You just spent over $1 Billion Dollars: As a gamer and hobbyist you are probably wishing and wanting more; more ships, more aircraft and more munitions. It is worth mentioning that you probably just expended a significant percentage of the US stockpile of certain guided munitions in this scenario. Those munitions aren’t inexpensive. Additionally, the replacement cost of ships and aircraft is staggeringly expensive. Consider the cost of simply providing fuel, food, payroll, repair parts and miscellaneous operating expenses for the ships and air units in the scenario, and then consider the replacement acquisition cost of a few items that you probably shot off like machine gun bullets:
· AGM-114 Hellfire: $ 100K each
· RGM/UGM-109E Tomahawk (TLAM Block IV): $ 1.6 million each
· Mk 48 ADCAP CBASS Torpedo: $ 3.5 million each
· AGM-86C Conventional ALCM: $ 1.9 million each
· AGM-158A JASSM: $ 1.0 million each
· AGM-84K SLAM-ER: $ 500K each
· RGM-84G Harpoon: $ 2.0 million each
· RIM-162 Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile(ESSM): $ 800K each
· AIM-120D AMRAAM: $ 1.8 million each
· GBU-32/JDAM Kit for Dumb Bomb: $ 25K each
· Mark 83 Dumb Bomb: $ 3K each
And here are some recent (2013) all inclusive costs per hour of flight time:
· B-52 Stratofortress: $ 69,708 per hour
· B-2 Spirit: $ 169,313 per hour
· MV-22 Osprey: $ 83,256 per hour
· MC-130H Combat Talon II: $ 32,752 per hour
· RQ-4B Global Hawk: $ 49,089 per hour
That F-35B (which costs $157 million dollars each) that is carrying “only” four AIM-120D’s is about to launch $7.2 million dollars in munitions per sortie.
The average U.S. taxpayer, according to Forbes, will provide about $355,000 over a 40 year work career, or about enough money to fund two hours of B-2 flight time. So, did you really mean to launch four TLAM’s against that 23mm anti-aircraft gun that was just annoying you? To complete the exercise, Rosoboronexport will purportedly sell you that modern ZU-23-2 AAA with ammo for about $25K.