By Jim Thomas | Sunday, 31 May 2026 09:30 AM EDT
The Pentagon has moved closer to one of the most lopsided cost gaps in modern warfare: shooting down $30,000 drones with $1 million missiles.
A new Marine Corps air defense system tested in the Philippines in April pairs cannons, missiles, and electronic jammers to tactical vehicles, giving commanders a way to knock cheap drones out of the sky for a fraction of the cost of current interceptors.
The Marine Air Defense Integrated System, or MADIS, pairs two joint light tactical vehicles—the Humvee’s successor—into a single short-range air defense unit. One carries radar and electronic-warfare gear, including jammers. The other mounts Stinger missiles.
Both vehicles carry a 30 mm cannon and a smaller machine gun, giving commanders a menu of options: missiles, guns, or jamming against incoming threats.
The system, built by Kongsberg, hit full-rate production last fall and is being fielded first with the 3rd Littoral Anti-Air Battalion in Hawaii.
Air-to-air missiles such as the AIM-120 run about $1 million each, according to a Center for Strategic and International Studies report. A Stinger costs roughly $430,000, and the Coyote interceptor used in the Middle East runs $100,000 to $125,000, said Steven Sawyers, a former NATO ammunition technician who now runs a U.K. consultancy.
Iran’s Shahed-class drones, the long-range strike weapons used against U.S. forces in the region and by Russia in Ukraine, cost roughly $30,000. Small quadcopters can run as little as $1,500.
That is where the 30 mm round comes in.
Fitted with a proximity fuze, it detonates near the target rather than requiring a direct hit.
Sawyers estimates that taking down a drone with five rounds costs roughly $11,250.
In December, the Army awarded Northrop Grumman a contract worth more than $200 million to produce the XM1211, a 30×113 mm proximity-fuzed round designed for short-range air defense against small drones, with production running through facilities in Minnesota, West Virginia, and Virginia.
L3Harris, which makes 30 mm rounds, said it is scaling up to meet demand.
Supply, not design, is the bottleneck. “Proximity fuzes are precision electromechanical devices, and the lines that build them at scale are few,” Sawyers said.
Stinger inventories pose a sharper constraint. As Tom Karako of CSIS put it, they are more capable than guns but “more limited in terms of number.”
Jim Thomas is a writer based in Indiana. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Political Science, a law degree from U.I.C. Law School, and has practiced law for more than 20 years.
