10x as much and just stockpiling it somewhere in the desert or in an exhausted mine.
>>65109172Maintenance costs would likely eat as much money as the savings you think you'll get out of it. The only real benefit to that is having them on hand and not have to wait for months for factories to start picking up the pace should need for more them come up.
>>65109172You think when they put airframes in the boneyard, they leave the radar component in it?
>>65108800Rocket fuel and radar systems are expensive. There's also mechanical tolerance issues but that gets complicated.
>>65108800Because the US government told the company they would buy X number, but instead bought Y number, so you're paying for X number that the company and army agreed upon, but only getting Y number at Z rate that congress will agree to actually pay for. because if more were bought it would be cheaper.
>>65109184>>65109172I think we're on to something here though. Nobody would procure and aircraft and not stipulate something about being able to get spares right?What if instead of only buying the plane and the parts, or the system and the missiles in this case, but demand the production capacity as well? As in the contract demands production capacity of X per month with an additional Y in wartime surge production and Raytheon has to maintain that capacity 24/7. If they don't every missile below that rate is procured at half price or something.Obviously this would be upfront cost that Raytheon would get extra, but it also would incentivize them to keep this extra overhead low. I.e. they'd automate and modernize, make changes to manufacturing techniques and such to be able to meet the hypothetical quota to make the most money. given modern robotics and CNC machines they'd probably even make money off the equipment anyway by repurposing it during low demand times.
>>65111607Getting this right is hard though. You have to avoid management squandering the money and then leaving the company long before its needed. You'd somehow need to verify that they can actually produce at the agreed rate and all that.> given modern robotics and CNC machines they'd probably even make money off the equipment anyway by repurposing it during low demand times.Yeah if they'd actually keep the factories occupied with lower-priority customers this can work and simultaneously is evidence that they can produce enough.It's how the chip industry and electricity sector work for example, to some extent at least. There are customers that get priority access and others that have to accept that they get booted. Also kinda how shipbuilding used to work.The downside would be that an extended production spike would make those industries that use your cheap surplus capacity suffer. So you'd have to carefully balance stockpiles and tapping that capacity.
>>65111607The way it works is that the government is given a threshold production rate below which the manufacturer's ability to ramp up production quickly will be affected and per unit costs will increase. DoD and Congress can decide whether to buy above or below the threshold value. You can find these figures in the yearly budget justification books.But regardless of what the threshold numbers for Patriot and Abrams are, that's not the problem here. The problem is that OP's numbers are comparing a single vehicle to an entire battalion. An armor CAB consists of 30 tanks as well as a mechanized rifle company and support and logistics assets.
Defense industry isn't just about the product they make. They play a significant role in the country's economy. They paid a good wages to American people, keeping them employed, and in turn bolster the economy.
