[Midwesterner53]

I was a Patriot missile Army Officer during my career in the Army. This seems like an expensive way to shoot down cheap drones unless they will use it to shoot down Russian cruise missiles.

[familyop]

"I was a Patriot missile Army Officer during my career in the Army. This seems like an expensive way to shoot down cheap drones unless they will use it to shoot down Russian cruise missiles."

The Ukrainians can already shoot down most drones and cruise missiles and are getting better at it. Patriot systems will be focused on incoming ballistic missiles.

I was a 12B. Hope you'll find the following to be interesting.

Investigation: Where does Russian disinformation incubate in US?
https://kyivindependent.com/investigations/investigation-where-does-russian-disinformation-incubate-in-us

[nascarnation]

Thanks for your service.

One of the guys I worked with was in Gulf War 1.
He talked about loading new software with floppy disks into the system pretty much every day, so obviously there was lots of development going on.

[BobL]

“I was a Patriot missile Army Officer during my career in the Army. This seems like an expensive way to shoot down cheap drones unless they will use it to shoot down Russian cruise missiles.”

That’s the problem these days. A cheap drone with a lawnmower engine can still deliver 1000 lbs. or so to its target...so you will need to shoot it down, with something.

[cranked]

“I was a Patriot missile Army Officer during my career in the Army. This seems like an expensive way to shoot down cheap drones unless they will use it to shoot down Russian cruise missiles.”

Very expensive way indeed.

Conversely, given my experiences, Patriot systems are sophisticated systems that require months of proper training. Ukrainians haven’t been trained to operate these systems as far as I know. If the US is sending these systems to Ukraine, then they are probably sending US/NATO troops (i.e.: as PMC Mercs) to operate them as well. Making this an outright US/NATO escalation. Yes?