Inadequate U.S. Patriot Missile Force Size Highlighted By Middle East Crisis
Read out report by clicking the image below:
https://t.co/mCV819Heas
— Tyler Rogoway (@Aviation_Intel) October 31, 2023
Posted on 11/01/2023 9:48:00 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
There is an important debate about how much treasure the United States should be expending in our support for Ukraine and Israel.
While I mostly/sorta/kinda support aiding Ukraine (I have deep concerns about the scope of the US support and the ongoing corruption in the country), I am obviously a stronger supporter of US aid to Israel.
But I also believe that there are legitimate and non-prejudiced reasons for opposing more aid to either country. The US government’s primary responsibility is to the American people, and policymakers must provide a reason beyond “these are the good guys” for spending large amounts of money on support for other countries. Depending on the reasons for opposition to increased aid I can easily respect opponents.
With that said, I fear that there is another good reason to reconsider major expansions in our military commitments abroad: the US military is stretched really thin.
By now everybody knows about the artillery shell shortages, and that it will take years to rebuild our dwindling stockpiles. But a story I wrote about the other day (Israel Delays Ground Invasion Because the US is Unprepared to Defend Itself) reminds us that we have too few arms and ammunition to go around.
The War Zone (an excellent site, by the way) has a story focused on our insufficient air defense capability, and it should trouble you.
Inadequate U.S. Patriot Missile Force Size Highlighted By Middle East Crisis
Read out report by clicking the image below:
https://t.co/mCV819Heas— Tyler Rogoway (@Aviation_Intel) October 31, 2023
As I pointed out in the piece I linked above, Israel was forced to/asked to delay its invasion of Gaza because the US needed to rush air defenses to the region in order to protect our troops and assets. This was shocking to me because the Middle East is a…volatile…region and we should always be prepared to defend our bases and troops. Why weren’t we?
Well, it turns out that we can’t defend all our assets everywhere, which isn’t just unfortunate, but dangerous. After all, you have to expect attrition in a conflict, and we don’t have enough to go around for what amounts to peacetime. In a medium-intensity conflict, this is bad enough, but in a near-peer conflict, it would be deadly.
A significant portion of the U.S. Army’s Patriot surface-to-air missile force have been or are in the process of being deployed to the Middle East in response to the ongoing Israel-Gaza crisis. This is in addition to many other obligations around the globe. Though this reflects the immense ability of the U.S. military to project power worldwide, it also underscores the stark limitations of its existing ground-based air and missile defense capacity.
Concerns about what this means for the prospect of adequately defending U.S. forces deployed overseas, as well as the U.S. homeland, is something senior U.S. military leaders, as well as The War Zone, have been drawing attention to for some time.
The Patriot missile is the backbone of our air defense (it shares the same name as the missile that had its coming out “party” in the first Iraq war, but is substantially upgraded), and there just aren’t enough of them to go around.
The Army’s two Patriot battalions may not look like much of a contribution at first glance, but the service only has 17 of them in total.
Each battalion has a headquarters element and between three and five firing batteries. Each battery can have up to eight trailer-mounted launchers, as well as an AN/MPQ-65 multifunction phased array radar and requisite fire control, communications, and other support equipment. The latest generation of Patriot launchers can be loaded with a mix of different interceptors optimized for various, including cruise missiles and drones flying at lower altitudes and certain types of ballistic missiles in the terminal stages of their flight.
This brings up the obvious question: given how limited the supplies are, and how inadequate the batteries are for swarm attacks, why do we have so few available?
It’s not like we can expect to face the 1990 Iraqi Air Force in the next conflict. And given what we have seen about the rapidly changing threat environment, it’s pretty clear we desperately need more and more varied air defense options.
Of the 17 battalions the Army has, two are dedicated training units that are not available for deployment. In addition, at least four of the Army’s remaining Patriot battalions are in Germany, Japan, and South Korea. Other Patriot units have been deployed elsewhere in the Middle East, such as Saudi Arabia, in the past, as well.
So, the pair of battalions that have been tasked to deploy to the Middle East represent just over 13 percent of the Army’s total deployable Patriots and at least around 20 percent of those systems, and possibly more, that aren’t already on station elsewhere outside the United States.
This is unforgivable, and the blame falls on both Congress and the Executive Branch. It’s not like they haven’t been spending money we don’t have with abandon. It is a matter of priorities. And right now we are spending a lot of money on other people’s wars.
Of course, if it turns out that our own security is enhanced by that aid, that could be a good bargain. We spend money but little to no blood. But it sure doesn’t look like the case is being made in a serious way instead of just serious tones. I would like to see a concrete analysis of the costs and benefits of how that money is being spent and what American taxpayers are getting for it.
Helping the “good guys” is a noble talking point, but I can think of plenty of times when helping “not-so-good guys” was the right thing to do (Shah of Iran, anybody?), and others when we declined to help when there were moral arguments to do so.
Whichever side you come down on regarding military aid to our friends, you should definitely be concerned about our own military capabilities. They are simply inadequate to the needs we are committed to. We either have to reduce our commitments or expand our capabilities.
There are two wars right now in which we are involved; what happens if Taiwan becomes a third?
Rumors Israel wants US to police Gaza when the fighting ends isn’t going to help recruiting efforts - just sayin
THe USA has a trillion dollar a year military, and can’t produce artillery ammunition in quantity. And even years from now will only generate a fraction of what Russia produces right now.
And Israel. They have gotten billions of dollars per year for decades from the USA, and they are short of the basics, like body armor.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/reserve-soldiers-complain-that-equipment-is-lacking-or-substandard/
I think the common factor is a Swamp capture of the military contracting process, where larger payoffs are available for big ticket gold plated wonder weapons - vs the basics like artillery shells, body armor and helmets.
Former USAF officer.
1) Patriots in theater are pretty much useless against a drone swarm attack, and that swarm will destroy them — which then opens the sky up for the next wave.
2) Patriots cannot stop hypersonics. There was a silly claim of a shootdown some months ago. It was silly.
3) There is an enormous problem of presumption of superiority. It is leading to very bad decisions about all sorts of things. The intelligence services of all sides understand fast fourier transforms and the know who is superior in what. The Russians AND Chinese have substantial technology advantages in specific areas. The US has . . . a few. Unfortunately they are so few that they must be guarded at essentially all costs — those being having it stolen. This focuses on Stealth. We can’t deploy it because the loss magnitude is so huge. A 10% risk of a 1000% cost is a pretty big number.
4) Wars are decided in space. Satellite recon dictates everything. You cannot maneuver without being seen so there are no surprises. Ever.
The biggest danger is that we need to stop swaggering and asserting strength that does not exist. This kind of insanity is going to get 5000 crew carrier sunk.
RE: Rumors Israel wants US to police Gaza when the fighting ends isn’t going to help recruiting efforts - just sayin
Especially coupled with Blinken rumored to support having the old Palestinian Authority leader in charge of the West Bank after the dust settles. Just fine for picking off US or IDF security troops.
Then Biden will withdraw diplomats and leave Americans stranded like his “successful withdrawal” from Afghanistan.
How about: "And the guys attacking the 'good guys' are simultaneously targeting U.S. cities with their nuclear-tipped ICBMs. So they're obviously the 'bad guys?'"
"The enemy of my enemy is my friend." Works for me!
Regards,
Yeah, those two aircraft carrier groups currently deployed to the eastern Mediterranean? They are completely impotent! Couldn't put up much of a fight even only against a Russian fishing trawler!
/sarcasm
Regards,
Yeah, we'd be so f*cked if the Russian military - currently fielding the second-greatest army in Ukraine - ever wanted to mess with us! The glorious Russian military - or what's left of it after bleeding out on the battlefields of Ukraine - would give us a real walloping, wouldn't they?
Regards,
Who wouldn't signup to become an Israeli Pinkerton?
Probably a good thing since 70% are overweight !!
Let’s face it liberals F up everything they touch. They’re a terminal cancer that should be eradicated.
Can anyone name one thing that liberals have done or believe in that makes sense?
They want you to believe that there are satellites watching your every move but they still depend on high altitude aircraft.
And presently, see everything up close drones.
Starve the beast.
Lloyd Austin testified the other that requests for multibillions of additional funding were essentially to replenish our own inventories and to maintain the defense industrial base. All this while freely spending hundreds of billions on worthless green initiatives that in the end will not work anyway.
This gangster regime is not serious about governing and we will pay the price.
There have been minimal casualties on the Russian side, mostly because of satellite recon.
They only mobilized 300K guys from their 20 million reserves. Recall, from the pre war wiki, that they have universal conscription. They have for decades. They train the draftee for 1 year and then send him home to his civilian life, and add him to their Reserves forces, where they remain until age whatever, 45 or something. At that point they leave the Reserves.
Because it is universal conscription (with the usual exceptions like university students) and so over the decades the Reserves total have grown to 20 million. One place in the Wiki quoted 25 million.
Only 300K of these were mobilized, and the Russians tend to withdraw from places when satellites show the enemy has massed for attack. They prefer to use their artillery totals advantage and kill that mass from afar.
So . . . at maximum there could be 300K casualties, which of course has not happened. All military officers everywhere have been trained to withdraw if there are 30% casualties. Odds are nearly 100% the Russians have not seen 30% casualties on any battlefield, because satellite recon informs them to be gone.
The Ukraine forces aren’t being commanded by a trained officer, so they may have far beyond 30%. No one knows. Well, some know, but we don’t.
Not really relevant. The point is no surprises. Not whatever you believe why there are no surprises.
You cannot mass troops without it being seen. That’s why artillery is deciding things. If there is a mass and you don’t have a mass, you withdraw and let your artillery kill the mass. You are never surprised.
The big difference is Ukraine is not being led by a trained military officer. He will not withdraw if faced with slaughter by artillery. He is not stupid. He knows he cannot generate weapons flow if he withdraws. And so he is killing a generation of his own young men.
Yeah, we'd be so f*cked if the Russian military - currently fielding the second-greatest army in Ukraine - ever wanted to mess with us! The glorious Russian military - or what's left of it after bleeding out on the battlefields of Ukraine - would give us a real walloping, wouldn't they?
What you fantasize as the greatest army in Ukraine continues to be sensely slaughtered in Ukraine. They are getting mauled by the superior force. In any military conflict between Ukraine and Russia, Ukraine cannot win. Perhaps the truest statement Field Marshal Zelensky ever made was to declare that nobody believes Ukraine can win like he does.
When I cast doubt upon that, you responded by praising Russia's 20 million in reserves - who, if you are to be believed, are champing at the bit to jump into the trenches.
Nice evasion!
(Don't want to contribute to the further meandering of this conversation away from the actual topic at hand, but: I wonder if Russia could even kit out 20 million conscripts.)
Whatever you care to say about Russia's military prowess and/or might, the facts on the ground belie your bold claims.
The combined forces of NATO are greater than Russia's already severely attrited forces, both numerically and qualitatively.
The economic power of the NATO countries exceeds that of Russia's already (due to the sanctions) hamstrung economy.
Russia has a higher tolerance than Western countries when it comes to bearing incredible levels of self-inflicted damage and demoralization - samogon' is apparently a very effective panacea - but Ukraine need only survive to prevail. For Russia, anything other than a clear win will be counted as a defeat.
Regards,
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