Kat Tsun
I really should change my personal text
- Joined
- 16 June 2013
- Messages
- 1,126
- Reaction score
- 1,258
How do you have figures about something that doesn't exist? No one has purchased GLSDB, therefore it has no recorded cost...
Comparing the non-existent GLSDB and the M982 is disingenuous. One doesn't exist and the other has a third the range (150 vs 50 km), so it's apples to oranges in two ways. GLSDB would have a range comparable to the Navy's aborted LRLAP, which costs around $1 million FY2016 which are the latest figures, but I think GLSDB would have cost less than the near "Tomahawk missile" costs of the 100 nmi ranged CLGP.
Anyway, this thread is about Starstreak. If you have to pick between making laser guided 25mm shells or slapping Starstreaks on the side of a vehicle, you'll choose the Starstreak if you're sensible and of sound mind that is motivated by combat performance. People have different motivations, and different competencies, so they choose different things. For the most part, CLGPs are compromised in unit cost and engagement cost compared to maneuvering missiles.
Starstreak's darts are around 20-25mm diameter and the missile is from the 1980's. However, there's a reason no one was rushing to get 35mm, subcaliber, laser guided HTK shells into a Gepard when they could just put Stingers on the sides at the time. It isn't because Germany couldn't do this. It's because CLGPs are typically the worse option.
The U.S. military vacillates between generally cogent decisions (Excalibur, Copperhead, PGK) that fit the peculiarities of the CLGP to decisions that make people question the motivations of the acquisitions officers (ALaMO, LRLAP, SLRC).
There seems to be the idea that CLGPs are cheaper than rockets, which sort of meanders through the E-Ring every few years, and this might be because people are comparing things like TOW and Copperhead or Excalibur with Javelin, or someone is suggesting a 50 gram explosive warhead is comparable to a 5,000 gram warhead against small craft, or whatever. This filters through to the press and makes ordinary laymen think the same. It's a bit bizarre. CLGPs typically require multiple engagements per attack, not because they don't hit, but because their explosive masses are so much smaller than a rocket.
Rockets carry bigger warheads which means more killing. Shells carry smaller warheads which means less killing.
Thinking this way tends to result in the belief of the superiority of the MRL to the cannon writ large, which is probably true, but there aren't enough MRLs in anyone's inventory to fully displace the cannon and the minimum range issues remain. In a world with infinite resources and instant timescales, I guess large caliber MRLs (220-300mm) and 120mm mortars would be the only pieces of the artillery park since they maximize the ability to kill the enemy.
Obviously you work with what you have, though. CLGPs are a good way to give precision guidance to a howitzer, one that would otherwise require two or three minutes to fire a dozen shells when it can fire two shells at the same target in 30 seconds for the same price and similar effectiveness instead.
They aren't good for engaging small targets in general though. They tend to cost as much per engagement as dumb rounds, you're just taking less time, expressed by fewer shells, to kill the target. You're still paying the same amount of money.
Nuclear weapons are the only time this shifts in favor of the attacker, I think. Even a small thermonuclear weapon can destroy much more value for money than the $2-4 million it nominally costs.
Last edited:
