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No, they're not.I will also not that the last few years have had a significant increase in the guidance methods of Excalibur, going from pure GPS to GPS+laser to what sounds like the full Stormbreaker triple-mode seeker, which is obviously a much more expensive chunk of hardware than a simple GPS guidance chip. The trajectory shaping option was a software upgrade, so was relatively inexpensive and I believe was back-fitted to all shells in inventory. And don't forget inflation.GPS+Laser was an incorporation of existing technology (M712 Copperhead), though I'm guessing it required a redesign of the physical shell body for to make space for the laser seeker.Stormbreaker is a $200k weapon, when the basic GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb 1 is a $40k weapon (both costs from FY2021). So I'd expect the Excalibur HTK to be on the order of $225-250k, assuming that the Stormbreaker seeker was already sufficiently hardened for cannon launch. And more if they had to spend development money hardening the components.I don't have an estimate on costs for the trajectory shaping, though the cost per shell gets spread across all shells in inventory because it was a software revision that could be applied to all Excalibur rounds.Inflation. What cost $68,000 in 2015 would cost $85,395.34 in 2022 per Westegg Inflation calculator.DOD budget tends to include parts and support costs for a unit. The $68k comes from Raytheon and the Foreign Military Sales costs. Note that the FY2015 cost per shell for Excalibur was $259k across 7500 rounds purchased, while the very next year FY2016 cost per shell had dropped to $68k.So why are people looking at CLGPs for CRAM and anti-drone, and not missiles?
No, they're not.
I will also not that the last few years have had a significant increase in the guidance methods of Excalibur, going from pure GPS to GPS+laser to what sounds like the full Stormbreaker triple-mode seeker, which is obviously a much more expensive chunk of hardware than a simple GPS guidance chip. The trajectory shaping option was a software upgrade, so was relatively inexpensive and I believe was back-fitted to all shells in inventory. And don't forget inflation.
DOD budget tends to include parts and support costs for a unit. The $68k comes from Raytheon and the Foreign Military Sales costs. Note that the FY2015 cost per shell for Excalibur was $259k across 7500 rounds purchased, while the very next year FY2016 cost per shell had dropped to $68k.
So why are people looking at CLGPs for CRAM and anti-drone, and not missiles?
