Cost of US Military Equipment in Real Time

This is only fuel/ammunition cost. The value for fuel used is $3.52/Gal of Military Grade JP-8 Jet Fuel (Official Department of Defense Budget Value for 2024)
Personnel, maintenance, etc. is not included in the calculated cost.
Cost is in USD
Ammunition and rocket cost was calculated by taking the average of most recent Department of Defense contracts using publicly available data. I try my best to be as accurate as possible but these numbers do vary.
If you enjoyed please like and subscribe and let me know what equipment you would like to see. Thanks for watching!
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[@alexmcalexface2088]

Moral of the video, army should use more helicopters as they’re apparently free to fly/hover

[@Cosmic_Sage1108]

F A. XXXX

[@Adri9570]

Inflation is... *_...skyrocketing_* OK, I know where the door is

[@Gwynsladle]

​@@Adri9570*opens the door for you*

[@1110jesse]

😂😂

[@B3J-n3o]

😂😂😂

[@thesenate1844]

"It costs 400,000 dollars to fire this weapon for 12 seconds"

[@ib7566]

you're the sith lord

[@Morpheus45]

@@ib7566no! he‘s heavy weapons guy

[@Archimagus]

@@Morpheus45 maybe. . . maybe

[@clowncargaming8046]

Sandvich

[@mutenroshi3571]

Nomnomnom

[@maverick9708]

I find it hilarious that I know for a 100% fact this video is lowballing the real number lmao

[@Fynkzz]

No way taking off an f16 full afterburner is only 250$ 😂

[@ritishify]

Not to mention the human cost of war...

[@F0XD1E]

​@@ritishify Yeah funerals are expensive

[@pear-zq1uj]

@@Fynkzzi know right tf, an average international plane ticket is like 4 times that

[@vornamenachname989]

​@@FynkzzI mean isn't the cost sth like 20 grand an hour? That means it's 333 per minute, and assuming that the person who made this video only calculated the cost per time and didn't account for higher cost during takeoff, then it's not so far off.

[@a564-c3q]

Note that this is only fuel and ammunition. The actual operating costs are way, way higher. That B-52 in the end for example. It's some $12k of fuel per flight hour, but the total operating costs with everything included are probably closer to $50k per hour, and that's without anything dropped or launched.

[@OCinneide]

There's actually a spreadsheet out there of what the airforce charges when they lease out their stuff (I forget the reason) and some of the per hour figures are insane.

[@mahadevparmekar2565]

And the main problem is that, they cannot just sit idle.. even in peacetime. High end military equipment needs constant maintenance, pilot training, engineering training, etc. So.. even during peacetime, they are still expensive to upkeep.

[@babybirdhome]

@@mahadevparmekar2565And this is something people don’t understand about all the weapons we’re selling and/or giving to Ukraine. It’s not just helping to fight an unjust invasion by a dictator that hates civil rights and self-governance. All those weapons have shelf lives, and if we don’t sell/give them to someone else, then we have to pay to get rid of them and replace them. By selling them, we make money instead of spending it, and by giving them away, we save having to spend to decommission and dispose of them. It’s *_MORE_* expensive *_NOT_* to send them to Ukraine.

[@web8076]

Don't worry, mr. President, we'll print those money!

[@fromandtounknown6575]

@@OCinneide they sometimes lease their stuff for Hollywood action movies, under the requirement that the American army is never presented as the bad guys

[@princelong1]

That tank just spit 1k out like that lmao

[@Chase92488]

it fired a OTTD round: one thousand taxpayer dollars

[@hi_lol1912]

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee

[@eliradinsky7088]

way more than that btw

[@LoneHeckler]

Lol at first I thought it was the cheapest one until it fired a shot

[@ProtiumPower]

Would you like 1k in your face?

[@RandomPersonintheworld-tm7lm]

Me: Where does my taxes go? Military: Gone, reduced to atoms.

[@HaveanOreshnik]

Military: What Money?

[@naamadossantossilva4736]

Education and Healthcare spend more and have way less to show.

[@PreciseGameplay]

@@naamadossantossilva4736 You being a perfect example.

[@moldypotato4656]

$60,000,000 for the F-16, $6,500,000 to train the pilot, $1,090,000 for every AMRAAM, $400,000 for every AIM-9X, and additional costs for maintenance. Take these things into account and you'd be starting the video off at about $70,000,000 before even worrying about fuel.

[@iPlayOnSpica]

Not all flights are combat missions that fire all on-board ammunition, but I appreciate your general awareness of the additional expenses.

[@moldypotato4656]

@iPlayOnSpica You still need to purchase the missiles to equip the aircraft. Any fired weaponry would simply add onto the cost to re-equip.

[@barneyklingenberg4078]

And the. The F16 is actually the most cost effective fighter jet the USA has made.

[@doraemon402]

Nonsense, lies and deception. If you believe an F16 costs more than 1 M, you have been fooled by the MIC.

[@Lenni-yw8uh]

But you also cant charge the full upfront costs again and again for every flight​. @@moldypotato4656

[@GandrewAarfield]

1:09 When you ask for a glass of water in US hospital

[@Vaultboyfromfallout]

They shoot you when you ask for water? :O

[@orangecitrus8056]

lol and yet, NASA receives only a few percent of the military's budget. we humans like to call ourselves civilization yet we spend so much on the military and so less on space exploration

[@BrianHopson]

​@@VaultboyfromfalloutGod i wish.

[@PopcornSpill]

1:09 Friendly reminder: only every 4th or 5th shot is a tracer round.

[@The-Saus]

Like in terraria, the projectile tracers just give up if there’s too many on screen

[@Mr.DISRESPECT]

what is tracer round?

[@HexoESBB]

@@Mr.DISRESPECT its basically a round that glows so you can see it.

[@Astrid--]

@@HexoESBB Curious- why would you want it as the one who's shooting? Aiming I'm guessing but it seems like you're just asking for attention with practically a laser pointer pointed at you

[@Gigasimo456]

@@Astrid-- So that you know where you're shooting and can make corrections accordingly.

[@KamikazeKiid]

It’s ironic that I blew up more money in the army than I made..

[@WoodbabyCYL]

Haha

[@SpanishAvenger]

Reminds me of what Rambo said, something along the lines of: "I used to operate multi-million-dollar machinery, now I can't even find a job parking cars."

[@totty2524]

brown kids aren't gonna explode themselves

[@bojcio]

@@SpanishAvenger now I can't even find a job PARKING CAAARS!!!!1

[@AwesomeReshiram]

firing a missile that costs more than you will ever earn 🤪

[@AddisonLawton230]

So this is where my taxes go

[@lonewolfsim6837]

And Ukraine

[@headhunter7342]

​@@lonewolfsim6837 and Israel

[@Dabby_Lee]

Do you feel protected in this country or would you rather go live in Ukraine or Gahza ?

[@あくもとれん]

And Government official's pocket

[@F15likesbombingoil]

@@Dabby_Leenobody is talking about that so shut up

[@lagomorphine]

1:17 That's not so bad, I can afford tha... Nevermind

[@jccustoms2994]

The gas was cheap. The bullet? Not so much.

[@genericalias5742]

The gas is the stuff you’d find at your local 7/11 or Kum&Go, the Round however…

[@botten4187]

It’s crazy how this thing can burn multiple monthly average salaries within 3 seconds or so

[@therazorwolf7]

Please make more vids like this. This was quite interesting to see.

[@Letswin27]

Ong

[@MongoLionsLakais]

The personnel equipment would be a nice one to watch the numbers jump as they gear up.😂😂

[@pk365degree5]

yes

[@eestaashottentotti2242]

That counter definitely needs to be added to every military computer game. Readings in RTSs with huge armies will be astronomical.

[@hi_lol1912]

Eeeeeeeeeeeeee

[@StonyMcSorrow]

If they just threw the money at their enemies instead, they'd quickly run out of enemies

[@RealMTBAddict]

No, we would have enemies with more money. The world isn't as simple as you think.

[@MrChrisRP]

@@RealMTBAddict Every "country" has a "ruler" that sits back and laughs with the other "rulers" on the world stage about how dumb you are and how unnecessary all of this stuff in its entirety is.

[@RealMTBAddict]

@@MrChrisRP FALSE

[@MrChrisRP]

@@RealMTBAddict Your mask disallowed oxygen to your brain for too long. You're commenting from a place of brain damage.

[@moondude363]

You know, this isn't a horrible idea. How much could you pay an enemy combatant until they are no longer an enemy combatant?

[@Gankhisprawn]

1:08 "And this.. is my weapon. It fires custom 20mm High Explosive Tracer rounds at 4500 rounds per minute. It costs $10,000 dollars to fire this weapon for 5 seconds. Some missiles think they can outsmart me. *Sniff* Maybe... maybe. I have yet to meet one that can outsmart bullet!"

[@saminyead1233]

"And what did it cost?" -"Everything"- "$10,000"

[@nyadesu7781]

QUITE GOAT joke 😂 Nice

[@randomargument972]

Imagione on a fighter jet, instead of fuel gauge, you see taxpayer money gauge 😂😂😂

[@deathskrieg5525]

I only got $10,000 worth of fuel left, need to land immediately!

[@eliasujashvili7113]

*”Well, there goes my free healthcare”*

[@idlm-gn9eb]

A big factor is China😅

[@Yourerealdad69]

The cost of losing your morality.

[@ZacharyFain-p6y]

Let me guess you’re from another country

[@RandomEditPerson262]

Worth it

[@marcoshac9337]

“Free” healthcare. Hahaha there is no such thing as a free meal.

[@TommyFenstermacher5150]

1:09 when you go to a fancy dinner just to immediately shit it all out just like you would with taco bell.

[@ericchen3129]

1:08 "I am completely and mentally stable. Oh hey look a civilian airliner" ahh 😭

[@bearistotle1628]

*promoted*

[@Chillingat300kmh]

yep. when we did training exercises of the east coast, each jet on average cost about 20-50k each flight.

[@paulsaulpaul]

1:09 - reminds me of that time this escort outside of Vegas convinced me to go to her place.

[@skoff-the-artist]

Me: oh a tank isn't that bad Me 1 sec later: oh

[@awddfg]

The helicopter one should be higher considering the fuel being wasted

[@thesenate1844]

Should have had 2 counters, one for the fuel and one for the ammo. The pilots salaries are a rounding error in real time

[@bojcio]

@@thesenate1844 I was thinking he same thing

[@shrekmike2781]

This is why we need to triple the defense budget

[@dallinmc1759]

I agree

[@HOOOPER]

1:08 "I am Heavy Weapons guy"

[@petrsokol588]

I was expecting one of the machines to get destroyed and the price sky-rocketing.

[@skyricq]

8 seconds in and the military has spent more than I've had in savings for the last 5 years.

[@airgin3000]

Good God.... these videos and the comments really hit it home

[@titidodu]

Very interesting, make more of them it’s a very good concept

[@kavpass]

Me: how do I afford 500$ to fix my car? Us millitary casually spending 50k on just a few shoots

[@RobertMorgan]

I was in charge of million-dollar equipment, now I can't even get a job parking cars...

[@Ajc-ni3xn]

never ask a DOD guy how much a flare salute from a fighter after refueling costs.

[@jordanhutchinson7324]

What’s bad is this is probably practice and not even actual combat.

[@zer0her048]

Probably? Brother why would we have such high quality videos in combat? American smoothbrain

[@jordanhutchinson7324]

@@zer0her048 are you actually that dumb? You realize reporters stay in combat zones for combat footage right?

[@jordanhutchinson7324]

@@zer0her048 or how about the cameras the military themselves use😂😂😂

[@alanmlkbanda]

@@zer0her048have you seen Ukraine?

[@sivik_games]

@@zer0her048are you stupid? Ive seen 4k footage of Ukrainian soldiers that have cameras on their bodies do you think the war means good cameras dont exist anymore?

[@velvetthundr]

This is awesome!! I’ve always wondered

[@ikvangalen6101]

This has to be more! Did you include taxes, write of value, salary of the pilot, the watch tower personnel etc etc etc????

[@TurtleNadereal]

More videos please, Great Niche

[@johnmartlew5897]

Remember: 95% of the costs you just witnessed are profits to arms dealers, graft, kickbacks and fraud.

[@johnsteel5347]

Defund the military

[@treveongreen4247]

I wanna watch my bank account grow this fast😂😂

[@luckylanno]

I'm at a loss for words. They're literally burning our money.

[@ProfoundKrab]

I just want to buy the entirety of Better Call Saul on dvd without destroying my weekly income 😭

[@vexandhexz]

~00:40 it's cool to see them fire tuition so rapidly

[@EATSLEEPDRIVE2002]

so if I show up to the gates of Fort Dix with $250 cash, they'll let me fly a fighter jet? Cool.

[@therockrancher]

"what's your current fuel usage?" "1.2 double quarter pounder cheese meals per second"

[@northuniverse]

Average US Citizen: How could we afford healthcare?

[@Tank50us]

sadly enough, even if we took every penny dedicated to the Military... it wouldn't even come close to the most conservative estimates on how much healthcare would cost.

[@northuniverse]

@Tank50us Last I heard, solely the Iraq invasion could've paid for it.

[@Tank50us]

@northuniverse for less than a few months at best. Medicare for all would be staggeringly expensive

[@northuniverse]

@@Tank50us The military budget is staggeringly expensive. We've spent $200 Billion dollars on a single Allied Country since 1940.

[@northuniverse]

@@Tank50us Do you genuinely think that our Deficit couldn't handle it, really? The USD dominates the globe. We really should be asking the question, how could we afford NOT to have universal healthcare.

[@Watashi_wa_robottodesu]

I love the random numbers you added like they're even close. Lol if only rocket fuel priced like gas

[@lawlckat]

me watching the price go up as i fill in my gas

[@JK-qi7pp]

And then there is the initial cost of the purchase, staff, maintenance, and so on, none of which are shown here but together probably makes it about 5 times more expensive. It's not a total waste since some money makes it directly back to the economy through the wages and the taxes on the wages and products used by the military and there are a ton of concessions the US gets from other countries in exchange for being under their military umbrella. It's like a protection racket. It's never free when America decides to fight for you, nor should it be. The problem is that these benefits are difficult to quantify, especially when a lot of them aren't acknowledged publicly, making a serious discussion over whether this amount of defence spending is justifiable impossible from the get-go. It probably should never be a priority to exert military power abroad over universal education and healthcare though.

[@Fazeshyft]

1:08 "It costs $400,000 to fire this weapon... for twelve seconds."

[@DLCoates1]

Heavy called, he wants his sandvich back.

[@maevethefox5912]

Sometimes I wonder how the US military budget is so crazy high, but then thinking about the cost of this stuff, and the frequency of training time needed to keep them at high readiness, it starts to make sense.

[@jayantam1049]

Even tho f-16 takes $8,000/hr to operate, I would say its pretty cheap considering humans used to think flying is godlike or alien technology for most of our history.

[@ahprogames5199]

It seems economical until you start firing the missiles

[@cyberdemon6517]

the f16 is very economical *cries in f35*

[@SBImNotWritingMyNameHere]

look man i wish it was just 8k USD/hr, thats dirst cheap just lookup f35b research cost to see what i mean

[@craigritchie8470]

$10,000 for a 5 second burst. But considering you may shoot down a multi-million dollar missile or plane the ROI seems pretty good.

[@pking74]

This was awesome love it! ❤

[@MattH-wg7ou]

AIM-120 AMRAAM is around $1M each depending on variant. An F-15E can carry 8 of them.

[@maryjaneperry9951]

Imagine what NASA would do with this budget

[@ianbuick8946]

Why reach the stars when no one ever get hungry or cure diseases with this budget. Priority is the answer.

[@hi_lol1912]

Eeeeeeeeeeeeee

[@MedicAthlete24W]

@@ianbuick8946 you can never eradicate hunger or famine.

[@ianbuick8946]

@@MedicAthlete24W how about war and conflict?

[@achi5170]

​@@MedicAthlete24Wno, you cannot. They're not caused by poverty, rather, both poverty and famine are caused by the same shit - idiots, corruption and/or war.

[@petertwiss356]

worth every penny ..... MERICA F-YEAH

[@arsenal0095]

0:01 my vid stopped. It requested, please insert more funds

[@ProfoundKrab]

Insert a Chuck e cheese token in

[@KaplaBen]

0:30 those helicopters run on free fuel. Nice

[@fromandtounknown6575]

Damn, those are some very fuel efficient helicopters.

[@belacickekl7579]

The military just buys a whole bunch of fuel, ammunition, etc. in bulk at the beginning of each year and allocates a specific amount for training and routine sorties.

[@jacobdalton6868]

“Freedom aint free”

[@justsomebody14]

Nice, thanks!

[@I_Miss_The_Army]

This is actually really cool. Do a M109A6 fire mission.

[@高義偉高義偉-f2g]

🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲👍👍👍👍👍💪💪💪💪💪

[@louiszhang3050]

I really worked a whole year just so the US military can shoot stuff for like a minute. Nice.

[@visekual6248]

This is a huge underestimate,in fuel alone a jet must spend at least $100 per second.

[@BoraHorzaGobuchul]

Stuff costs money, yes. One could make such a video about anything, say, a hospital, a police station, heck, a household

[@Klayperson]

and just like that, i suddenly understand when the Democracy Officer radios "reinforcement budget depleted"

[@antonvoloshin9833]

To anyone complaining - meat waves WW1 style is waaay cheaper, do you want to participate in one?

[@abas656thegodemperor9]

You know what's even cheaper? Not intervening in foreign conflicts.

[@antonvoloshin9833]

​@@abas656thegodemperor9 it's actually not.

[@abas656thegodemperor9]

@@antonvoloshin9833 Tell us, O' wise one, How that could be

[@antonvoloshin9833]

@@abas656thegodemperor9 you know, history teaching us, that for a world dominating power, if loosing it's world dominance, usually leads to rather unpleasant consequences. Maybe you want to live in the world dominated by Chinese-Russian-Iranian Axis, but I'm sure most Americans (and Europeans for that matter) won't.

[@levilecrone3456]

​@@abas656thegodemperor9"You know what's even cheaper? Not intervening in foreign conflicts." -Britain and France, 1938

[@skybox4080]

At $10,000 for a bag of bushings, I know the costs are way higher than what was shown.

[@ewicky]

Pretty sure my local gas pump can count up just as fast as the fighter jet taking off.

[@ProfoundKrab]

So that's why they often say "war is expensive"

[@novotd443]

The tank is downright reasonab... oh, nevermind.

[@mo-s-]

When the tank destroys your car, but you know fully well this cost them actually more than you 😎

[@raulpalomino9472]

Wow, I love how those helicopters consume less fuel than a Zippo.

[@skylerrutherford9870]

Everytime that pilot shot a rocket, I cringed a little bit watching my tax dollars get spent away

[@SuperStruct]

But if the defense companies that sold this ammo made money and put it back into the economy it's all basically free

[@shaun8256]

What's really sad about this is the lack of damage to the other side per dollar!

[@onceuponatimeonearth]

Reminder that the money 'spent' is nearly entirely spent within the US economy. The money doesn't vanish. It's paying for US engineers, soldiers, mechanics, defense companies, fuel, etc. It's pumping back into the defense and civilian US economies paying for tens of thousands of jobs.

[@andrewwong200]

But not before hedge funds and investors (not necessarily American) take their majority cuts each step of the way :)

[@wasdwazd]

@@andrewwong200 THAT money does disappear

[@tann_man]

"the military industrial complex is good actually" GTFO

[@onceuponatimeonearth]

It is. Without it the West would lose it's geopolitical dominance and the world would be at the whims of Russia, China and India. No thanks. It's a necessary evil.

[@enricobianchi4499]

At the same time, all those valuable: 1. Extremely skilled man-hours 2. Valuable resources and refined materials 3. Bureucratic inefficiency costs are being spent on blowing up soil in the best of cases, and blowing up infrastructure and souls in the intended case. I'm pretty sure the waste of those resources costs exactly as much as shown.

[@collectsteve8509]

They already spent more than my net worth before the video started

[@dirtymikendaboys]

Crazy thing is.... It would cost you more money to talk to Jeff Bezos for 1 min ($23,833 per min) than any of these things shown here operating.

[@renebalbuena1173]

"Our country should be eager to use this money well spent as it is."

[@ruturajshiralkar5566]

USD $ 850 Billion Spent Well

[@KhalilBalti-vv2im]

We need more videos like this

[@clayman117]

This is certainly an underestimation

[@giorgospapoutsakis5271]

"The actual cost should be much higher!" Yes y'all would be right if you READ THE FREAKING DESCRIPTION

[@soulman888]

Cool video and cool concept Can someone clarify what was being counted? I think it was fuel in the first one, ammo in the second one? I mean there's more line items than just those two things though right?

[@cyberinsecuregaming2890]

People don’t have a problem with their tax dollars going to this, but if something actually helps the American people then people have a problem with it.

[@xmhkillz]

I do not have issues with my tax dollars going to this (on the defensive front).. I do have a problem with how much the contractors selling this stuff for are ripping the tax payers off with no real oversight.

[@PeeGoblin-jg6tu]

I want the US to have a giant military, it's the US's biggest advantage to any other country on Earth. However I don't like when they inflate the price.

[@jonathanhill2703]

Ehhh, just a bit more than my F-550 dump truck.

[@newolku]

Hell yeah brother

[@tomservo5007]

need to add jet maintenance costs, for example up to $26k per flight hour for the f-16

[@stefanp7603]

The actual cost would be far higher than these figures.

[@supermakerraptorgamersgame285]

Tbh, the approximated daily budget is 2.5 BILLION dollars. My country took more than 15 years to decide on what to spend 1 billion...

[@iranmaia91]

I want to thank the US citizens and say we, not americans, pay for this too. But imagine if China was the super power and not US.

[@RM-xr8lq]

china overtook US a while ago 😂

[@maksimfedoryak]

​@@RM-xr8lqwhere? We haven't seen chinese technicals in action for....idk, actually never🤔

[@Silas-x8x]

we have reached a point where in california JP8 jet fuel is cheaper than 87 unleaded

[@JETZcorp]

The F-16 had to be too cheap. Afterburner at sea level is using like a kiddie pool of jet fuel per second. They use more fuel than the entire field at Le Mans.

[@MrWells-eg8nc]

US military consumes 26 000$ every second

[@TF242]

If you think it only costs $250 in fuel for the F-16 to take off you must be smoking a $250 blunt.

[@aaz1992]

Gotta sell more t-bills! - Janet Yellen, probably

[@LyraleiYT]

Kids when they found theyre parents credit card:

[@LOKSTED]

Can't put a price in freedom 🦅💪🗽

[@kissbela4936]

Still cheaper than my wife in the shopping centre. On this distance you can multiple this amount.

[@Exist64]

I couldn't think of a better way to utilize my tax money