The U.S. Army has purchased 13,000 Merops low-cost interceptor drones and begun deploying them to counter Iranian-made Shahed one-way attack systems, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll told lawmakers during a budget hearing last week — describing an acquisition process that compressed what had previously been a years-long, multi-agency effort into eight days.
“When the conflict kicked off, within about eight days, we were able to purchase 13,000 Merops, which are incredible,” Driscoll said. “That puts us on the right end of the cost curve, and we will make that trade all day long.”
The economics are the strategy. Merops currently costs approximately $15,000 per unit — a figure the Army expects to drop below $10,000 at scale — against an estimated $30,000 to $50,000 per Shahed. The deployment represents a direct application of the cost-exchange logic battlefield-tested in Ukraine, where low-cost interceptors combined with electronic warfare have degraded the operational return on Shahed saturation attacks while imposing rising costs on the attacker.
Developed by Perennial Autonomy, formerly known as Project Eagle, the Merops is a mobile, fixed-wing interceptor designed to destroy hostile drones in flight. It has a range of five to 20 kilometers, reaches speeds up to 280 kilometers per hour, and carries a two-kilogram fragmentation warhead. Onboard sensors enable target acquisition via radio frequency signals, radar guidance, or thermal signatures, and the system is designed to operate in GPS and RF-contested environments. It can be launched from the bed of a standard pickup truck.
Ukrainian forces first employed Merops against Russian-operated Shaheds in June 2024. The system has since been deployed by NATO allies Poland and Romania on the alliance’s eastern flank, and demonstrated by U.S. and NATO forces in a live-fire exercise in Poland in November 2025.
Brig. Gen. Curtis King, commanding general of the 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command, described the system as “very lethal” and said it “enables us to kill [enemies] very effectively and at a much lower cost.”
The rapid fielding marks a notable departure from traditional Army acquisition timelines and reflects sustained pressure from senior leaders to match the procurement tempo that has characterized Ukrainian drone warfare since 2022.
