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Comment by ahi

16 days ago

Ukraine goes through hundreds if not thousands of drones a day. Most are DIY or consumer grade at <$500 including warhead. Recent comments from DoD suggest their plan for defending Taiwan is hundreds of thousands of drones taking out any invasion fleet. At defense contractor prices that's a bitter pill to swallow even for the Pentagon. The M982 Excalibur (GPS/INS guided artillery shell) is ~$100k per boom. I largely agree a domestic supply chain for this stuff is important, even if Stefanik is ham fisted as always.

FWIW, we might be at peak drone for warfare anyway. At least vehicle based countermeasures are pretty obvious and will be put in place soon, although that won't be cheap either.