wolit@mhuxd.att.com (Jan I Wolitzky) (01/25/91)
From: wolit@mhuxd.att.com (Jan I Wolitzky)
I've heard figures of around $700K for the price of a single Patriot
missile. Does anyone know how much Saddam paid for the 50's-era
Scuds? I would imagine they were fairly cheap. Given that he's
been destroying two of the Patriots with each of his Scuds, his
tactic might be very cost-effective. Not to mention that he's
using missiles that have been widely acknowledged to have little
other military utility to disarm our primary ground-based
air-defense capability. If Iraqi planes start showing up over
U.S. forces later in the war, we might regret the great "success"
that the Patriots have had against missiles that seem capable of
little damage to military targets.
--
Jan Wolitzky, AT&T Bell Labs, Murray Hill, NJ; 908 582-2998
att!mhuxd!wolit or jan.wolitzky@att.com
(Affiliation given for identification purposes only)
Si fractum non sit, noli id reficere.phil@brahms.AMD.COM (Phil Ngai) (01/27/91)
From: phil@brahms.AMD.COM (Phil Ngai) In article <1991Jan25.033140.12146@cbnews.att.com> wolit@mhuxd.att.com (Jan I Wolitzky) writes: | | |From: wolit@mhuxd.att.com (Jan I Wolitzky) |I've heard figures of around $700K for the price of a single Patriot |missile. Does anyone know how much Saddam paid for the 50's-era |Scuds? I would imagine they were fairly cheap. Given that he's |been destroying two of the Patriots with each of his Scuds, his |tactic might be very cost-effective. So what? Cost-effectiveness is not necessarily important. It's not like he starts with $500 million of arms and we start with $500 million of arms and the guy who runs out first loses. I'm not saying cost-effectiveness is totally unimportant, but we certainly don't have to maintain parity to achieve our goals. A more interesting question is how many SCUDs and Patriots are left and how fast can Raytheon make more Patriots? I expect there won't be too many new SCUDs in Iraq's hands. -- When someone drinks and drives and hurts someone, the abuser is blamed. When someone drinks and handles a gun and hurts someone, the media calls for a gun ban.