Drones have become more and more irksome these days. They intrude someone's privacy more frequently causing difficulties. But this incident reported by a U.S. general is really odd and amusing to hear. General David Perkins in a military symposium said to the audience that one of the U.S. allies had used an MIM-104 Patriot missile costing $3.4 million to destroy a quadcopter drone estimated to cost about $200. Watch this video below for his statement. (Around 14:55 in the video)
An MIM-104 Patriot missile is a surface-to-air missile (SAM) developed by the USA in the early 80s. It is used by several countries throughout the world like Germany, Isreal, Japan, South Korea, Spain, etc. It is indeed a really tremendous overkill to be used as a weapon to take down a quadcopter drone that you find at Amazon or Walmart.
The problem here that you clearly can see is the difference in cost between the hostile target and the instrument that was used to defend against it. It is immensely on the wrong side here. But you have to do when it is the safety of civilians in the line. These days, even consumer drones like the one mentioned can be armed with explosives. Or it may be just a test launch of the missile to demonstrate its accuracy. However, we do not know which ally of the US it was but it happened and it is not the first time for something like this to happen.
nice post
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