Missiles for $2.45 million against foam drones! How much did it cost to shoot down the Russian UAVs over Poland

While the Netherlands is helping Poland defend itself from the Russian "Gerber" drones, the US has published the price list for the new AIM-120s, with which these foam drones were shot down. The Ukrainian Defense Express project has calculated how much it cost to shoot down the Russian drones that entered Polish airspace.

The attack by Russian drones against Poland on the night of September 10 is objectively a "cold shower" for the countries of the European segment of NATO. Because despite all the optimistic reports and the strengthening of the presence on the eastern flank of the Alliance, it demonstrates the lack of readiness of their air forces for such missions.

And it is not just that out of about 20 drones, only up to four were shot down. The question is what they were shot down with. Because the debris from the AIM-120C-7 air-to-air missile clearly shows that the Polish Air Force with F-16s and the Dutch F-35s were used against the Russian foam UAVs.

And the price of these missiles has been very conveniently updated by the US Department of Defense Defense Cooperation Agency (DSCA), which recently issued a permit to the Netherlands to purchase AIM-120 AMRAAM. It is important to use the replacement cost of the weapon, and not its “book value” with depreciation.

For 232 missiles in the current version AIM-120C-8, the marginal price is set at $570 million. That is, up to $2.45 million per missile. It is true that the final price in the firm agreement may be lower, but very often they are identical.

Thus, if the destruction of all four "Gerber" was carried out with AIM-120, then the replenishment of ammunition would cost $9.8 million. With an estimated price of "Gerber" of about $10 thousand, this means a difference of 245 times. This is provided that one missile was used for one target.

Of course, to shoot them down, slightly simpler and cheaper missiles - AIM-9 Sidewinder - could have been used. And again, thanks to the DSCA and the new authorization for Belgium to purchase AIM-9X Block II, it is known that 578 missiles will cost it $567.8 million. This means that one modern version of the AIM-9 costs $0.98 million.

If the Dutch and Polish fighters used four AIM-9s to shoot down drones, then replenishing their stocks would cost them $3.9 million. And the difference in the cost of targets and means of their destruction is 98 times. At the same time, the question of the flight time of fighters and all other components in this situation is fairly excluded.

With any variations, the difference in the cost of restoring ammunition and destroyed targets is simply enormous. In addition, it is necessary to take into account the rates and volumes of production of both means of destruction, i.e. "air-to-air" missiles from the American Raytheon, as well as targets in the form of drones from Chinese components in the Russian Federation.

At the same time, the main problem for the air forces of the European segment of NATO is that no preparations have been made for the integration of cheap and mass missiles for the destruction of drones from fighter jets. Despite the existing experience of Ukraine. And if the USA successfully integrated 70-mm APKWS into its fighters, then in Europe this direction was simply ignored. And only now in BAE Systems "actively studying“ the possibility of their integration into the Eurofighter Typhoon.