this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2026
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[–] Bustedknuckles@lemmy.world 17 points 1 day ago (2 children)

At 30 million a pop, that's almost a Billion already. What a waste

[–] Waraugh@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

Are you getting your figure from an updated source? The article says:

“The Air Force announced its final five-year purchasing contract forReapers in 2020, and manufacturer General Atomics closed the production line last year after building 575 of them. The final lot cost about $16 million each when purchased in a batch of four, according to C. Mark Brinkley, a General Atomics spokesman.”

[–] Bustedknuckles@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago

I had heard anywhere from 15-50 depending on load out, $30M is from Ars,

"military’s current reliance on drones and crewed aircraft, each costing more than $30 million,"

I might've been wrong, of course. Million here, million there, soon you're talking about real money

[–] somethingsnappy@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago

Ok, $480,000,000

[–] Akh@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yep, the us has demonstrated to the world how combat ineffective they are against a remotely developed country

[–] Bustedknuckles@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Our issue is that we have lots of bombs and no stomach at all for boots on the ground. (The last part is a good thing in my book). Hard to be effective with our politics and MIC

[–] Omgpwnies@lemmy.world 2 points 14 hours ago

Boots on the ground is worthless without air superiority, your positions will just get bombed/shelled constantly. The US has been unable to achieve that without assistance like it had in Iraq.

Small drones just make it that much harder since they can evade conventional anti-air defenses.