The difficulty is choosing to fire a lower probability of kill weapon while defending a high-value asset (the ship) during a limited window of engagement.
By definition, cheaper interceptors are shorter range, which means you have less time for a Plan B if it fails.
The historical solution was to push air defense pickets farther out around high-value ships, but the US hasn't had anything affordable in that class since the Perries referenced in the article.
Aka, if you have an SM-2 or ESSM to fire to defend an Arleigh Burke+ at maximum range... you're going to fire it.
I don’t think it’s even theoretically possible to defend an aircraft carrier sized target against a sufficiently concentrated missile/drone attack within say a 5 minute window 200 km offshore.
Even if we assume absurdities like quadrupling the number of reactors, 100% efficient lasers, a dozen escort ships also with their own lasers, etc…
I expect that's a big part of the SEWIP Block III upgrade: high-power EWAR being seen as the most effective current point defense against swarms.
Presumably you can pump enough energy through naval AESAs to do bad things to drones and cruise missiles, and they have the advantage of being electronically steerable and volumetrically targeted.
By definition, cheaper interceptors are shorter range, which means you have less time for a Plan B if it fails.
The historical solution was to push air defense pickets farther out around high-value ships, but the US hasn't had anything affordable in that class since the Perries referenced in the article.
Aka, if you have an SM-2 or ESSM to fire to defend an Arleigh Burke+ at maximum range... you're going to fire it.