US just have too much money as moving to use interceptor drones is very simple when you have the need.

Russia and Ukraine both ultimately scaled up volunteer started development and production of that "fastest drone on Youtube" for the interceptor role. Cheap, simple, and works against pretty much any prop-driven drone used there.

https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/1rigqam/oper...

Russia did start to use those hobby jet engines instead of props on the attack drones, and that made them go 600km/h instead of 200km/h. I'm yet to see the interceptor drone for that - it will also have to use, while smaller, such a hobby jet engine. Again laughably cheap - $3K Alibaba. (there are some other options too, i think we'll see them in time too (if anybody have few mils to burn - ping me :). Anyway, the guys are having wonderful time as their hobby became the eye of the global multibillion hurricane of hot military tech. Even the Blackwater guy - the one who was riding the money tsunami back in the Iraq time - got into it by just recently becoming some C-exec in a pre-IPO Ukranian drone developer)

AA artillery (radar guided, I'm sure even better improvements with modern tech could be made) seems like a pretty easy win here as well? Cheap bullets, downside being populated areas might impose a risk due to low-flying objects and the interception trajectories needed.

Something like the Phalanx only not $50k/burst.

That's really neat hah.

The US deployed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Precision_Kill_Weapon... to "cheaply" kill incoming slow munitions. It requires planes in the air but that's sort of table stakes for an operation involving the US in general.

We can make plenty of those rockets. They are cheaper than Shaheds! Though that doesn't count the plane time! $20k per hour per plane at least.

As the cat and mouse game continues, Shahed style weapons used against countries with any meaningful defense, like "drone interceptors" or helicopters or old warplanes, the munitions will continue to evolve towards "Just a guided missile at this point", where the situation again transitions back to the economics of cruise missile vs patriot.

The Hydra pods can be used against any precision weapon up to subsonic cruise missiles, so their versatility and pricetag only gets more effective, while every effort making the Shahed more survivable only makes it more expensive and harder to build.

In an interesting twist, a good air force now ends up doing good work against cruise missiles.

If cruise missiles try to go faster, supersonic, to make these Hydra pods ineffective, they end up getting more expensive rather quick, at which point the $4 million patriot missile makes sense.

The Patriot isn't even a fiscally efficient anti-missile system. The Israeli Iron Dome can intercept subsonic cruise missiles and costs about $100k an interception.

Most "Missile Defense" munitions are expensive because they have to be capable against ballistic missiles, which are much more difficult to intercept. MANPADS are sometimes effective against cruise missiles and they are often cheap and plentiful, though putting them in the right place at the right time is the hard problem there. The Hydra pods are actually better in that case because a modern jet will reposition rather quickly. Then the problem becomes noticing the incoming munitions early enough to get a plane on its tail.

All this still depends on industry to build it though. These missiles are cheap in bulk but that still requires the factory exist, and that isn't always cheap or easy or fast. In Ukraine, drones get a secondary benefit of being a very survivable industry, as it uses entirely commodity components and even 3D printed parts so it can easy disperse and scale however you can manage.