An IRIS-T costs on the order of a quarter million Euros and certainly doesn't have a worse track record. This isn't just about having other things to shoot easy targets with but US military tech being quite overpriced. And this isn't even comparing to South Korea who produce notoriously inexpensive stuff this is German tech, with all the usual gold plating.

...also, apparently, eye-balling that figure of "several hundred" patriot missiles per year: That's probably fewer than the production rate of IRIS-T (450-500 this year) and definitely fewer than next year (Diehl said they're double the rate).

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

An IRIS-T is for area defense. It's an easier problem because the target is generally headed right at you. Part of the issue here is that the Navy is largely doing mid-course intercepts which requires a significantly higher performance interceptor in most cases. The AEGIS-BMD mission was designed primarily around fleet defense, not swatting rockets out of the sky which are targeting things much farther away. It can obviously play that role, but most of it requires using much higher performance missiles to do it.