Guest Guest Posted March 10, 2008 Share Posted March 10, 2008 deleted per user request 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dima Posted March 10, 2008 Share Posted March 10, 2008 Well, the cost of a tank consists in part by the cost of components. So what should be in the cost of components? Should labor to make, say, a laser sensor be included? If not, then it all comes down to the cost of materials. What's the cost of steel, rubber, leather seat fabric these days? Perhaps better comparison would be to go like this. How much would M1 cost if it was manufactured in Russia? How much T-90 would cost if it was manufactured in USA? That can give better idea of how much extra labor overhead is involved 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kipanderson Posted March 10, 2008 Share Posted March 10, 2008 Adam , hi, This is an extremely difficult call to make… the main manufacturer of say tanks… may be able to separate labour cost and materials/supplies but of course his suppliers all have a big chunk of labour costs in the prices they charge… and so on… I have done a lot of work on defence costs… and the “real cost” of defence equipment. This will not answer your question… but this is the approach I have taken. The real cost to anything is the “highest valued alternative forgone”. A good way to look at it is what percentage of real GDP a batch of say 5000 latest model tanks would cost compared to the percentage of GDP such a number of tanks would cost in say Russia. Or more interestingly what a batch of 5000 M1SEPs would cost as a percentage of GDP compared to what a batch of 5000 Shermans cost as a percentage of GDP in WWII. I will save you the full rant on the subject but I can tell you that when you compare the cost of say T90s and M1s in terms of the percentage of GDP to the US and Russia a batch of 1000 would cost less for the US because their economy is so much larger. However… if you compare the cost of a T90 to the cost of a M1 relative to real wages they are roughly the same. The real output per head in Russia is currently about 30% of the figure for the US… GDP at parity purchasing power… and the cost of a T90 is also close to 30% of the figure for an M1. Consider that Russia’s population is about 140 million, call the US figure 300 million…. Then you can say that 1400 T90s would cost Russia about the same as 3000 M1s would cost the US as a percentage of their respective GDPs. BTW… the real cost of land warfare military equipment today is less than it was in WWII. Aircraft on the other hand do cost more real terms today than they did in WWII. All good fun and interesting stuff, All the best, Kip. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeyD Posted March 10, 2008 Share Posted March 10, 2008 This cost breakdown could've probably been made alot easier back in the 70s. Now when you discount 'labor costs' you've got include some fat-cat CEO's $150 million 'golden parachute' and dozens of congressional lobbyists on permanent retainer at $500 per hour keeping the project alive... as well as the line worker's wages. It takes some very creative accounting to inflate the pricetag of a single 8x8 Sryker MGS to $5-6 million dollars. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SgtMuhammed Posted March 10, 2008 Share Posted March 10, 2008 Originally posted by MikeyD: It takes some very creative accounting to inflate the pricetag of a single 8x8 Sryker MGS to $5-6 million dollars. Not really. It just takes a company wanting to make back the R&D dollars it spent to make the thing before the Army decides to kill the project. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flamingknives Posted March 10, 2008 Share Posted March 10, 2008 What would a pure materials cost tell you? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bigduke6 Posted March 10, 2008 Share Posted March 10, 2008 Marx would say that labor is the only thing that creates value, as without it all you have is useless unprocessed raw materials. So by that logic, the price of everything is the same once you deduct the value of labor: it's all worthless. Don't thank me, it was Karl that thought that one up. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flamingknives Posted March 10, 2008 Share Posted March 10, 2008 That's true. Without labour costs being taken into account, you'd be costing up: A few hundred tonnes of iron ore A few hundred tonnes of coal or similar. Some bauxite, perhaps Sand Crude oil, several hundred metres below ground Some rare earth metals Silver, gold, copper ore. A few other minerals And what does that tell you? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Guest Posted March 10, 2008 Share Posted March 10, 2008 deleted per user request 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rokossovski Posted March 11, 2008 Share Posted March 11, 2008 Originally posted by kipanderson: BTW… the real cost of land warfare military equipment today is less than it was in WWII. Aircraft on the other hand do cost more real terms today than they did in WWII. Counterintuitive, but certainly plausible. I'd be interested in further comment on this idea if any is on offer . . . 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flamingknives Posted March 11, 2008 Share Posted March 11, 2008 A huge amount of the value of the M1 is due to the labour involved. If you gave the M1's resources to the Russians, for example, to build an M1, you wouldn't get an M1. As for wars, I'm not convinced, off-hand, that wages would drop. Any evidence? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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