The reality is cheaper solutions never make it past Congress.
The US Army developed the simple Compact Kinetic Energy anti tank missile that was far cheaper than the $80,000 to $100,000 per missile TOW missile.
The missile was really just a simple hypersonic rocket that relied on speed to destroy a target with brute force applied to a heavy slug of metal. The missile, with rudimentary guidance systems, was so fast it could hit a target moving at over 50 mph with a simple sighting system. So little time elapsed between launch and impact that the target did not have time to move even at high speed.
Congress shot it down because it was far cheaper to build than TOW meaning smaller kick backs. The CKE project was killed around the time a $4.4 billion dollar contract for the follow-on TOW missile was passed in 1996.
