https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/jet-fighter-costs-a-comple...
In 20 years they'll manufacture just one plane, and it'll cost a trillion dollars, if current trends continue to hold.
Also it'll the weight of an aircraft carrier.
In 20 years they'll manufacture just one plane, and it'll cost a trillion dollars, if current trends continue to hold.
Also it'll the weight of an aircraft carrier.
Much was made of the fact that, once modern western equipment arrives in UK, it will wipe the floor with soviet union relics that serve in the Russian army. Instead, it has hardly made a difference.
The difference in price, even of simple non-mobile artillery pieces, is huge. Because they are so expensive, we cannot field as much equipment, and we've been telling ourselves that our modern equipment is worth multiple unit of the other side. Now I am starting to think we've just been deluding ourselves, and in reality we are just outgunned and the military complex is a huge graft.
Anyway, assuming it was Ukraine, then, yes, the western equipment made a lot of difference. In the first months of the war it was the Javelins, and the NLAWs. Then it was the HIMARS. Then the anti-air defenses, like the Patriot. All these things absolutely made a difference.
The problem is that there was not more of those. But that was by design. You could say that not in a thousand years would Putin actually use nukes. But I bet you said he would not invade Ukraine until the day he did.
Right now Ukraine is still standing, and Putin did not use nukes. It could be better, but it could be worse, much worse.
It's not a genocidal war of annihilation. It's not WW2 redux. It's not Holodomor 2.0. I do not think everybody realises how low the stakes of this conflict really are.
There are caveats, like: a tank that hits a mine is going to be disabled one way or another, and a disabled tank won't survive too long if it's anywhere near the front.
The problem isn't the quantity of equipment, it's the quantity of munitions. For example, Ukraine has only 30 or so HIMARS units but that's more than enough to fully consume every GMLRS munition we can provide them.
It's looking a bit like the struggle between armoured knights and guns. The place where the rubber really meets the road on this, the Big Problem, is surface navy: what's the lifespan of a floating metal castle in the age of hypersonic missiles?
Nobody wants to talk about that.