> Adam Smith pointed out the first pencil costs thousands of dollars, but the second is mostly free. Same dynamic here, but multipled by a thousand.

The shells are already made by the 10 and 100s of thousands, Shaheds are also not a research project, so either one is in amortized serial production now.

What I meant is that a $10k shell doesn't cost that much. Russians are making the equivalent artillery shells for an _order_ of magnitude less for around $1k. A lot of defense costs are just overinflated simply because they can be. The government is spending taxpayer money, it's not really coming from the politicians' pockets. If the kickbacks are just right, they may in fact flow back into the politicians pockets.

At a certain distance, I'd contend all infrastructure is big and static. Our energy comes from large facilities, without these facilities continent scale infrastructure will grind to a halt at 1500 miles. Rail, power lines, warehouses, factories and trucks are all relatively static. It's not unreasonable to expend a Shahed type drone on a simple semi-truck parked overnight from nearly a continent away. There are only 3 million semi-trucks in the entire US, and I'd be shocked if the country could run without them.

> It is vastly more complicated to find targets at 1500 miles than at 20.

It's true but they are so cheap that launching a whole bunch and/or improving them incrementally is possible. Yeah they are for stationary targets mostly, for sure. And of course their sounds and relatively low speed does make them somewhat easier to shoot down with short range AA guns and can have automated acoustic early warning system (it's like a flying lawnmower or chainsaw).

No the Russians inability is because they are bad at it. Extremely bad. Ukraine destroy military targets at extreme range with drone all the time

They can’t be used for moving targets but for infrastructure they can be effective. At the cost of only a few artillery shells send 10 and maybe 3 will hit.

Another advantage is because of simplicity and cost it allows quick iteration and adaptability. Use honeycomb patterns to lower radar signatures, use specialized antijamming gps/glonass antennas. Engine is too slow? Add a small turbojet. Color too light and visible at night? Paint it gray, etc. That can happen at the speed of weeks and months. Try doing that with Tomahawks, artillery pieces or HIMARS.