Scud Hunting with Delta Force and the SAS

specialoperations.com ^ | 1997 | Thomas B. Hunter

[VaBthang4]

No...I hadnt thought of'em. I'll stick'em on there.

[VaBthang4]

"as well as the use of AT4 anti-tank missiles on larger targets"

I have done that before. Not against a SCUD launchers but some french getup. The AT-4 is an awesome piece of equipment. Totally idiot proof [unless the guy is pointing it at himself or doesnt secure the backblast area] and is quite a bang.

I also lit up an old Israeli M-60 tank with one during a training ex with Israeli forces in Tel Aviv.

Me and another Marine about 300 yards to my right [and slightly above] hit him almost simultaniously...tossed the turret on the ground next to it like it was a silver dollar.

I havent dug into it but it looks like we're using extended launchers in Afghanistan...I assume to increase accuracy.

[spetznaz]

From the article KnightHawk posted: After a 10-month investigation in 1992 by the House Government Operations Subcommittee on Legislation and National Security, the subcommittee concluded there was little evidence to prove the Patriot hit more than a few Scud missiles launched by Iraq.

Another 1992 investigation done by the General Accounting Office found that only 9 percent of the Patriot-Scud engagements "are supported by the strongest evidence that an engagement resulted in a warhead kill." (The GAO defined "the strongest evidence" as instances in which Scud debris or radar data indicated that a Scud was destroyed or disabled after a Patriot detonated near it.) Except in 9 percent of the cases, the GAO report said the Army could prove only that "the Patriots came close to the Scuds, not that they destroyed them."

Both reports, as well as studies by analysts (in particular MIT scientists George N. Lewis and Theodore A. Postol) concluded that Gulf War television pictures showing Patriots chasing Scuds were misleading. The television images didn't fully reflect that a number of the Patriots were just wounding Scuds or pushing them off course; big chunks of both missiles then fell to the ground. In Israel, the amount of damages and casualties increased after the Patriots were deployed there.

The Patriot missile which was designed to shoot down airplanes and not missiles was used against the SCUDs as they were coming in and we were all treated on television to the sight of the big explosion in the sky but then we were little surprised to see another explosion on the ground shortly thereafter and figured what's going on? Well, the truth of the matter is that the Patriot was pretty much doing its job as the government claimed, but the job wasn't quite proper. The Patriot missiles were going after the hottest part of the incoming SCUD, which was the tail, and would blow up in proximity to the tail and blow up that part of the SCUD, but the payload which was the warhead was on the front of the SCUD. And that was unaffected and it would simply tumble to the earth and freefall and explode on the ground. So in a sense yes, they were getting the SCUDs, but by the same token they weren't getting the warhead on the SCUD, which was doing... doing the damage.

The Israelis believed that the Americans didn't fully understand the deficiencies of the Patriot. That the Americans were being willfully blind about it. And there were bitter complaints. Moshe Arens came to Washington in February and had a meeting with Bush and his senior advisors in which he said, the Patriot is not working... We believe that only 20 percent of the SCUDs that are attacked with the Patriot are in fact, destroyed. Cheney at the same meeting spoke up and said, there is a fundamental disagreement over how effective the Patriots are. Nevertheless, the Israelis recognized that a belief that the Patriot was effective was almost as important as the effectiveness of the missile itself. It helped to calm the Israeli population. It helped to prevent the Israeli government, the Shamir government from coming under pressure to actively leap into the war. It was a very effective propaganda tool. And whenever suggestions were made within the Israeli government that the truth about the Patriot as seen by the Israelis be made public other voices prevailed saying, why would we tell Sadam that the Patriot is not working when in fact it's in our best interest to let him believe that it's infallible.

I guess that is one of the reasons the Israelis developed the Arrow anti-missile missile which is said to perform much better than the Patriot. Although i still think Patriots protect the Arrow crews (i.e the Patriots protect the Arrows and the Arrows protect the country or something like that).

[Squantos]

Arguments and disscussions regarding the different services capabilities are like recipes for making Kudzu Salads. Way to much material, too many ways to do it , and it still taste like crap when ya think ya got it right.

Stay Safe !

[FreedomPoster]

The television images didn't fully reflect that a number of the Patriots were just wounding Scuds or pushing them off course; big chunks of both missiles then fell to the ground.

ROTFLMAO! and shaking my head in disbelief.

Gimme a break here gentlemen. What the hay does this idiot writer think should happen? Both missiles totally vaporize? Both missiles continue on into outer space orbit!? Of course the damn things fell to the ground. Things you toss into the air generally do. The question is, did you disrupt a) the flight path and/or b) the warhead enough that the target was less/unaffected.

You can't really ask for much more, and if your enemy is just lobbing the things at a large populated area, yes, there are going to be some casualties.

What idiocy.

[ctdonath2]

Even if they did work, there's the basic problem that it's all coming down anyway, intact or in pieces...and when the target is vaguely some metropolitan area, the impact area doesn't make much difference.

[knighthawk]

The problem with the Patriot during the Gulf War

http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/gao/nsi92027.htm

The new PAC-3 upgrade

http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/program/patriot.htm

Israel is still confident with the Patriot. They moved batteries to protect their nuclear facilities:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/737850/posts

[Gunrunner2]

Is this artcile implying the Patriot was a heat-seeker?

[spetznaz]

I do not think the article is saying the Patriot was a heat seeker (since the Patriot is not a heat seeker). What it is saying is the Scuds launched by Saddam tended to break up and the Patriot was 'confused' over which target it should engage and thus often failed to destroy the warhead. Or on other occasions the Patriot would indeed hit the entire missile only to make it break apart (and most often leave the warhead intact and tumbling to the ground).

Actually some ICBMs utilize decoys that pop out to deceive anti-ballistic missile defenses into sending their kill vehicles against the false warheads while the real one goes through. Saddam's Scuds (he had made some modifications to them to add range, but a side effect was they broke up easily) had a pseudo form of this decoy effect (although not on purpose) and the Patriots of the Gulf war could not overcome it. (Actually i do not know why i ma telling you this GunRunner since you obviously know more about the Patriot that i know ...but hey, it seems i love to write and write a lot LOL). Anyways.....

Which is why reports came out that the actual kill rate of those Patriots was 9%.

However todays Patriots are a different breed and are not so easily fooled.

As for your post Freedom Poster i would not say the whole article was BS. It is common knowledge that when a Patriot impacts it will not totally disintregate the whole Scud. Obviously some chunks will fall to the ground and if a chunk falls on your head or your house you will not be a very joyous chap! What the article is contending is that the Patriots, instead of destroying the warhead, usually just broke up the missile. Falling chunks of metal are one thing .....however falling chunks of metal plus a falling warhead is another thing. A falling piece of missile would only do localized damage (eg total your car). However an intact warhead will do a lot worse. That was the problem ...intact warheads.

As an aside i believe the kill vehicle of the proposed national defense missile program (by the way totally different in every respect from the Patriot) will have the capability to destroy the incoming warhead completely. Disintegrate it. However the kill vehicle uses pure kinetic energy instead of a HE warhead.

[Gunrunner2]

Thanks.

I was confused by post 23 when in the quote you provide states, "The Patriot missiles were going after the hottest part of the incoming SCUD, which was the tail, and would blow up in proximity to the tail. . ." Obviously, this is saying the Patriot is heat-seeking.

As you correctly noted, confusion over targets, decoys and debris has to do with reflectivity, not level of heat.

Cheers

[TEXASPROUD]

Add me to the list.

[kms61]

Not mentioned in the article was the fact that Delta was deployed in this role because other units that that might ordinarily have been used were already fully engaged elsewhere.

Specialoperations.com is an interesting site, particularly the bulletin boards. A lot of Real Deal guys hang out there, and the novice is advised to tread lightly and be respectful if he wants to participate; They're not shy about cutting newbies and wannabes down to size. They also have a very low opinion of Hackworth over there, BTW.

[Prodigal Son]

The AT-4 is an awesome piece of equipment. Totally idiot proof

I agree, the AT-4 is a nice little item. But I'm not sure if it's idiot proof.

LOL, there's the legend from the Persian Gulf- never could find out if it was true or not- about the NCO from the 101st Airborne who was going to give some of his soldiers a class on how to employ the weapon. Seems he had given the class a zillion times before, as have I. What he didn't take into account was the AT-4 he was using to give the class didn't have the little yellow band on it denoting it as a "trainer". He went through the whole class just like he had so many times before. Pull safety pin, pop up plastic sites, set range, cock arming lever, "back blast area clear!"- and then he pushed down the little plastic trigger...

The legend has it, nobody was hurt but he took out a bunch of tents in the tent city. I doubt it's true, but I've seen Joe do a lot of stupid things. I saw an E7 in Bosnia get "flustered" one day as he tried to enter camp. We had clearing barrels outside the gate and a very strict procedure for clearing all weapons. He whips out his 9mm and never drops the magazine. He charges- a round is ejected. He pokes out his lip, like- "Hmmmm?". Charges again- another round is ejected. The procedure called for three charges and then pull the trigger to make sure it's clear. He charged it one last time and was just about to pull the trigger when an LT standing nearby grabbed him and stopped him...

[spectr17]

Another good book on the SAS Bravo Two-Zero patrol is "The One That Got Away" by Chris Ryan, He was the only one to evade capture. He E&Eed over 50 miles to Syria with the Iraqis right on his tail, the longest trek in SAS history. Epic story on survival and the will to stay alive.

[Straight Vermonter]

The problem in terms of Patriots vs Scuds is that the Scuds are not attacking specific targets. If the Scuds were tryng to take out the Israeli defense building then pushing it off course is a success. The Scud, however, as the initial article points out is inaccurate and effective only as a terror weapon. So attacking the Scud over the heads of friendlies with a Patriot merely adds the debris of the Patriot to the debris field. If the ABM had a longer range and were able to attack the incoming missile before it crossed into friendly territory it would certainly be more efective even if it were just "wounding" the incoming missile.

[VaBthang4]

Wow...

I have heard alot of crazy stories in my day but that AT-4 story takes the cake. Oi...

I guess in the end...you're right...there are all kinds of things that can go wrong.