Posted on 04/24/2003 6:29:46 AM PDT by Stand Watch Listen
CAMP DOHA, KUWAIT -- All but two of nine U.S. and Kuwaiti Patriot intercepts of Iraqi missiles over a 13-day period beginning March 20 were performed by Guidance Enhanced Missiles, or GEMs, introduced into the fleet seven years ago, according to Army Brig. Gen. Howard Bromberg, commanding general of the 32nd Army Air and Missile Defense Command.
Just two rockets Iraq launched were shot down by brand new Patriot Advanced Capability-3 missiles.
Most engaged missiles were Al-Samoud and Ababil-100 surface-to-surface rockets fired from southern Iraq towards Kuwait, often operating on the outer limits of their approximately 90-mile maximum range, said officials here.
While these relatively short-range missiles are slower than the Scud missiles Iraq lobbed at Saudi Arabia and Israel during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, they can be “much more accurate,” Bromberg said in a late-March interview.
The GEM interceptor was first introduced into the Patriot fleet in 1996, officials said.
Had an Al-Samoud or Ababil-100 broken through the Patriot net in one particularly well-targeted launch on March 27, the coalition's ground headquarters at Camp Doha may well have been destroyed or severely damaged, said Bromberg, who also serves as commander of coalition air defenses and deputy area air defense commander for ground-based defenses.
“This was the impact area,” he said. “If you were to let the missile continue, it would have impacted at Camp Doha.”
Instead, a Kuwaiti Patriot GEM battery intercepted the missile and its debris fell into the Persian Gulf nearby.
Many other Iraqi launches did not appear to be as carefully targeted.
“I have this picture in mind that these guys aren't wasting a lot of time because they know they're going to be targeted,” Bromberg said at the height of the war on March 29. “They're coming out and firing in our general direction and leaving real quickly. So maybe they're not putting the emphasis on the targeting piece, I don't know.”
Apparently, the only weapon that eluded the Patriot system during Operation Iraqi Freedom was a cruise missile that hit Kuwait City with no notice early in the morning on March 29, evading air defense radars by flying close to the ground from its launch point on the Al Faw Peninsula.
U.S. officials believe the weapon was a Silkworm or Seersucker anti-ship missile, carrying a 1,000-pound warhead. The powerful explosion was felt miles away, but caused only minor injuries and damage to the seawall near a shopping mall.
The coalition employed a variety of missiles from its Patriot batteries: GEM, GEM-plus and PAC-3, according to military officials. GEM-plus missiles include an improved fuze and an ability to see smaller targets, Bromberg said. He also noted that although coalition forces had fielded older PAC-2 missiles in the theater as a backup, none was employed.
Of the nine intercepted Iraqi missiles, six were hit by GEM missiles, one by a GEM-plus and two by PAC-3. One of the PAC-3 intercepts occurred on the first day of Iraqi rocket launches at Kuwait, while the other took place April 1 against a surface-to-surface missile aimed at coalition forces fielded inside Iraq, officials here said.
GEM is an interceptor missile that incorporates improvements made since the Patriot performed with mixed results in the Gulf War 12 years ago, Bromberg said.
The old version of Patriot used in Operation Desert Storm had a proximity fuze timed to go off as the interceptor approached its target missile. But the closing speed was so fast that the Patriot often passed the incoming Iraqi missile before detonating, Bromberg said.
“So what we did with the GEM missile is we changed some of the electronics,” he said. “We also changed . . . the pattern of the fragmentation. So now we get a hit with the GEM up near the nose cone.”
In contrast, PAC-3 is a hit-to-kill interceptor without an explosive warhead. It uses improved targeting to hit its target dead-on, and has a higher “probability of kill” than its predecessors, Bromberg said. “Plus there have been improvements in the radar, and the size of targets you can see,” he said.
Pentagon officials have said coalition forces did not use more PAC-3s in the Iraq war because stocks were short (Inside the Pentagon, April 10, p1). In fact, Bromberg noted in the late March interview, every PAC-3 “the nation owns is in Kuwait -- Kuwait or Iraq right now. They're on their way to Iraq right now.”
But the older Patriot systems, loaded with GEMs, were often the appropriate weapon against the shorter-range missiles Iraq shot south.
“The good thing about the Patriot system is it looks at the target coming in” and, based on its characteristics, “selects the best missile to fire,” Bromberg said.
The standard Patriot unit deployed in the Iraq theater for the war “has PAC-3s, it has GEMs, it has a mix,” Bromberg said. “These short-range missiles are a little slower and not as high an altitude as the long-range missiles. So it'll pick the GEM missile to destroy that target.”
To achieve a 90 percent probability of kill, Patriot units operate with redundancy, Bromberg said.
“Our standard firing doctrine is two missiles out for every missile coming in,” he said. “They're so close together that . . . if the first one misses, you want to have the other one right there.”
-- Elaine M. Grossman
I could have some details wrong, but I do not believe that the Patriots worked improperly in either case.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.