Images of weapons before they obliterate targets | Hacker News Reader

Images of weapons before they obliterate targets

thedrive.com

57 pointsgraderjs21 comments

Amazing to add up the cost of these pictures. A single Tomahawk missile alone is between $1,537,645 and $1.87M[0].

[0] – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomahawk_(missile)

When you account for all the other fixed and variables costs of the US Army, including weapon tests, I wonder what is the total cost of actually destroying a real world target. Must be easily above 50 M$.

Precision weapons are a bargain.

With B-17 level bombing in WW2, you're looking at dropping 100 - 1,000 iron bombs to maybe accomplish the same thing.

Note the Stuka was a precision bomber, but required air superiority and good weather.

To be fair, that's one of the most expensive weapons shown here. Griffin, the JDAMs and GBUs, Hellfire, and APKWS are all much cheaper than that. (Source: worked for 10 years in acquisition for many of these weapons)

I was wondering how the financials could possibly work, that clarifies. Even the DOD can't afford to be slinging thousands upon thousands of Tomahawks about, the numbers just don't work.

That's why the DDG-1000 guns don't have the ammunition to shoot - the plans were for it to cost in the Excalibur ballpark while the actual price is half the Tomahawk - $800K, so they are thinking about taking the guns completely off the ships.

https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/navy-league...

https://www.thedrive.com/content-b/message-editor%2F16161793...

Wow, I think I know this one. I was on that barge or one identical to it back when I was a kid. I still remember seeing the telemetry for one of those three antennas drop out when the bomb severed the cable as it punched through the deck. There wasn't any explosives as the test was just to measure the accuracy of the bomb. Fun fact, the GPS receivers and the telemetry were all contained in a pelican case on the far side of the barge right behind where the bomb is in the image in a black wooden cabinet with a board screwed in place to keep it from falling out while towing the barge into position. When the pelican case was being loaded onto the barge was the moment it was discovered that the power switch to turn it on was on the inside of the pelican case so at the start of the test someone had to unscrew the cabinet and pull it out to open it up and turn it on.

The hellfire has to be one of the most versatile munitions ever. I’ve seen it on planes, helicopters, trucks, and drones.

For a moment I thought one of those pictures showed someone's last breath of life before an AGM-86C plowed into them:

https://www.thedrive.com/content-b/message-editor%2F16161914...

But I guess it's just a test dummy? Found the same photo here:

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/31182/the-agm-86c-crui...

Somewhat related headline:

“Man who donated his mother's body to an Arizona center for Alzheimer's research discovers it was sold on to the US Military for $6,000, strapped to a chair and blown up in 'blast test'”

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7303455/Man-donated...

How were these images obtained? Are they all from missile testing sites, using dummy vehicles? Or are some of them from actual battle?

The vast majority are very obviously test sites. Also it's unlikely you'd have a high speed camera extremely close to an enemy target about to be blown up. So any of the more clear photos are obviously testing sites.

Not all targets are on proving ranges dummies:

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1997-dec-12-mn-63322...

The article does not agree with your statement. You either intended to link a different article or you're trying to mislead.

Hint... it didn’t actually “stray”. The computer center was actually a fluorescence detector on Dugway Proving Grounds, they just assumed it would make a good target.

This may go against the spirit of hn but I gotta say I find these photos offensive.

Why?

They are offensive munitions, yes.

Dont click without adblock enabled - the amount of ads is staggering

Nice little video from 2018 of various tests at China Lake

https://youtu.be/mWiSTeYUFt8

From the comments on the article

To the targets, these are Blackswan events.

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