To purchase and maintain a single F-35 for a year will cost at least $300 Million USD the cost for 4 of them will be $1.2 Billion USD at the very least!
How many Zolfaghar missiles do you think Iran can produce with $1.2 Billion USD?
If each of these Zolfaghar Missiles were to cost Iran $500,000 USD to produce Iran could build at least 2,400 of these missiles for the cost of 4 F-35's alone
So, Iran's most advanced 750km guided ballistic missile costs $500,000 to produce? What is that price quote based on? For comparison:
ATACMS "on 20 December 2010, Lockheed Martin was awarded a contract for $916 million for 226 'tactical missiles' and 24 launcher modification kits for the UAE and Taiwan."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MGM-140_ATACMS#Current_operators
That's a good $4 million per missile.
Back in the 1980s: "The average unit cost of a Pershing II missile is $3.8 million."
http://www.miamisburg.org/pershing_missile_56th_field_artillery_command.htm
"Short range missiles, such as SCUD-B's, cost as little as $1 million to produce. At the other extreme is the Saudi purchase of DF-3 missiles from China, which reportedly cost $2 billion for 30 to 50 missiles and their associated launchers. Even if the missiles in this purchase accounted for only half of the total cost, they would still cost over $20 million apiece. Together with launchers, this begins to approach the unit cost of acquiring advanced strike aircraft"
https://books.google.nl/books?id=B4zSFd8DRWYC&pg=PA228&lpg=PA228&dq=scud+"unit+cost"&source=bl&ots=RJgXUIa0G1&sig=ku87ajOUV5sHZgc63QLtLAGlfAA&hl=nl&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj9l4DIuazPAhVH2hoKHRpkB5wQ6AEIWDAH#v=onepage&q=scud "unit cost"&f=false (1993 prices)
"After signing a contract for the licensed production of the Chinese WS-1A and WS-1B rockets under the name of
Kasırga in 1997, a similar contract was signed with CPMIEC (Chinese Precision Machinery Import and Export Corporation) for the Chinese B-611 SRBM system in 1998, covering the licensed production of a battery of B-611 with more than 200 missiles, at a reported cost of USD 300,000,000.
The J-600T design is based on the B-611 SRBM developed by CASIC (China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation) as a low cost tactical missile system, with a range of up to 250 km in improved versions such as the B-611M, and as a replacement for the M-11 (CSS-7 and DF-11) missiles in Chinese inventory. CPMIEC officials have confirmed at the IDEF 2007 military fair in Ankara that B-611M, the improved version of B-611, was not a part of the Sino-Turkish cooperation program."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J-600T_Yıldırım
(Like SCUD, this is a comparatively simple missile. Even so, if you allocate only half the $300 million to missiles and devide by 200, unit cost is $750,000 for a straight forward licence production [as opposed to much more expensive indigenous development])
As for generic F-35 unit cost in procurement, it averages thusfar to about $116 million
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning_II#Procurement_costs
Let's be generous and make that a round $150 million. Assuming for now that the 'at least $300 million' you quote is correct, are you suggesting the other 'at least $150 million' is operating cost for one year? What's the ínformational basis for that claim?
"One area where the F-35 is still expensive? The cost per hour to fly, which over the lifetime of the plane can amount to more than the plane itself. The F-35A still costs a whopping
$42,169 per hour to fly. Assuming a plane flies 120 hours a year, over 20 years that comes out to $100 million. The Super Hornet costs about $17,000 an hour to fly, which comes out to $40 million."
http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a21776/f-35-cheaper/
Let's assume it costs $50,000 per hour to fly an F-35 (if you research it, you find figures much lower, more like $30-35k, as compared to 20-25k for the F-16). Then those 'at least $150 million' operating cost for a year represent 'at least 3000 flying hours'.
"As built, Block 40 and 50 F-16s have an 8,000 flight-hour fatigue life. At normal usage of around 300 hours per year, that amounts to 24 years"
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/th...6-fighter-jet-could-fly-92-years-theory-14290
See also
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/f-16-life.htm
IMHO at least 3000 hours for a year is at least a factor of 10 off.
So, what else has been dumped into that "over $300 million" figure for the F-35?
$116 million + (300h*$35000) = $126.5 million for 1 year. Now, $1.2 billion gets you 9-10 F-35. And that amount may not get you 2400 missiles but rather 300.
Of course, this is all silly accounting, because no one gets a jet for just 1 year, and so procurement cost is spread over the life time. As shown, if $150m gets you an F-35 and $150m gets you 3000 flight hours, you are actually talking a 10 year period under normal (US) number of annual flight hours (while the F-35 would likely last 9000, seeing as how F-16 originally project service life of 8000 hours got extended to 12000). Assuming a missile has a similar shelf life of 10 years, since you can only fire a missile once, you would need multiple missile to a single figher jet for comparable mission capability and flexibility.
