The US military reports the cost of individual airframes as “lifetime cost to operate” (it’s required to by law) — this includes things like crewing, maintenance, and fuel over a 30-50 year scheduled lifetime, as well as development costs.
Cost of procurement is much lower. So, it doesn’t cost $200 million to replace those platforms. It’s certainly not cheap, just nowhere near that much.
Eh, he was unambiguously wrong though? Not that it is forbidden to be wrong, mistakes happen.
Assume a new airframe replacement was hypothetically bought tomorrow, to take the destroyed airframe’s place. That makes it very clear that the cost sustained by the US is not “lifetime cost to operate”.
From a strategic view of the war as a whole, $200 million is not a lot. If it keeps Iran from having US prisoners of war.
If the US was presented up front with an option of a) pay $200 million or b) give Iran 2 US prisoners of war, then there is zero doubt that the US would gladly take the deal. Politically, it is a no-brainer choice.
Material losses include two C-130 planes and two Little Bird helicopters abandoned on ground.
I don’t know if they had human casualties, but it seems they spent about 200 million dollars to rescue the pilots.
Pretty expensive.
The US military reports the cost of individual airframes as “lifetime cost to operate” (it’s required to by law) — this includes things like crewing, maintenance, and fuel over a 30-50 year scheduled lifetime, as well as development costs.
Cost of procurement is much lower. So, it doesn’t cost $200 million to replace those platforms. It’s certainly not cheap, just nowhere near that much.
Thanks, I didn’t know that and accidentally provided an over-estimate.
It’s not like you were wrong; it’s just that some context can help.
Eh, he was unambiguously wrong though? Not that it is forbidden to be wrong, mistakes happen.
Assume a new airframe replacement was hypothetically bought tomorrow, to take the destroyed airframe’s place. That makes it very clear that the cost sustained by the US is not “lifetime cost to operate”.
From a strategic view of the war as a whole, $200 million is not a lot. If it keeps Iran from having US prisoners of war.
If the US was presented up front with an option of a) pay $200 million or b) give Iran 2 US prisoners of war, then there is zero doubt that the US would gladly take the deal. Politically, it is a no-brainer choice.