Stern
How Much the US-Weapons Cost

In germany we have a very special situation. Most people are against war in itself and many of the newsroom staff, me included, are too. (Please understand: we are also against terrorism and dictatorship, but we in germany have bad experiences and a special history concerning war). I myself cannot see all these "boy-toys-graphics" anymore and the enthusiasm of explaining it.

I agree with graphics like the one from El Correo to describe things, that had happened and which are worth to explain, what was going on. But I have seen lots of graphics, which are only speculation (saddams bunker).

Another problem is the quality of information we get. What is propaganda, what isn't? What is really happening there in Iraq? What kind of weapons do they really use? So, I and my chiefeditor decided not to explain weapons in the whole coverage, if it is not really needful or an important part of a story. So during the last three weeks of the coverage we only showed (besides the story and big pictures) maps and satelite-images.

This graphic was published two weeks before the beginning of the war. We want to explain the readers how much a war cost and which weapons the USA will use in the war. We added some comparisons about other wars (like the first Iraq-war, the second world war or Vietnam), how much it cost, how many bombs were used, and how many people died.

We have an editor, who made a list of all important weapons in six categories (in the bottom of the page). In the graphic we only show a simple image of each weapon (except the F/A 18), the name, and how much it cost. The eyecatcher in the graphic is a characteristic warplane for this war (F/A-18 Hornet) and some different bombs it and other warplanes can bear. The 3D-object came from a very nice CD-collection "3D-Objects" (500 3D-objects by Julius Wiedemann, 40 Dollars!).

We got positive feedback. Some people are surprised, that one warplane (B2) cost 2.1 billion dollars or one bomb cost 150, 000 dollars. It is simple information about the insanity of war. The graphic corresponds with the text, describing what you also can do with the money: resolving diseases, enviromental problems or other problems in third-world-countries (like education).

We had just one and a half days to produce the graphic. I did the arrangement of the graphic, the charts and some vehicles. My coworker Christian Eisenberg did the 3D-rendering of the F/A-18 and the bombs (with Cinema 4D), and two other graphic artists drew a few of the "cliparts". We already had some of the drawings in our archive.

(stern is a weekly magazine like TIME or Newsweek)

--Submitted by Jan Schwochow
Graphics Director