"Very close ally" (LOL)

[yankeedoodle]

Here's an amusing article about a "very close ally" - Israhell, no doubt - that used a $3,000,000 Patriot missile to shoot down a $200 drone. 

Of course, when the US gives them to you for free, who cares about cost.  America just can't spend enough month to keep Israhell safe.

    An Army general says an ally used a $3 million Patriot missile to shoot down a $200 drone     
http://www.businessinsider.com/us-ally-used-3-million-dollar-patriot-missile-to-shoot-down-a-200-dollar-drone-2017-3

A US ally reportedly used a Patriot missile to shoot down a drone aircraft worth just a few hundred dollars, according to a US Army general.

Gen. David Perkins, commander of the Army Training and Doctrine Command, related the incident to an audience at an Association of the US Army meeting in Huntsville, Alabama, on March 13.

Perkins relayed the anecdote when his remarks turned to how address threats at different levels of command.

"When we started first dealing with enemy unmanned aerial systems, the gut instinct was that's an air-defense problem. That's an air-defense problem because they're in the air," he said, adding:

"And, in fact, we have a very close ally of ours that was dealing with an adversary that was using the small, quadcopter UASes, and they shot it down with a Patriot missile. Now that worked. They got it, OK, and we love Patriot missiles, and I know those folks out there that build them and sell them and they're great. They're a high-demand, low-density item."

"The problem is on the kinetic-exchange ratio, the Patriot won. That quadcopter that cost $200 from Amazon.com did not stand a chance against a Patriot. So on the kinetic-exchange ratio they won."

Radar-guided Patriots are intended to intercept other missiles, which would theoretically make them suitable for small, nimble targets like drones. But a single missile can cost between $2.5 million and $3.4 million.

As Perkins noted, the disparity between the price of the Patriot and the price of the drone calls the overall wisdom of the tactic into question.

"On the economic-exchange ratio, I'm not sure that's a good economic-exchange ratio," he told the audience. "In fact, if I'm the enemy, I'm thinking, 'Hey, I'm just going to get on Ebay and buy as many of these $300 quadcopters as I can and expend all the Patriot missiles out there.'"