Russia has amassed its An-2 fleet in Dubrovka to counter this threat. Patriots cost $1B per battery and $3M per missile. The An-2’s. Which will look like oncoming attack helicopters, cost about $1,500 each. Fill the An-2’ with explosives and fly them remotely, and the Patriot operators have an interesting choice to make.
and the Patriot operators have an interesting choice to make.
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especially when they start betting on which system will take out the lumbering flying junk: S-300s, Javelins, Viktors, Avenger, NASAMS, Gepharts, or some guy with a AK.
“ Russia has amassed its An-2 fleet in Dubrovka to counter this threat. Patriots cost $1B per battery and $3M per missile. The An-2’s. Which will look like oncoming attack helicopters, cost about $1,500 each. Fill the An-2’ with explosives and fly them remotely, and the Patriot operators have an interesting choice to make.”
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Yep, 3 MILLION PER MISSILE. And there’s not an unlimited supply of these in stock.
Visualizing US aid to Ukraine. Each dot represents $100,000 OF US TAXPAYERS’ MONEY. Pretty mind blowing!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxInYNbEOKI
“The An-2’s. Which will look like oncoming attack helicopters, cost about $1,500 each.”
That was my first thought. The Russians aren’t idiots and they’re not ‘fighting the last war’. They’ve already figured out how to overwhelm our gold-plated air-defense missiles...simply build the cheapest drone-type vehicles/missiles and send a barrage of them, and it will be another 3 years before the West can replace them, considering all of the regulations put on US contractors (such is bi-annual Drag Queen shows).
By the way, Israel had to deal with this same problem with Palestinian rockets hammering them, so they developed very cheap artillery for their Iron Dome. Zelensky DESPERATELY wants that system, but Israel isn’t interested in exporting it to a bunch of arms merchants.