The navy has had it’s own fairly effective anti-air missiles in the RIM series for a while, but there’s been a huge push to standardize around VLS and this lets them achieve that and cover a big defensive gap at the same time. As far as I am aware no RIM missile is VLS compatible (meaning they require their own dedicated launchers with space for same), whereas VLS PAC-3 MSE/CRI (1 and 4 missiles per cell, respectively) can just be dropped in - all you need to do is plug it into your Aegis bus and you’re set.
I don’t know how effective CRI is against the various hypersonic missiles, but if it indeed is effective then it’s roughly 1:1 at about USD ~$3 million per Iskander missile - so economically it’s viable for the US (no healthcare go brr) to keep up there.
Production-wise, it’s… not really possible to know. If next year LM hits it’s production target of 2000 PAC-3 MSE without compromising PAC-3 CRI production then… maybe…? Unfortunately neither China nor Russia are as transparent with their military production capacity as the US is, and both countries have a proven history of sometimes just making up those same numbers so losers like me can’t have fun.
If we go with the official statistics, Russia has a capacity of 1200 9M723 (Iskander) a year, and china has a capacity of 17,000 DF-17, 3000 YJ-21, 800 DF-ZF… (and the costs for the chinese missiles are just guesswork. We don’t even know if the DF-ZF or DF-17 are entirely real due to lack of info, let alone their unit cost) so… Yeah. Maybe?
(I’m guessing here, this is not financial advice, etc:) It’s probably technically maintainable, but it would be stupid. More likely will be the investment into low-cost interceptors, lasers, CIWS and expansion of high-simultanious-target combat management systems to go with them with an emphasis on identification, so militaries can be less flamboyant with the high cost missiles.
The navy has had it’s own fairly effective anti-air missiles in the RIM series for a while, but there’s been a huge push to standardize around VLS and this lets them achieve that and cover a big defensive gap at the same time. As far as I am aware no RIM missile is VLS compatible (meaning they require their own dedicated launchers with space for same), whereas VLS PAC-3 MSE/CRI (1 and 4 missiles per cell, respectively) can just be dropped in - all you need to do is plug it into your Aegis bus and you’re set.
I don’t know how effective CRI is against the various hypersonic missiles, but if it indeed is effective then it’s roughly 1:1 at about USD ~$3 million per Iskander missile - so economically it’s viable for the US (no healthcare go brr) to keep up there.
Production-wise, it’s… not really possible to know. If next year LM hits it’s production target of 2000 PAC-3 MSE without compromising PAC-3 CRI production then… maybe…? Unfortunately neither China nor Russia are as transparent with their military production capacity as the US is, and both countries have a proven history of sometimes just making up those same numbers so losers like me can’t have fun.
If we go with the official statistics, Russia has a capacity of 1200 9M723 (Iskander) a year, and china has a capacity of 17,000 DF-17, 3000 YJ-21, 800 DF-ZF… (and the costs for the chinese missiles are just guesswork. We don’t even know if the DF-ZF or DF-17 are entirely real due to lack of info, let alone their unit cost) so… Yeah. Maybe?
(I’m guessing here, this is not financial advice, etc:) It’s probably technically maintainable, but it would be stupid. More likely will be the investment into low-cost interceptors, lasers, CIWS and expansion of high-simultanious-target combat management systems to go with them with an emphasis on identification, so militaries can be less flamboyant with the high cost missiles.
TY for the deets!
yeah we’re gonna need non-patriot options soon, either way, even if they’re effective it’s a shit show on the exchange rate…