If you’re a regular watcher of The Infographics
Show, then you probably already know a thing or two about military hardware. But, do you know how much it actually costs
to use some of these weapons? I’ll give you a hint - it’s a lot. Military spending is constantly under scrutiny,
and amid slashed budgets and public pressure, militaries are always looking for ways to
cut costs. But finding savings can be hard when the cost
of essential equipment and weapons is so high. Let’s start by taking a look at how much
it costs to use some of the military’s firearms. Militaries use many different types of firearms. A firearm is any rifle, shotgun or handgun
that uses gunpowder as a propellant, but there are other types of guns, such as airguns,
that aren’t technically firearms. Firearms come in many different calibers,
which is a measurement of the diameter of the gun’s barrel and determines the size
of ammunition that can be fired from a particular firearm. Now that we’ve cleared that up, let’s
look at how much it costs to use some of these firearms, or ‘bang-bangs’ as they’re
called in military slang. One of the U.S. Army’s most iconic firearms
is the M16 rifle. The M16 was in service for decades, from Vietnam
until it was replaced by the M4 in the nineteen-nineties. The M16 is a 5.56 x 45mm (five point five-six
by forty-five millimeter) caliber semi-automatic assault rifle. It has a range of up to 3600 meters and is
capable of firing forty to one-hundred rounds per minute. The M16 was replaced by the M4 Carbine in
the 1990s. It’s basically a shortened version of the
M16 - the weapons share 80% of their parts in common and fire the same caliber ammunition
- but because it has a shorter barrel, the M4’s effective range is slightly lower. The guns themselves cost nearly a thousand
dollars each, and ammunition costs more than two-hundred and fifty dollars per thousand-round
case. That may not sound like much, but at twenty-five
cents a shot, that can add up quickly with a weapon that’s capable of firing up to
a hundred rounds a minute! Considering that the M16 and M4 have been
the standard issue firearm for both the U.S. army and navy for decades, it’s safe to
say that the military has spent a small fortune on them over the years. If the cost of using firearms didn’t seem
all that outrageous, just wait until you find out how much it costs to use a heavy machine
gun. The M2 fifty caliber heavy machine gun, or
the “Ma Deuce” as its affectionately known in the military, was developed shortly after
the First World War as an anti-tank weapon. One of the most popular machine guns on the
market, the M2 is currently in use in more than a hundred countries around the world,
and is the primary heavy machine gun of NATO nations. The gun itself costs fourteen thousand dollars,
and a fifteen-hundred round belt of fifty-cal ammunition costs a staggering six-thousand
five-hundred dollars, or six dollars and fifty cents per bullet. The M2 is capable of firing between four-hundred
and fifty and six-hundred rounds per minute, which means it could cost up to three thousand
dollars per minute to operate this machine gun. This may come as a bit of a surprise, but
hand grenades are actually one of the least expensive weapons to use. The U.S. military pays about four dollars
each for M67 hand grenades. The M67, sometimes called the “baseball
grenade”, because it resembles a ball and is thrown by hand, has a fifteen meter injury
radius and a five meter fatality radius. Better hope you have a good arm! Now let’s bring out the big guns - literally. The term “gun” in military contexts always
refers to a piece of mortar or artillery, never to a firearm. Ground-based artillery is a huge expense in
most military budgets. The term “artillery” refers to an entire
class of heavy military weapons built to launch munitions at long ranges. A mortar is a simple, lightweight artillery
gun that can be carried by a man and deployed anywhere. A popular example of a mortar gun is the well-known
RPG-7 anti-tank rocket launcher. The RPG-7 is a muzzle-loaded, shoulder-fire
rocket launcher with a range of nine-hundred and twenty meters. The RPG-7 can shoot a variety of rockets that
can range in cost from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars each. Self-propelled Howitzers are a class of artillery
weapon mounted on a mobile system, such as a tank. Howitzers are characterized by their long
range, due to the fact that the munitions are fired at such a high angle. The Hawkeye is one of the lightest self-propelled
Howitzer guns in use by the U.S. military. The Hawkeye is built into its own armoured
vehicle chassis and takes a crew of three to operate. It has a maximum range of more than eleven
kilometers, and it fires standard NATO one-hundred and five millimeter ammo. One of the key features of the Hawkeye is
its ability to rapid-fire ten to twelve rounds per minute. The fifteen kilogram rounds cost more than
three-hundred dollars each, which means it can cost more than three-thousand dollars
a minute to operate this gun at full capacity. The K9 Thunder is South Korea’s version
of a self-propelled Howitzer. It takes a crew of five to operate, and has
an impressive range of more than thirty kilometers. It can fire a variety of NATO’s one-hundred
and fifty-five millimeter rounds, including the Jammer Rocket-Assisted high-explosive
long-range rounds, which cost a staggering seven-thousand dollars each! If you want to talk big bucks, then we have
to take a look at the cost of some of the ballistic missiles and anti-missile systems
used by militaries around the world. What exactly is a missile? By its simplest definition, a missile is a
guided airborne ranged weapon capable of self-propelled flight. According to The Missile Defence Advocacy
Alliance “part of the flight of longer-range ballistic missiles may occur outside the atmosphere
and involve the reentry of the missile. Missiles that are not ballistic are aerodynamic,
operating in the atmosphere. Aerodynamic missiles include cruise and air-to-air
missiles.” Missiles come in an endless variety of configurations,
from short-range mobile launchers, to huge static installations on land and on ships,
to a variety of aircraft mounted options. With so much public pressure to keep costs
down, today’s military is focused on cutting costs without sacrificing performance. This has led to an explosion of growth in
the small- to mid-range smart weapons sector using “off-the-shelf” materials and readily-available
technology. Although these new smart weapons are cheaper
than traditional cruise missiles - we’ll get to those in a minute - they are still
definitely far from cheap. Take, for example, the Javelin. The Javelin is currently one of the most advanced
man-portable, shoulder-fire anti-tank missiles in the world. It has a range of more than two kilometers,
is capable of destroying any known modern tank, and can even be used to target low-flying
helicopters. It fires the eight-point-four kilogram Tandem
HEAT warhead, at a cost of one-hundred and forty-seven thousand dollars for a single
rocket. At one-hundred and fifteen thousand dollars
each, the Hellfire Rocket is a little easier on the budget, but still far from cheap. The eight kilogram Hellfire is one of the
most widely-used and powerful air-to-ground rockets in the world. The name Hellfire came from the fact that
this fifty kilogram rocket is heli-fired, or launched from a helicopter. The Advanced Precision Kill Weapons System
II rocket was designed to be a smaller version of the traditional seventy millimeter rocket,
and it must be considered a ‘bargain’ by military standards at only twenty-eight
thousand dollars per rocket. The rocket boasts accuracy to within one meter
thanks to its advanced laser-seeking head that can pinpoint a target and adjust the
rocket’s fins mid-flight. Considering what we just heard, the Spike
missile must seem like an absolute steal at only five-thousand dollars a piece. This shoulder-fired anti-tank missile system
is capable of destroying light targets with its three-kilogram projectile. The baguette-sized projectile is equipped
with a smart optical-guidance system that locks on to its target for incredible accuracy. One of the most mysterious anti-tank guided
missiles out there is the Israeli Nimrod missile. No details of its development or combat history
are available, but we do know that it has a twenty-six kilometer range. Even its cost is a closely guarded secret,
but experts estimate it’s in the hundred-thousand dollar range. The U.S. Military still has a number of the
traditional long-range, large-caliber ballistic “cruise” missiles deployed, and the cost
of using these things is truly mind blowing. The Tomahawk BGM-109 missile is one of the
best-known and most combat-tested cruise missiles out there. This versatile medium- to long-range subsonic
cruise missile can be launched from the ground, from a ship or submarine, or from aircraft. A single Tomahawk missile costs one-and-a-half
million dollars - but that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to missiles. The U.S. military employs a three-layer anti-ballistic
missile defence system to protect themselves from enemy missile attacks. The Patriot PAC-3 missile is the U.S. military’s
last line of defence against a ballistic missile attack. If a missile somehow makes it through the
first two layers of the U.S.’s three-layer defence system, the short-range Patriot mobile
anti-missile system is supposed to take it out. The Patriot comes as a self-contained unit
at an initial cost of forty-five million dollars. The launcher is mounted on a two-axle trailer
with its own power plant and fuel supply. It has a forty kilometer range and it’s
capable of reaching twenty kilometers in altitude. The Patriot takes thirty minutes to prepare
its sixteen missiles to fire, and fully replacing all sixteen missiles costs more than four
million dollars. The THAAD missile is another important component
of the U.S.’s anti-missile defence system. THAAD stands for Theatre High Altitude Area
Defence, and it is a longer-range anti-ballistic missile system meant to destroy enemy missiles
as they reenter the atmosphere. THAAD missiles have a range of one-hundred
and fifty to two-hundred kilometers. The launchers are mounted on heavy high mobility
trucks, each capable of carrying eight missiles at a time. Fully reloading a single launcher vehicle
costs upwards of twelve million dollars! Of course, we saved the most impressive for
last. The Trident II is by far the most expensive
weapon to use, and the U.S. military has hundreds of them! The Trident is a submarine-launched intercontinental
ballistic missile with a mind-blowing range of nearly eight thousand kilometers. The U.S. currently deploys fourteen submarines,
each carrying twenty-four of these missiles. At a staggering cost of thirty-million dollars
each, that means there are more than ten-billion dollars worth of missiles deployed in the
ocean as we speak! Let’s hope we don’t need to replace any
of those any time soon… Now that we know how much it costs to fire
some of the army, navy and air force’s most impressive weapons, let’s take a look at
how much it costs to run the planes, ships and ground equipment that carry all of these
weapons. The F35 fighter jet gets a lot of attention
for it’s outrageous sticker price of 80 to 115 million dollars, but the operating
costs are truly staggering - it costs forty-four thousand dollars an hour to fly an F-35 jet
- over its eight-thousand hour lifespan, that adds up to more than three-hundred and fifty
million dollars in total lifetime flying costs. Aircraft carriers are a signature of the U.S.’s
military might, and they are also one of the most expensive lines in their defence budget. Not only are the aircraft carriers themselves
incredibly expensive - think fifteen billion dollars for a single one of the new Ford-class
carriers currently being built - but it costs around six and a half million dollars a day
to run a carrier strike group. A strike group includes the carrier itself,
the warships and submarines that escort it, the aircraft on board, and the more than six
thousand crew needed to man the strike group. On a busy day, the U.S. military might employ
four of these strike groups at one time, at a daily cost of more than twenty-five million
dollars! Although weapons technology is becoming cheaper,
the cost of using some of the military’s top weapons is still staggeringly high. Hopefully that means militaries will think
twice about using some of these weapons! So, what are your thoughts on how much it
costs to use weapons? Were you surprised by the cost of any weapons
in particular? Be sure and let us know your thoughts in the
comment! If you thought this video was interesting,
be sure and check out some of our other enlightening military videos, like this one titled “USA
vs. IRAN: Who Would Win”, or perhaps you might find this one interesting. As always, thanks for watching, and don’t
forget to like, share and subscribe! See you next time.
