weapon cost

Anyone know of any sites or reference material listing the amount of money it cost each nation to manufacture individual weapon systems? In other words, how much did it cost its respective nation to build each Tiger tank, Sherman tank, Spitfire, etc., etc., etc.

 

Anyone know of any sites or reference material listing the amount of money it cost each nation to manufacture individual weapon systems? In other words, how much did it cost its respective nation to build each Tiger tank, Sherman tank, Spitfire, etc., etc., etc.



I do not think that you will find one site with all the info you require. Also, the cost varied from model to model and from year to year.

 

Hi,

A war-bond effort in 1940 to raise ₤5,000 units to buy Spitfires, when compared with the following year's effort to raise ₤20,000 (maybe ₤30,000 I cannot recall) to buy a tank seems to be a paltry amount.

Cheers, Gerry

 

Can you imagine if they tried the same thing now days. Thirty million for a plane, what jumbo,no, just a fighter.

 

As a lad in the late 50's and early 60's, mum used to give me one shilling on Saturday to go to the local picture theatre (cinema).

9 pence for admission and threepence to spend. With the threepence I could buy 24 aniseed balls.

The Pictures nowadays are $12 (6 pound) and the Aniseed balls are a shilling (10 cents) each.

All parity really!

The movies were better then and the Aniseed balls are now smaller!

 

Hey Spidge you're a spring chicken. In the 30's the cost of the Saturday matinee at the Royal Cinema in Wallasey was 3d - and we got either an orange or apple on the way out! The Mars Bar was just a penny until the Milky Way came out when the price went up to 2d - what an outcry.

With three pennies in our pockets it was off to the fish and chip shop - and we still had a penny left!

Still that was then - now is now.

Cheers, Gerry

 

Hey Spidge you're a spring chicken. In the 30's the cost of the Saturday matinee at the Royal Cinema in Wallasey was 3d - and we got either an orange or apple on the way out! The Mars Bar was just a penny until the Milky Way came out when the price went up to 2d - what an outcry.

With three pennies in our pockets it was off to the fish and chip shop - and we still had a penny left!

Still that was then - now is now.

Cheers, Gerry

Yes my mother is 88 and she still tells me that a loaf of bread was a penny in the 20's.

A lot of changes occur in a small amount of time.

I am 30 years younger than you however look what happened in the 30 years from 1914.

 

The Mars Bar was just a penny

The London Stock market used a very simple imflation test.

The Mars bar has remained the same size and shape throughout its life. Therefore they would work out how may mars bars could be bought for - lets say £2 in 1920 and how many could be bought in 1975. The result gave the inflation factor!

 

Hey Spidge you're a spring chicken. In the 30's the cost of the Saturday matinee at the Royal Cinema in Wallasey was 3d - and we got either an orange or apple on the way out! The Mars Bar was just a penny until the Milky Way came out when the price went up to 2d - what an outcry.

With three pennies in our pockets it was off to the fish and chip shop - and we still had a penny left!

Still that was then - now is now.

Cheers, Gerry


Going to junior club in Wishaw in the sixties was a shilling! plus the odd occassional block of "tobacco" I think that where my lifelong aversion to smoking must have started!

 

Here are some of the coins mentioned

Top row, left hand side Half crown down to silver threepenny. includes a grout as well

Bottom rorw left hand side starts with a Penny and works down to a half - farthling!

These coin came from last weeks wages!

 

Working from my notoriously dodgy memory, in war bonds £5,000 bought a Spitfire or other fighter, approx £25,000 bought a bomber. Congleton raised £120,000 in one go to refit the hull of HMS Woolston in 1939. No idea for tanks, jeeps, artillery etc, never found the info.
However, it is known that villages used to come together to raise enough money to buy something. 7 local villages raised enough to buy a Spit. Congleton bought 3 fighters whilst the local councillor bought a whole squadron of Spits, then replaced them after BoB.
A popular way was to lay old pennies end to end down the main street to raise the money needed, whist drives, chairty cinema show etc. Even a shot down Me109 was parked up on the local paddling pool for a week to raise money (you had to pay 2d to view it. the kids ducked under the back fence and climbed into the cockpit )
It's all relative. i do know from records that the demands for so many fund raising ventures got to the point that local councils etc politely sent back the message 'No more'. The people just couldn't afford to give anything else.

 

The London Stock market used a very simple imflation test.

The Mars bar has remained the same size and shape throughout its life. Therefore they would work out how may mars bars could be bought for - lets say £2 in 1920 and how many could be bought in 1975. The result gave the inflation factor!
The Mars bars in London might have stayed the same size but not in the Midlands. I can definitely remember Mars bars being bigger when I was a kid. Not splitting hairs on this. The single mars bar recently was smaller still.

 

Working from my notoriously dodgy memory, in war bonds £5,000 bought a Spitfire or other fighter, approx £25,000 bought a bomber. Congleton raised £120,000 in one go to refit the hull of HMS Woolston in 1939. No idea for tanks, jeeps, artillery etc, never found the info.
However, it is known that villages used to come together to raise enough money to buy something. 7 local villages raised enough to buy a Spit. Congleton bought 3 fighters whilst the local councillor bought a whole squadron of Spits, then replaced them after BoB.
A popular way was to lay old pennies end to end down the main street to raise the money needed, whist drives, chairty cinema show etc. Even a shot down Me109 was parked up on the local paddling pool for a week to raise money (you had to pay 2d to view it. the kids ducked under the back fence and climbed into the cockpit )
It's all relative. i do know from records that the demands for so many fund raising ventures got to the point that local councils etc politely sent back the message 'No more'. The people just couldn't afford to give anything else.

SPONSORED FIGHTERS
Many Spitfires used in the Battle of Britain were sponsored by private companies and individuals. Money raised in cities, towns and villages was used to buy a Spitfire at a cost of £5,000 each. They bore names such as Dogfighter bought by a well known Kennel Club, Dorothy was bought by women whose name was Dorothy, Gingerbread by red-haired men and women, Unshackled by donations from POWs and so on.
The largest donation received came from Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands who donated £215,000 to purchase an entire squadron of 43 Spitfires.

 

M1 rifle production in 1939.

JT

 

This maybe a starting point:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_production_during_World_War_II

However, working out the actual, relative and comparative costs during the war are extremely difficult. A number of factors have to be taken into account including:

1) the "War Economy" - which will involve the allocation of resources external or "real" cost, vlaue in kind, rationing, access to raw materials, inflation control etc
2) the allocation of "value" - e.g. in the run up to the war, Germant's economy was "artificially" tampered with so that more funds could be allocated towards re-arming, even though the German economy did not have the financial resources to do so
3) Value in kind - Britain initially paid for her weapons and rations with her reserves, but when they ran out, she accepted the land-lease agreent. But the US accepted that some of this debt would be paid for by receiving services for their troops based in Britain or the empire.
4) Falsification of costs - the SS were notorious at allocating costs when involved in weapons production by allocating costs on the provision of slave labour.
5) The actual value of the currency - by the end of the war, the actual value of the Reich mark had been demeaned because it couldn't realistically be used to purchase goods, whether internally by the general population (mainly due to the fact that there were no goods to buy), or by those few states that traded with Germany (mainly the neutral states) because they refused to accept the currency as payment. Plundered gold was used, but had to be done secretly, and thus undermining some of its value. So it didn't really matter whether a tank cost a mark or a trillion.
It also highlighted the the starting of the strengthened dollar against the pound.

Even working out the relative value of the US dollar in today's values is difficult, see:

http://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/compare/

 

<center>diary

THE COST OF A SPITFIRE In 1940 <hr width="100%"></center> At the time of 'The Spitfire Fund' the following price list of the major component parts of a Spitfire was issued by the Air Ministry in the summer of 1940.
<center><table border="0" cols="2" width="65%"> <tbody><tr> <td>Engine</td> <td> £2,000 0 0
</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Fuselage</td> <td> £2,500 0 0
</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Wings</td> <td> £1,800 0 0
</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Undercarriage </td> <td> £800 0 0
</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Guns</td> <td> £800 0 0
</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Tail </td> <td> £500 0 0
</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Propeller</td> <td> £350 0 0
</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Petrol Tank (Top) </td> <td> £40 0 0
</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Petrol Tank (Bottom)</td> <td> £25 0 0
</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Oil Tank</td> <td> £25 0 0
</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Compass</td> <td> £5 0 0
</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Clock</td> <td> £2 10s 0d
</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Thermometer</td> <td> £1 1s 0d
</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Sparking Plug</td> <td> 8s 0d
</td> </tr> </tbody></table></center> To these items can be added a further £1,000 for a variety of small parts such as screws, cables, switches, sockets, gauges and paint.

American Planes

B-17G<o></o>
Cost: $276,000<o></o>

B-24D "Liberator"<o></o>
Cost: $336,000
<o></o>
B-25B "Mitchell"<o></o>
Cost: $96,000<o></o>
<o></o>
B-26G "Marauder"<o></o>
Cost: $227,000<o></o>
<o></o>
<st1:city><st1>Bell</st1></st1:city> P-39Q "Airacobra"<o></o>
Cost: $46,000<o></o>
<o></o>
P-38L "Lightning"<o></o>
Cost: $115,000<o></o>
<o></o>
P-40E "Warhawk"<o></o>
Cost: $45,000<o></o>
<o></o>
P-51D "Mustang"<o></o>
Cost: $54,000<o></o>
<o></o>
C-47D "Skytrain"<o></o>
Cost: $138,000<o></o>

 

From: RESULTS OF THE GERMAN AND AMERICAN SUBMARINE CAMPAIGNS OF WORLD WAR II

US destroyers approximately $10 million each

US frigates approx $2.3 million each

US Destroyer Escorts $5.5 million each

Escort Carriers $12 million each

British and Canadian built Destroyer Escorts $6.4 million each

British and Canadian built Sloops $4 million each

Corvettes, ASW vessels, and armed merchant cruisers $3 million each

German data was used to determine the cost of submarines.Where cost data on specific types of submarines could not be found (Type XIV, XXIII, Walther), I estimated the price based upon German submarines of similar displacement, accounting for differences in construction man-hours. The exchange rate was based upon wartime U.S. estimates (I used $.50 per mark, the 1942 estimate).Of note, the cost of a U.S. submarine in 1943 was about $3 million.The figures for German submarines are reasonable when compared to U.S. costs and man-hours required for construction. Type II- 52 boats at $1.03 million.
Type VII- 705 boats at $2.25 million.
Type IX- 194 boats at $ 3.2 million.
Type XB- 8 boats at $ 3.175 million.
Type XIV- 10 boats at $ 3.51 million.
Type XXI- 123 boats at $ 2.875 million.
Type XXIII- 59 boats at $1.03 million.
Walther- 7 boats at $2.13 million.

Japanese:

A. Warships:

Tonnage of Japanese Warships sunk by submarines as indicated by JANAC. The costs of all Japanese ships are as listed in U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey.

1. 8 Aircraft Carriers (219,500 tons) at 3895 Yen/ton.
2. 1 Battleship (31,000) at 2140 Yen/ton.
3. 11 Cruisers (67,050 tons) at 5151 Yen/ton.
4. 41 Destroyers (67,130 tons) at 3522 Yen/ton.
5. 18 Submarines (26,540) at 8317 Yen/ton.
6. 4 Auxiliaries (25,000) tons at 3522 Yen/ton.
The following costs are those of ships built as escorts.
7. Frigates (179,150 tons) at 5575 Yen/ton.
8. Corvettes (25,480 tons) at 5575 Yen/ton.
9. The costs of destroyers and aircraft as well as a variety of small craft used in the ASW role have not been calculated.
10. Total: 2,86 BillionYen.

B. Merchant Ships:

1. 5,121,000 tons sank or probably sank by submarines. According to the Japanese, the average cost of a merchant was 864 Yen/ton.
2. It is estimated that 50% of all ships sank were loaded with cargo and that the cargo was valued at the same price as the ship.
3. It is estimated that 10% of the fleet of 6 million tons was lost due to the inefficiency of convoying.

4. Total: 7.26 Billion Yen

Total: 10.11 Billion Yen

C. Conversion Estimate: Conversion costs are difficult to assess. The cost of a destroyer (since they were relatively similar in both navies) is used to compare. The U.S. paid $6400/ton, the Japanese paid 3522 Yen/ton or about $1000/ton at prewar exchange rates. If one estimates both countries as having equal efficiency, one must multiply the Japanese costs by 6.4. However, according to the U.S. Bombing Survey, Japanese shipyards were significantly less efficient. Japanese costs have been multiplied by 2 (which accords well with length of time to complete equivalent ships) in order to account for this variation in shipyard efficiency for a total multiplication of 12.8.This efficiency factor is conservative. During the war, the Americans estimated that Japanese worker efficiency (based upon prewar industrial data), was 29% that of the U.S.worker.

Americans:

Submarines:

1. 288 submarines U.S. submarines were used throughout the war.
2. 3 R-class plus Barracuda, Bass and Bonita (returned from mothballs)- $.85 Million per ship.
3. 38 S-boats at $ 1.65 million per ship.
4. 244 fleet boats at $ 3.3 million per ship.
5. Total: $873 million
Conclusion: The Japanese lost or spent 42.3 times as much as the Americans.