American Navy has made a contract with Boeing on the supply of 400 RGM-84L-4 Harpoon Block II Update (HIIU) Grade B anti-ship missiles with a total worth of USD 1.17 billion. In addition to the missiles, the deal includes four practice missiles, containers, spare parts for Harpoon Coastal Defense Systems (HCDS) and documents with technical data. The deadlines of the contract were not specified.
But the real news is that according to this contract, even considering all the support materials, the price for one RGM-84L-4 Harpoon Block II Update (HIIU) Grade B missile is roughly $2.25 mln, which is actually a record-breaking mark.
Read more: China Is Preparing For War, As Well As Taiwan Is Already Preparing For Battles And the Island Blockade
For comparison, by far the most expensive missile was the Naval Strike Missile (NSM), it was a bestseller on the world arms market with a price tag of varying about $2 million per unit.
As noted, the mentioned contract is part of a much broader export deal Boeing uptook by request of the US Navy. The worth of this export deal is as much as $2.37 billion and includes supply of 100 Harpoon Coastal Defense Systems, these very 400 missiles to them, radars and other associated equipment by 2028 in the hands of a "foreign customer."
Given the high general worth of the contract, we can expect the price of $2.25 bln per missile to be realistic. And such a high price is not only because it's for export.
For a while now, US industry hasn't been producing Harpoon missiles at all. That is one of the reasons why there is no data about the exact cost of this anti-ship missile, even approximate estimates. Then, when in spring 2022, the US and partners started to assemble a coastal defense for Ukraine, they had to collect missiles, launchers and other parts of the system from Great Britain, the Netherlands, Denmark and Spain.
There is a suggestion these Harpoon missiles and systems were bought specially for Taiwan. If true, then the necessity must be extremely urgent, since communist China keeps threatening an invasion of the island country. In this case, even 400 anti-ship missiles is only the bare minimum that would be spent in just a few hours right after the war broke out, as estimated by CSIS analytical center.
Against this background, it looks like the price of several million dollars per missile ceased to matter because now the most important issue is so that the anti-ship assets were delivered in time before a potential aggressor makes the first move.
Read more: Spain Gives Ukraine Only Five Harpoon Missiles But It's Enough to Take Down Five "Moskva" Cruisers, And More
