The railgun's apparent price is a development and production-scale problem rather than a settled unit cost. Research, testing, metallurgy, and the demand for repeated reliability must be paid before a fleet can benefit from mass production. The Type 45 program illustrates the wider procurement lesson: halving an intended class does not halve the fixed costs, so a small buy produces a misleadingly high per-ship figure. The same logic applies to later Type 26 orders and other programs whose research burden is divided among fewer hulls. A battleship and railgun program therefore cannot be judged independently of fleet scale, order stability, and industrial policy.
Chapter · 1:57:46-2:00:31
Railgun costs depend on development and production scale
Railguns look expensive while research and reliability costs are spread across tiny numbers, much as reduced warship orders inflate reported unit costs.