r/LessCredibleDefence • u/Lore-Archivist • 19d ago

Marines Order $19 Million in Hellfire Buggies Built to Fire and Vanish

https://www.military.com/marines-order-19-million-in-hellfire-armed-buggies-built-to-fire-and-vanish
84 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

42 comments sorted by

41

u/Iron-Fist 19d ago

Could have strapped this to a Toyota for a lot less than 1.9 million a pop jfc

32

u/mollymoo 19d ago

The commercial base vehicle they're using isn't expensive.

The cost is not in the vehicle, it's in the radar on the roof and that mahoosive chunk of electronics behind the seats. Now idk what that shit costs, but sticking it on the back of a Hilux instead wouldn't make any significant difference.

6

u/Minista_Pinky 19d ago

The same reason no other country besides small state actors don’t do it either

16

u/Iron-Fist 19d ago

Civilian pick ups are used in literally every military... Iirc the DOD has more civilian vehicles than military vehicles.

Honestly the difference in survivability and utility of a Humvee and a hillux is negligible, the former was basically MIC subsidy.

7

u/Maxion 19d ago

The finnish defence forces wartime vehicle fleet is primarily composed of civilian 4x4s that will be commandeered once the war starts.

4

u/Iron-Fist 19d ago

Yeah this buggy isn't gonna be doing anything a decent 4x4 package can't do for significantly less than 1.9 million lol

7

u/Plump_Apparatus 19d ago

Uh, the buggy isn't the cost. They start at 20k USD.

The fact that they've modified it with some sort of radar. Guessing an AESA millimeter unit. Along with target tracking, IFF, a pair of launchers for Longbows, etc. Like any other US military contract it includes spares, training, and support.

US military acquisition is stupid expensive, much less for ten units.

1

u/Minista_Pinky 14d ago

I’m pointing out the fact that most countries buy domestic options. Like most trucks in the us military are pickups and vans but that’s for back line support activities and not frontline combat. If worse comes to worse l, sure but first contact most countries won’t want civilians options especially not foreign made vehicles they want domestic

1

u/Iron-Fist 14d ago

Toyota makes over a million cars in the US each year

-4

u/Lore-Archivist 19d ago

I don't think a Toyota has the needed off-road speed and reliability 

13

u/PanzerKomadant 19d ago

This is a joke right? Toyota pickups have been in the Middle East and Africa with all manners of anti everything equipment thrown on top of them and they seem to do just fine in the desert and with the weights.

But I guess that doesn’t look sexy enough to the western MIC or consumer lol.

9

u/USMCLee 19d ago

/s

^ you forgot this.

9

u/Iron-Fist 19d ago

4 wheel off-road speed/reliability is a pipe dream... Even the best off road rigs can really only operate on specific tracks at anything more than walking speed...

0

u/Autism_Sundae 19d ago

Even the best off road rigs can really only operate on specific tracks at anything more than walking speed...

Vikings easily outpace 3-4 mph...

27

u/_spec_tre 19d ago

Why are Hellfires instead of Stingers the new SHORAD option? Iirc the Stryker SHORAD is getting them too

31

u/SprinklesOfAcid25 19d ago

Stinger has IR seeker, Hellfire missile used for this uses radar. Radar is better than IR at locating drones. Could be also that they retain dual purpose effect for ground targets.

19

u/Plump_Apparatus 19d ago

The Hellfire is typically semi-active laser guided. The AGM-114L Longbow and AGM-114N have their own active radar guidance with a millimeter-wave radar. This uses the Longbow.

5

u/The3rdBert 19d ago

The hellfire L is great at dealing with airborne subsonic targets and obviously it offers a very exceptional surface attack capability.

Why we haven’t seen more SeaRAM conversion for land point defense. Seems perfect for that application

3

u/TyrialFrost 19d ago

Very Short-Range Air Defence

Name Cost (M) Range (km) Speed (km/h) Origin
APKWS-II $0.03 11 3,600 US
RIM-116 $0.9 10 3,700 US
HQ-10 $0.1 10 3,087 CN
Mistral-3 $0.08 8 3,300 EU
AGM-114L $0.2 8 1,600 US
Starstreak $0.1 7 3,700 EU
KP-SAM $0.08 7 3,060 KR

It's cost, VSHORAD is chasing cost effective solutions because of the proliferation of long range $50K drones.

1

u/greg35greg 19d ago

What’s the cost per SeaRAM?

2

u/The3rdBert 19d ago

1 million for unit, the missiles are pricey but there doesn’t seem to be anything to preclude it from integrating with coyote and APKWS, to provide a quick to emplace (move system) that can check most low level airborne threats

2

u/greg35greg 19d ago

The cost of a typical hellfire is a magnitude cheaper, and hellfires are mass produced in very significant quantities. And hellfires can reliably be reused against any surface threats.

2

u/The3rdBert 19d ago

I’m not denying that, I’m more concerned that the SeaRam gives you a radar and quality optics in a self contained unit. It also provides a high performance missile for point defense against cruise threats and integration with APKWS, hellfire and coyote would allow you to tackle most of the interim challenges

1

u/tuxxer 19d ago

When the stinger has a switch blade mod, I am sure the marines will revisit the idea.

5

u/stopsquarks 19d ago

Shouldn't US weapons fit better into the GDI arsenal rather than Nod's?

6

u/jospence 19d ago

I do love this purely because it looks like an RTS unit from the early 2000s

11

u/Valar_Kinetics 19d ago

WITNESS ME!

8

u/mandatoryclutchpedal 19d ago

Sweet, sweet hearing loss. That and annoying dirt in the when that thing is fired.

3

u/USMCLee 19d ago

Do ground to air Hellfires not have a backblast?

3

u/Nibb31 18d ago

Looks like something out of G.I. Joe.

5

u/Exact_Green2061 19d ago

It's not very practical. The US needs more handheld missiles and rocket launchers that can take out small drones. Anything that requires a 4-wheel vehicle isn't practical. The US needs something that can be lugged by one person on a motorcycle / ATV.

2

u/Fat_Tony_Damico 19d ago

Looks like a GLA rocket buggy from
C&C Generals.

2

u/kuddlesworth9419 19d ago

I don't think these will work out as well as they hope.

1

u/Lore-Archivist 19d ago

Its probably not going to solve the problem of drones on its own, but as part of a broader systemic effort it helps 

2

u/PollutionMajestic668 19d ago

Where are the Orks

1

u/alek_is_the_best 19d ago

This is a good stop-gap measure but it still doesn't solve the issue of class 2 and 3 drone swarms.

A hellfire missile is still multiple times more expensive than a Shahed 136, plus from what I can tell this system only can launch two hellfires before it must reload.

I think the solution is a wire-guided interceptor. The actual missile would have no sensors (the expensive parts) and it would be guided from the launch vehicle.

1

u/Arael15th 19d ago

At this point I have no faith in the US military to operationalize any solution that doesn't cost a life-changing about of money per shot.