Using those more expensive cruise missiles is part of USA's military doctrine + they have virtually unlimited war funds so the cost factor isn't a big deal to them, so I don't expect them to pivot to smaller drones in an attack against IranBut I certainly agree,seeing how the defences handle a simulated large scale saturation type attack would be very useful,as with the increasing trend towards very cheap s-131/136 type weapons,these sorts of attacks will become increasingly practical,not to mention far cheaper than using the traditional gold plated turbofan powered million dollar cruise missiles.
Interesting, I didn't consider its role in intercepting aerial weapons. I am not sure how effective it would be against stand-off munitions, probably better against Mk-84/mk-82 bombs than cruise missiles that travel faster like PopeyeThats one of the things that I admire about the AD-08,you`re arguably looking at the first purpose designed sam system intended for the shooting down of cheap precision guided aerial weapons,and to do it cheaply enough to be practical,because theres no point in using million dollar sams/a2a missiles on weapons costing in the low tens of thousands of dollars.
Even against the former there's the challenge of detecting the bombs in time, but JASSM-ER has 1000km range so it should be possible