Posted on 05/16/2023 10:14:29 AM PDT by Ultra Sonic 007
[snip]
...But I am deeply skeptical that Patriot has ever intercepted a long-range ballistic missile in combat — at the least, I have yet to see convincing unclassified evidence of a successful Patriot intercept.
During the 1991 Gulf War, the public was led to believe the that the Patriot had near-perfect performance, intercepting 45 of 47 Scud missiles. The US Army later revised that estimate down to about 50 percent — and even then, it expressed “higher” confidence in only about one-quarter of the cases. A pesky Congressional Research Service employee noted that if the Army had correctly applied its own assessment methodology consistently, the number would be far lower. (Reportedly that number was one — as in one lousy Scud missile downed.)
According to a House Committee on Government Operations investigation, there was not enough evidence to conclude that there had been any intercepts. “There is little evidence to prove that the Patriot hit more than a few Scud missiles launched by Iraq during the Gulf War,” a summary of the investigations concluded dryly, “and there are some doubts about even these engagements.”
This report — which called on the Pentagon to declassify more information about the performance of the Patriot and request an independent evaluation of the program — never saw the light of day. A fierce lobbying campaign by the Army and Raytheon spiked it, save for a summary.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Or maybe, over 22 years, missile intercept technology has improved. Witness video of Israel’s Iron Dome successfully intercepting palestinian rockets:
https://twitter.com/manniefabian/status/1656363889666191375
Modern day version of the Nordon bomb sight legend (as in “story”)
When in fact it was so wildly successful, an announced failure bought America 40 years of a system no other country had a way to defend against, because they thought it never worked.
Big boys in charge kinda strategies.
Not only are rockets are not missiles, but why are you bringing up the Iron Dome when the subject of the article was the Patriot?
All missiles come down... Gravity wins every time...
So their is a 100% shoot down rate from nature.
The only question is did the missile hit a target and do damage.
Given how heavy the propaganda has been across Ukrainian and Russian sources, it’s probably somewhere in between.
A little contrarian thinking. The speed of ballistic intercepts is such that visual assessment from the ground is not very useful. And at least some intercepts happened at night, in clouds, etc.
Therefore, radar etc would be the tools to assess.
IF: Patriot didn’t work, the public disinformation claim would be to say it did work. Conversely, if Patriot was really good, why announce that? Why not play down the effectiveness? Keep the other guys uncertain.
Bottom line, those that really know aren’t talking.
The problem is that so many who don't know have increasingly loud voices; in an age where politicians and even military officials can have their judgment clouded by social media, the louder "know nothings" can cause the equivalent of white noise.
I have little doubt that the Patriot PAC3 can intercept “scud” like missiles. The Patriot used in Desert Storm was firing on a variant of the Scud called the Al-Hussein. The Al-Hussein was made by welding fuel tanks from two scuds together and reducing the payload to get longer range. (Payload had to be reduced to get it to launch with the heavier fuel load.)
The scud is a unitary body missile, it has a non-separating warhead. The shade-tree mechanic rigged Al-Hussein was aerodynamically unstable during reentry and oscillated violently and would break up. The warhead would unintentionally separate from the rocket body. The Patriot, that was programmed to hit the largest piece would almost unfailingly spray the rocket body with shrapnel and ignore the warhead. Later field upgrades during the war allowed the missile to hit the leading piece, almost invariably the warhead which was denser and fell faster than a spent rocketbody. So it would spray the warhead with shrapnel, doing little damage, but scoring a moral(e) victory against a round that had a ballistic accuracy only slightly larger than Rhode Island.
The PAC-3 is a hit to kill kinetic energy effector. It hits warheads with titanium rods, both changing the target’s momentum, and disrupting any guidance, targeting or fuzing capability.
Not in anyway comparable to the Gulf War I effectors.
What was the best digital camera in 1991? How many times a second could an intercept trajectory be recalculated?
These have been some of the areas of greatest technological progress in the last 30 years. No surprise interception has gotten much easier.
The big challenge of modern war is that in 2023 if you can see something you can kill it. That forces a reevaluation of everything our armed forces does.
The Scud was basically a slightly more sophisticated V2.
Concerning Iron Dome, I trust anything from Israel more than I trust General Dynamics or Raytheon. I know that these companies work with Israeli companies all the time on technology. Just do not trust these defense contractors beyond spending government funds.
Although the GD and Raytheon PR machine is pretty good.
Would be disappointed but not surprised if the military shoveled propaganda at us during wartime, if only for morale reasons.
I truly hope that the Patriot PAC3 is much better than it was 25+ years ago.
This, after all, the leftist Business Insider speaking.
Raytheon doesn’t make the PAC-3, Lockheed does. The PAC-3 is a different animal, shorter range, specifically designed to counter ballistic missiles up close. The 1991 vintage Patriot missile which is still fielded, Patriot batteries carry a mix of ammunition for different targets, was designed to kill airbreathing targets, and was almost certainly the best in class for that mission in 1991. It was known that it had the capability of engaging Scuds, which have chemical, explosive and nuclear warheads. It was considered worthwhile to provide and test software upgrades to allow it to engage Scuds.
Iraq purchased Scuds to fire at Teheran during their long war. The Scuds did not have the required range, so they modified to Al-Husseins. Having a few hundred pounds of high-explosive rain down on their capital annoyed the Iranians. The U.S., which was concerned about fighting a war with the Soviet Union, correctly considered the Al-Hussein nothing more than a nuisance weapon, like the V-2, and ignored it. The problem for the U.S. was that it turned out after the Cold War that Saddam was going to launch them against Israel. Since it could be fitted with a chemical (poison gas) warhead, the psychological and political implications for Israel were enormous. Using the Patriot takes training, at least several months with the system in White Sands, and in classroom. There were no trained Israeli units, so “giving” them to Israel was pointless. (Ukrainians have been training on Patriot in Poland, Germany, and the United States for over a year, led by U.S instructors.)
The engagement of the Al-Hussein (d/b/a “scud”) by Patriot was a confidence building exercise, as was the deployment of U.S. Patriot batteries to Israel. (The only time foreign troops have ever been used to defend Israeli soil.) The idea was to give Israeli politicians a rationale not to respond to Iraqi nuisance attacks, for doing so would turn some in the Arab public against the coalition, although most Arabs saw through Saddam for what he was. The Patriot kept Israel out, the Arabs in. The Patriot system was 100% successful in this role.
There is a wonderful back-story to the delivery of these “upgraded” Patriots. The missile were completed (with warhead) at the Lockheed Martin facility in Orlando, FL (very near the tourist attractions, which is why production has now been moved). When the last quality stamp was applied, with a truck waiting to carry it to the airport to a waiting aircraft, the missile was flown directly into theater, loaded on the launcher, and intercepted a warhead within 24 hours - - and this happened twice!
Talk about just in time delivery!
Correct again, Lonesome. Most of my time as a contractor was to GD and Raytheon, and should have checked before posting.
In all fairness I should have noted that I was talking about the management types at these companies, not necessarily any of the engineers or scientists.
The only time foreign troops have ever been used to defend Israeli soil
I had heard this but forgotten it.
What are the chances that the current administration and its collection of anti-Israelis would ever allow such a thing today?
Why are your bringing up data from 1991 in 2023? The Patriot of today is a several generations newer than 1991.
I mention Iron Dome to highlight that technology has moved on since 1991, and we can see surface to air missile systems successfully intercepting daily.
Israel has successfully tested, used, and currently deploys Patriot missile batteries, so you might infer that Israel knows that the Patriots work.
My emphasis was more on the fact that the widely-touted success of the Patriot during the Gulf War did not, it seem, hold up to further scrutiny after the fact.
In light of this, proclamations of similar success in modern times should still be treated with the same level of scrutiny.
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