For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations — Richard P. Feynman.

Followers of this column know I’ve long taken exception to our development of long-range hypersonic missiles.

Russia discovered these devices were not all they were touted to be the hard way when, on May 16, 2023, Ukrainian defenders said they shot down six Russian Kinzhal hypersonic missiles, which cost about $10M each. Making expensive devices doesn’t serve any purpose if they prove ineffective.

Even if they work correctly, it makes little economic sense for the USG to make them, as the added distances they travel more than offset the number our government can buy. Simply put, the Demand Curve for Air-to-Surface missiles is very flat. We were able to buy one hypersonic AGM-183A (ARRW), but over the 20 years ending at the end of 2016, we purchased nearly 34,000 supersonic AGM-114s. The value of the single ARRW was $42M; Hellfires totaled over $5B.

I remember watching the coverage of the first Gulf War when the F-117A I had worked on for so long dropped glide bombs with incredible precision. Years later, I wondered if I could quantify them along with missiles. I found that, not incidentally, those devices are dramatically cheaper than their powered counterparts.

Below, at left, in the Green Value Space, a study I did in 2016 discovered that for any given range (in km) and momentum (MV in kgkm/h), glide bombs cost 1/8 of comparable powered missiles over 20 years.

On the chart’s Red Demand Plane, the Upper Demand Frontier depicts the limiting Price Barrier that air-to-surface devices faced over the period. One might think this line would run on forever, but history shows that markets have saturation barriers, another boundary called the Outer Demand Frontier.

Observe that all devices here are projectiles sent toward the enemy. One of the cheapest types of these in the USG inventory is the NATO 5.56 bullet. While estimates vary, the approximations converge on the government having some 10B of these in our stockpiles, which sell for about $0.39 each (https://blackbasin.com/ammo-prices/5-56-nato/). We drew the Outer Demand Frontier when we connected that ordered pair to the rightmost point on the Upper Demand Frontier.

It’s helpful to know that in the timeframe studied (almost a decade ago), the Glide Bombs did not touch the Outer Demand Frontier as a group. In theory, that means we could afford more of them (though clearly, a data update would be helpful).

Expanding the use of glide bombs will not be appropriate for every mission. We will always need some long-range powered devices to take targets from afar.

But one could imagine low-cost, low-signature drone designs sent by the dozens, carrying new or existing glide bombs at a fraction of the existing missile costs, with far less exposure to our valuable crew.