alt Hacker News> A million dollar patriot missile to shoot down a cheap drone, etc.
Except this is more propaganda than truth. In general america does not use patriots to shoot down drones except in exceptional circumstances.
Not that the ecconomics of missile defense isnt a problem. It can be. But some of it has been highly exagerated.
The US just blew through a large percentage of its PAC-3/PAC-2 inventory fighting Iran. Other than Patriot, the US doesn't really have much GBAD anymore. A few Avenger systems, some Stinger MANPADs, etc. It's either Patriot or THAAD; and hopefully they're not dumb enough to be using THAAD against drones.
I'm sure they burned through quite a few AMRAAM and Sidewinders doing intercepts as well. Patriot is much more expensive than $1M (try $4M), Stinger is around 250K depending on who the customer is ($750K if you're non-US). AMRAAM is over $1M, Sidewinders $500K.
Even APKWS is $40k, and Shaheed prices are around $30k? So even that low cost option is losing.