Vulcan Cannon Smashes Drones in Iraq
Dark Footage
I don't particularly care for the narrator's breathless delivery, although I do wonder how he manages to keep it up, video after video. However, he does give us some good footage of CRAM's (Counter-Rockets, Artillery and Mortars) in operation. It's hard to get a sense of how big these things are from the video. This picture fixes that.
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| Centurian C-RAM |
Problem is the Centurian is shooting zillions of 20 mm bullets and those bullets aren't cheap. According to John Hoh on Quora, each 20 mm shell costs $27. Since this gun fires 75 rounds per second, a full second of firing costs like two grand. You can buy a drone with enough carrying capacity to carry a small bomb for about one thousand dollars. The cost of the fuel oil and fertilizer necessary to make the bomb is negligible, and jihadists work for free, so turning a drone into a bomb costs almost nothing.
C-RAM is pretty effective, I don't think any of those bursts of fire in the video lasted a full second, so the cost of shooting down a bomb laden drone is about the same as the cost of the drone. However, that doesn't include the cost of the weapon system, or the cost of operating it on the other side of the world where everything, including the ammunition has to be shipped in.
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| High Speed Intaglio Printing Press |
US soldiers are paid something like $40K a year. However, it costs about one million dollars a year to have a soldier in the combat zone. Using the same multiple of 25 (one million divided by 40 thousand), I'm guessing it is costing us in the neighborhood of $25,000 to shoot down a drone. I would say that at that rate with a zillion cheap drones the ragheads could force us into bankruptcy. Well, they could if we were spending real money, but ever since the mint got that tune-up on their printing presses, we can print another zillion dollars in the time it takes you to sneeze.
2 comments:
Chuck: Printing actual paper money is so passé. All it takes now is the press of a key and Joe's Corner Bank and Bait Shop has another instant ten mill to lend out at 2.07%. So, buying another ship-load of 20 mm rounds at $27 apiece is no big deal. To certain people, that is.
I remember touring a Coast Guard Cutter in San Francisco one time and being shown their Phalanx Close-In Weapons System (CIWS, aka Sea-Whiz), the naval equivalent of the Centurion. While the cannon is impressive, the automation is what really sets this guy apart. As shown in your video, you can be standing around on the deck picking your nose and this thing will acquire and shoot down an incoming bad guy with zero help from you. The CIWS could have sat there silent and immobile for days and then suddenly swing around and erupt in a buzz of cannon fire. It's all over in seconds.
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