“Russian pilots get almost no training.”
Given the huge investment a fighter represents that’s not likely true any longer. During the early ‘90’s, probably. Russia was broke. But, they’re rolling in oil money now. It would be foolish to have pilots who were not qualified to fight as well as their adversaries.
From what I read about the Patriots in Gulf 1, they just as frequently hit the ejected fuel tanks as the free-falling warhead. They were not nearly as good as the military claimd; the claims being for political purposes rather than military.
Are the Russians’ missiles sufficiently trained?
The Patriots are several blocks advanced from where they were in ‘91. I’m not sure if the Pols have any of the ballistic intercept-capable missiles.
“From what I read about the Patriots in Gulf 1, they just as frequently hit the ejected fuel tanks as the free-falling warhead. They were not nearly as good as the military claimd; the claims being for political purposes rather than military.”
Partially true: The part about the Patriots in the Gulf War not being as effective as advertised.
The Iraqi Scuds were not designed to separate the warhead (the way modern missiles do). If the warhead separated it was because the Iraqi missile was so poorly manufactured that it simply broke up. The Patriot (then) was designed for a center-of-mass kill, so quite naturally it would go for the falling rocket (rather than the tiny warhead that was spinning off course due to unplanned separation.)
I would point out that missile defense is mostly about software and radar capabilities, and those change fast. You probably shouldn’t assume that the Patriots used in the Gulf War are in any way representative of the Patriots in the field today, 24 years later.
In Operation Iraqi Freedom an F/A-18 returning from a patrol was locked onto by a Patriot battery. There were two alternatives available to the pilot — eject or destroy the radar with a HARM anti-radiation missile (to break the missile lock). The pilot did the latter & survived.