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More less: since the cost driver is relatively insensitive to scale, I would expect mass constraints to not be the main driver of cost. Expensive platforms then going to be driven by red queen race factors: a lot of running to stay in the same place. You have a $100,000 missile that has a nice...

Sure, less mass constraints can allow lower cost, but remember what the question is: are space assets in with cheap logistics less mass constrained than terrestrial vehicles on a per platform basis? An AIM-120 costs roughly a $1 million dollars for a 160 kg missile. If we ballooned that to a 300...

On the other hand, miniaturization is often something that makes things cheaper, not more expensive: computers are a strong example, but many of bits of equipment show similar effects. I'm not sure how much of the equipment driving costs will really benefit from looser weight limits. Some...

@Marduk The basic contention is that you generally need fairly high tech equipment to get particularly useful performance. The equipment needed to do high performance stuff is high cost: a laser for example is going to be a fairly expense weapon. For a laser weapon platform, we see costs are...

1) How much of Poland's casualties because of Germans being determined in fighting the Soviets, vs the Nazis trying to kill Poles, because killing civilians was part of the Nazi war goals? 2) Fair enough. Its still, as you suggested, a very inefficient weapon. Which hits the problem of nukes...

1) And this try harding got them... what? You do realize there's plenty of destroyed cities in France, right? Killing civilians is generally not a good in and of itself. 2) Do you have any idea what a conventional half kiloton round consists of? 3) Its the point you switched to arguing...

@Marduk On the French example, you aware the 1% rate is throughout the entire war, correct? Its the initial conquest of France, the Allied bombings, and the reconquest. Are you suggesting the Nazis didn't do as well in France because they were just too nice and didn't kill more Frenchmen? I...

All costs are situational, so this isn't a particularly impactful critique. I'm sorry, but I'm not sure the number of situations where killing a 100,000 civilians, potentially your own civilians, to kill a 1,000 enemy forces is the right move is a particularly large category. Accounting for...

This comes back to your assumption that I'm an idiot, and not listening to what I'm actually saying: what was one of the "costs" I mentioned? Collateral damage. My entire argument about the 60 second impact vs 6 minute impact for a 300 vs 3,000 km range was time to target: that it gives time to...

Okay, you always do have the strangest things to take issue with. Lets focus then on more effective range (will you really force me to repeat this every single time?) = more cost. your example was that less effective range (slow drone vs fast missile) can trade the effectiveness of the range...

1] The described relationship is more range = more cost. Especially with the caveat we are, of course, talking about effective range. Obviously, but since it had to be stated explicitly, it now has been so. I think we can be pretty comfortable in that assumption. 2] If the enemy controls the...

Response to the last bit was probably overly glib. It is however seeming to double down on the 50s idea that nuclear weapons makes war obsolete, which is not the case. If your goal is to just genocide with no limits, then just lots of nukes is an option. We have nearly 80 years of evidence...

1] Your comparing different tech, to achieve different goals, so I don't find it particularly persuasive. I figured effective was implied, but if you insist on increased pedantic, sure, take this as a clarification: by range and accuracy, I mean range and accuracy actually achievable against...

Are you suggesting guided weapons are not more expensive than unguided weapons? Otherwise, my general point that more range and accuracy equals more cost is true. Now, in practice the upward sloping cost curve may look more like a step cost than a continuous upward slope, with cost being fairly...

To pull back to the bigger picture, I'll try summarizing some of my thoughts on ground forces. 1) Ground assets are likely cheaper than space assets. To be useful, space assets have to have longer range and accuracy than a ground asset. A modern tank gun is extremely accurate over a 1-2 km...

Agree to disagree on all the above.

Eh, I think we've beat the anti orbital round to death. I think the important agreement is that they are actually possible, then its a setting question of it their cost effective/have a roll. So we can move on to discussing that. I'll just re-iterate I think your overestimating the cost...

1) I'm talking about a fundamental difference. If the engine of an aircraft turns off, it falls out of the sky. If a spacecraft engine is off, it mostly follows the same orbit on a almost completely predictable path (some gravitational/drag perturbations, but order of magnitudes less than...

1) If 2022 is considered very old, we just have some radically different definitions. And yes, modern small American ships are being equipped with an evolved 1970 weapon system, which makes it so much more advanced than an evolved 1964 weapon system. 2) Yes, jets are not spacecraft. An...

1) Ballista's prove - what exactly? You seem to think your making a point, but I'm not seeing it. I already started with "assuming chemical guns aren't obsolete", which I personally don't find likely, but do admit is possible. 2) You keep not believing me when I say the Excalibur's range has...