If you do the math, it's actually better to use big cruise missiles and ballistic missiles for strikes. there are 2 main reasons for this:1. they carry much larger payloads 2. they are less likely to get intercepted (especially ballistic missiles)as a case study, let's examine Russia's drone and missile arsenal, which is regularly spammed into Ukraine and intercepted there.P(getting past AD):drone (geran): 0.1cruise missile (kh-101, kh-22): 0.2ballistic missile (iskander): 0.9 unit cost (1M USD):geran: 0.05kh-22: 1kh-101: 2iskander: 3 warhead weight (kg):geran (50kg): 50geran (90kg): 90kh-101: 130iskander (480kg): 480iskander (700kg): 700kh-22: 1000 mean efficiency (warhead kg / 1m USD):geran 50 : 100geran 90: 180kh-101: 13kh-22: 200iskander (480kg): 144iskander (700kg): 210so in terms of efficiency, russia would be better off spamming iskanders and kh-101s than it is spamming gerans.
>russia would be better off spamming iskanders and kh-101ssorry, kh-22s. kh-101s are dogshit as shown above
>>65120364Well, they did. They hit a bunch of maternity wards and kindergartens, and it got them nowhere. What is the next step of your master plan, Colonel genius?
>>65120361Yes, cruise missiles like Tomahawk ($2M, 300 kg payload) are potentially better than one way attack drones like Shahed-136 ($200,000, 50 kg payload) since they're harder to detect and intercept and can destroy valuable hardened targets, but there's also reasons to want to cheaply destroy a large number of soft targets from long range, which is where smaller OWA drones like LUCAS ($35,000, 25 kg payload) come in.Ballistic missiles have a niche as we've seen from ATACMS and PrSM as well as to a lesser extent Iskander and Kinzhal, but they're more difficult to design and build and use, as we can see from Iran having destroyed absolutely nothing of note with their thousands of ballistic missile launches in the past few years.
>>65120370>and it got them nowhereare you sure? I was in Mariupol and I didn't see any TTsK vans kidnapping men off the streets, so it seems Ukraine isn't there anymore
>>65120416
>>65120361Thanks anon, very cool post.Turns out ballistic missiles are harder to make than lawnmower drones.Like, Subscribe and hit the bell for more mind bending insights into military procurement.
>>65120455
>>65120361No one can afford to send cruise missiles after every static target but you can send cheap drones.You can get ~100 LUCAS drones for the cost of a single Tomahawk cruise missile, even assuming a 90% intercept rate for the LUCAS and 0% for the Tomahawk you can service 10 times as many targets.For things like refineries that burn, radars that can't be hardened and command posts that are tiny the small warhead is still more than enough.
>>65120361Drones are actually cruise missiles that replace the expensive turbojet engine with a cheap piston engine>If you do the math, it's actually better to use big cruise missiles and ballistic missiles for strikesyes
>>65120361>kh-22 cost as much as 20 gerans>P of 0.1 for geran means 2 hit their target (180kg)>P of 0.2 for the kh-22 means 80% chance of no hit>need 5 kh-22 to deliver 20kg more warheadSeems like the geran still wins in terms of money spent. Obviously you can still use a billion dollar system ineffectively while a competent commander might squeeze more value out of a lesser system.
>>65124177except OP's Pk numbers are pulled out of his ass
so...which refinery blew up this time?
>>65120455>>65120960Did you know that Russia has T-I-G-E-R-S?
>>65126083google reported ~90% interception rates against, ~80% against cruise missiles, and 6 to 15% for ballistic missiles. (simplified to 10% since it's a round number near the middle)P(no intercept) = 1 - P(intercept) so you get 0.1, 0.2 and 0.9.it's unfortunate that the interception rates for drones and cruise missiles are rounded because even small changes there are super important. the difference between 90% and 95% interception rate is 2x fewer drones getting through while the difference between 10% and 15% is much less significant, relatively speaking
>>65126315>google reportedstopped reading right theresnark aside, a deeper analysis of the interception figures AND CONDITIONS show that provided there are interceptors available, interception Pks are always >50%the low figures you see are probably due to drones and missiles hitting undefended sectors
>>65120392>Shahed-136Are they really 200k ? They look like a senior design project from a state university
>>65120361>2. they are less likely to get intercepted (especially ballistic missiles)You're not thinking long-term.Yes, throwing a bunch of shitter drones at the enemy gets them shot down...By munitions that exceed their cost and denies usage of said weapons against your 'real' weapons.And if they refuse to take down your drones, your drones still do damage, potentially to important shit. Drones are like the V1 program, did the V1 actually do lots of damage? Not really. But the program forced the allies to keep heaps of units stationed to shoot them down, units that could've been invading Germany or shooting down their planes.
>>65126376That's how much Iran was selling them to Russia for before the Russians got their own production line set up. It now costs the Russians about $45k to build them, but that's in a state owned factory where they're assembled by conscripts so it's not really a comparable figure to the cost of, say, LUCAS, which is built by a private company and then sold to the US government for a profit. The Russians have made significant "improvements" to make their drones cheaper, but they've put all of the money they've saved into making them larger and more EW resistant so the price has stayed steady over the course of the war.>>65126379>a bunch of shitter drones at the enemy gets them shot down...By munitions that exceed their cost and denies usage of said weapons against your 'real' weapons.APKWS costs less than half of what a Shahed style drone does, and no one is using hyper expensive weapons against FPVs.
>>65126365the figures I posted are probabilities of drones and missiles NOT getting intercepted. 0.1 and 0.2 are consistent with your claim since they're below 0.5. the obly thing worth discussing is ballistic missiles.>sure iskanders get past AD usually but that's because ukraine has a chronic shortage of suitable interceptors ok and? the bottom line is still the same. if anti-drone defenses are cheap and widespread while anti-ballistic-missile defenses are expensive and in chronically short supply then that still works out in favor of ballistic missiles
>>65127590>>65126365it's also noted that iskanders became harder to intercept at some point, potentially because the missile was upgraded to be harder to intercept https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/iskander-improved-russian-missile-tests-ukraines-air-defence
>>65120361>warhead kg / 1m USDThat's totally the metric by which militaries should procure weapons systems, they just haven't realized yet, thank you for opening everyone's eyes.Also, bullets are obsolete now.
>>65127603yes, when your goal is to spam explosives at the enemy, "buy the thing that lets me spam the most explosives for the least cost" is a good rule of thumb
>>65120361The rate of production of Gerans is higher than ballistic and cruise missiles, Russia periodically runs out and has to replenish and can't keep up a sustained air campaign with them.Also, depending on the mission something with less money lost per intercepted munition may be more desirable. 20 gerans can oversaturate the air defenses of a single target and still inflict damage if only a few hit, whereas a handful of cruise missiles that are 100% intercepted is a waste of money. >>65126376Russia was getting fucking hosed for Shaheds by Iran, it's almost unbelievable. That said, I guess it's only fair considering Russia has done the same if not outright scammed its turd world partners.
>>65120361It's just another layer of contested airspace, fucking hell. This shit isn't complicated.
>>65127590>the obly thing worth discussing is ballistic missilesyesand reality is that we have chronically under-invested in ABM defences (as with everything else defence) and all this cope about drones is either 1) governments trying to cover up their mismanagement, or 2) the media being the media, i.e. reposting poorly-understood soundbites>if anti-drone defenses are cheap and widespread while anti-ballistic-missile defenses are expensive and in chronically short supply then that still works out in favor of ballistic missilesas compared to drones for the strike mission? I absolutely agreethe Pk for drones that OP posted is off by about an order of magnitude, they're really not as cost-effective as is made out by, again, govts and media
>>65120361>drones are not that good actuallyhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0cIOMVBSbUhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCi5d4L0cQ8
>>65128544>I watched it on Youtube, it must be true
it's just a psychological thing
>>65128566Basically yeah. Drones are great propaganda weapons, regardless of their limited real effectiveness.
>>65128568Having a built-in camera Does make recording propaganda rather easy.
