this post was submitted on 09 Mar 2024
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Don't take my word for it but my understanding is that your average FPV drone is much more rudimentary than a camera drone like Mavic. It's basically just a battery, 4 motors, a camera, antenna and some flight controller chip. There's no GPS or return to home feature as far as I know. I don't think many of these are even able to hover on their own but require constant input from the pilot.
I don't know if that's true or not -- at least some of them definitely do, but maybe some don't -- but those capabilities are cheap enough that they can afford to have them there if it's what it takes to make the drone work in the presence of electronic warfare. A dumb artillery shell in the US is, from what I can dig up, about $800. The DJI drones are rather cheaper than that.
To put it another way:
https://www.faac.com/blog/2018/01/28/killer-instinct-how-many-soldiers-actually-fired-their-weapons-in-past-wars-how-has-simulation-other-training-helped/
https://thegunzone.com/how-much-does-5-56-nato-ammo-cost/
By comparison, the drone is probably pretty cost-effective. If having a GPS chip is important to make it usable, cost isn't going to be a barrier.
Dumb artillery shells are more 6000-8000 usd in the West.
googles
https://twitter.com/nicholadrummond/status/1580582881767718913?lang=en
That's what it costs in Russia and North Korea. In the EU the costs are as I cited. And there are no production capacities at the volume required. China stopped exporting the specific type of cotton used for cordite production. Nitric acid is expensive and hard to get.
You can print billions of banknotes easily. You cant do that with millions of shells.
russia and nk uses 152mm, not 155mm
I am aware. The 3 mm calibre difference has no impact on fabrication costs.
the difference is in different cost of workforce, different manufacturing standards, different materials, different fill, different fuze (easily 1/3 of cost),
In terms of bucks per kill the West is doing an order of magnitude worse.
not when there's a shortage
GLSDB is cheaper than regular GMLRS rocket. ramjet 155mm is prototype. there's another obscure 155mm ammunition called vulcano that basically packs smaller HE sabot round in 155mm, trading off payload for range, ramjet takes it even further