U.S. Seeks Cheap Drones as Warfare Shifts --- Startups tweak designs and use off-the-shelf parts for new battleground

 

Cheap drones and missiles give very high casualty rates in a war. This is politically not sustainable for America after Vietnam. This is why there is no American boots on the ground in Iran. The heavy death toll and cultural shock of the Vietnam War (where the U.S. suffered over 58,200 fatal casualties) established a deep-seated resistance to prolonged deadly ground wars.

 

 

„The U.S. is shooting down cheap Iranian drones with missiles that can cost upward of a million dollars. Jason Cornelius is making a missile in Texas that he says will cost $10,000.

 

The former NASA engineer's company is one of a host of startups and big defense contractors racing to develop cheaper missiles to intercept the drones that now are proliferating in modern warfare.

 

Wars in the Middle East have put a spotlight on how limited supplies of sophisticated missiles -- including multimillion-dollar Patriot interceptors -- are sometimes being used to defend against mass-produced drones that cost just a few thousand dollars.

 

Startups are now tweaking designs, using off-the-shelf parts and switching to automated manufacturing to bring down prices. Soon they will be able to churn out missiles that cost tens of thousands of dollars, not hundreds of thousands or more, they say.

 

"We saw what was happening in Iran and we saw a need for cheap counterdrone tech that was not being met," said Cornelius. The 30-year-old quit his job at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration last year to co-found Perseus Defense.

 

The company started with a simple idea: Can we produce a smaller, cheaper and quicker-to-make version of the AIM-9 Sidewinder, one of the world's most used air-defense missiles?

 

Sidewinders, used by the U.S. military for decades, still cost a lot. Last year, the U.S. sold Turkey 60 of them, together with additional front ends, spare parts and training, for almost $80 million.

 

Established missiles like the Sidewinder are highly effective, but were designed to destroy jet fighters and other expensive targets, said Cornelius.

 

"They were not designed to shoot down $5,000 drones in quantities of thousands or tens of thousands," he said.

 

Perseus's product is a 15-inch missile that the company says can be fired from drones, ground vehicles and boats. The "micro-missile" has a range of about 1,100 yards.

 

To be sure, much of this new generation of missiles haven't been tested on the battlefield. Most are also only suitable for short-range defense, lacking the full capabilities of high-end missiles. Interceptors used in high-end Patriot systems, for instance, are faster, more accurate and travel further. They can also intercept ballistic missiles.

 

Still, the missile startups say they are fielding calls from governments in the Persian Gulf and the West to increase production. The U.S. and Germany have both ordered large quantities of lower-cost missiles or guided rockets designed to counter drones.

 

The Pentagon likely fired about $5.7 billion worth of interceptors to shoot down Iranian ballistic missiles and drones in the first four days of the war alone, according to an analysis by Elaine McCusker, a top Pentagon budget official during the first Trump administration.

 

Gulf states are also spending big on the war. Nations including Saudi Arabia have launched multimillion-dollar Patriot interceptors and fired missiles from aircraft to take out Iranian drones.

 

The U.S. and other nations know they need to buy cheaper munitions, and are looking outside the traditional defense industry to do so.

 

"Smaller new companies are providing the department with potential new options in affordability and scalability," Lt. Gen. Frank J. Lozano, portfolio acquisition executive for fires at the U.S. Army, told a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on low-cost munitions recently.

 

Iran's Shahed drone, together with its Russian equivalent, have revolutionized warfare. The Shahed, which crashes into its targets, can be deployed en masse to saturate an adversary's defenses, depleting stocks of expensive interceptor missiles.

 

Kusti Salm, chief executive of Estonian startup Frankenburg Technologies, which is also developing cost-effective interceptors, remembers first reading about Iran sending Shaheds to Ukraine in 2022.

 

"I thought, if Russia is going to launch 100 Shaheds a month as weapons, every single country in Europe will have trouble," said Salm, who was working in Estonia's defense department at the time. "Now, they send up to 400 a day."

 

Frankenburg says its missiles can fly at more than 600 miles an hour and have a range of up to a mile. They cost in the low tens of thousands of dollars and take just hours to make.

 

That is possible thanks to advances in everyday products. While missiles were once built using bespoke components made especially for the defense industry, some parts can now be taken from consumer electronics, Salm said.

 

For instance, inertial navigation systems -- used to calculate a position, orientation and speed of an object -- were initially developed for rockets. Now many mobile phones have them.

 

Salm said Frankenburg had already sold its missiles to two different countries, which he declined to name, and that the startup had been inundated with inquiries from Gulf nations.

 

Other big defense companies are also working on cheaper options. Europe's MBDA signed a deal with Germany last year to produce a cheap missile called DefendAir aimed at small to medium-size drones. Sweden's Saab is in talks with countries about a cheap missile it has developed.“ [1]

 

„Jason Cornelius is making a missile in Texas that he says will cost $10,000.“ How does he get rare earths containing parts for massive production of theses things from China?

 

•  Utilizing Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) Parts: By designing their interceptors around off-the-shelf components, startups use standard electronic sensors and consumer-grade chips that are more easily sourced through global distribution networks rather than highly restricted defense-only channels.

•  The "Legacy" Stockpile Buffer: In cases of severe shortages (such as with highly heat-tolerant magnets utilizing samarium), the U.S. defense sector has utilized specialized distribution agreements and European reserves to temporarily circumvent Chinese export bans.

These sources don’t look sufficient for any conflict with even middle power supported by Chinese.

 

1. U.S. News: U.S. Seeks Cheap Drones as Warfare Shifts --- Startups tweak designs and use off-the-shelf parts for new battleground. MacDonald, Alistair.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 15 June 2026: A6.