Wow. There's an industry in massive need of disruption. I'm thinking a mid-range android phone + some servos + software would do the trick. Let's say one year's dev for a reasonable engineer, so $100k + $300 in parts. Make a 1-Iraq-war-day's worth, and you'd have the unit price down to hundreds of dollars, not tens of thousands.
A mark 84 bomb, one of the largest conventional munitions in frequent use, costs about 3k a piece. The mark 84's smaller cousins are cheaper. JDAM kits costs about 27k a piece. How am I making things up?
hollerith|11 years ago
(La Wik says the US Air Force is currently paying $27,000 per tail kit.)
demallien|11 years ago
samplonius|11 years ago
mendort|11 years ago
hollerith|11 years ago
A 500-pound dumb bomb consists of about 250 pounds of steel and 250 pounds of high explosive. Plus a fuze.
When manufactured in large quantities, $3000 in 2014 dollars seems like a reasonable cost.
(Most of the ones in the US Air Force's inventory were manufactured decades ago.)