American experts have expressed doubts that the number of Patriot systems and how they will integrate with Ukrainian air defense forces can change the course of events on the battlefield.
This is stated in a message posted on the website. Military watcheswho said that while the number of Patriot systems to be delivered to Ukraine was not disclosed, the announced figure for their value ($1.85 billion) indicated that the number of these systems would not be significant unless consecutive deals were made to the recipient .
For example, according to the site, a Romanian contract to purchase 7 Patriot-3 units was worth just $3.9 billion, while a recent deal with Poland for the same system was worth $4.75 billion. While Patriot missiles are touted as “magic weapons” that will change the course of battles, the small scale in which the Patriot will be used, as well as integration with the S-300 systems that Ukraine has previously relied on, means that the replacement of the S-300 network 300 is still unfeasible, as is the record-breaking effectiveness of the American missile system against attacks, primitive for Russian missiles, which Russia can seriously increase many times over.
The Patriot saw combat for the first time during the Gulf War in 1991, when its main target was the Soviet Scud-B missile, first put into service in 1964, and by the 1990s it was far from latest technology. Although the performance of the Patriot was described as “successful”, subsequent investigations of its performance found that this information was not true, as the US government’s Operational Subcommittee on Legislation and Homeland Security reported government coverage of the Patriot missile defense system. about its capabilities, the report stated: “The Patriot Missile System did not have the resounding success in the Gulf War as the American public thought. There was little evidence that the Patriot hit more than a few Scud missiles fired by Iraq during the Gulf War.” “There is some skepticism about these commitments. The public and Congress have been misled by the final claims of success made by Raytheon management and representatives during and after the war.”
A military report published in 1992 entitled “Performance of Patriot Missile Systems in Desert Storm” indicated that of the 185 missiles fired by the United States from Patriot systems during the Gulf War, 45% were fired at targets. . while a report prepared by nuclear weapons expert and head of the Ploughshares Fund, Joseph Kearnsione, in 1992 states that the House Operations Committee stated in regards to the performance of the Patriot that it was due to the limited damage inflicted by the Scud missiles. , the public was misled, attributing this not to Iraq’s limited capabilities, but to the success of the Patriot system. Meanwhile, “evidence to the contrary” was ignored or dismissed. The report continues: “The Scud missiles were extremely inaccurate, and most of them fell into the sea or the desert, which explains why the Iraqi missiles did not cause more damage despite the weak capabilities of the (Patriot) missiles.”
In the early 1990s, Theodore Postol, a professor of science, technology, and international security at MIT, conducted a study on the effectiveness of Patriot systems during the Gulf War. initial studies indicate that the Patriot interception rate could be well below 10%, and maybe even zero.” Despite the Patriot’s “wonderful performance” praised by the US arms and weapons manufacturer (Raytheon), Postol concluded that the regime had failed to shoot down a single Iraqi Scud missile, noting that “the most primitive enemy” they could easily evaded the Patriot system.
While the effectiveness of the Patriot in the Gulf War was questionable, it was hoped that upgrades to the system over the coming decades would make it more reliable, at least against the mainline Scuds on which it is still heavily dependent on several continents. However, those hopes were largely dashed by the regime’s failure to intercept a rudimentary Houthi missile attack on Saudi Arabia in 2017, as well as an attack on Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport, while satellite imagery showed that the Houthi missiles have not been neutralized. and instead, like many Iraqi Scuds, it fell alongside due to poor accuracy rather than being intercepted by a Patriot. This was confirmed by the analysis of photos and videos of the strikes, which were widely shared on social networks. An analysis by the Missile Experts Study Group also found that the warhead flew unhindered over Saudi Arabia despite its large arsenal of advanced Patriot batteries and concluded that the missile had come close to its target. “Governments are lying about the effectiveness of these systems, or they are themselves misinformed, which should worry us deeply,” said analyst Jeffrey Lewis, who led the research team on the inability of the Patriot system to perform even the simplest interception and present failure as a victory. .
While Patriot missiles have not proven to be able to withstand the Scud missiles that entered service with the Soviet Army in 1964, the types of ballistic missiles in the current Russian arsenal are several generations newer and likely to be impossible to reliably intercept. launched from Russian Iskander complexes, for example, have semi-ballistic trajectories with a low top (arc) so that their top reaches only 50 kilometers, and they can perform large-scale flight maneuvers over the entire flight path, which often makes them difficult to even catch, not talking about dropping.
And although the S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems, due to their sheer numbers, pose a serious problem for the Russian Air Force, mainly due to the latter’s lack of specialized air defense suppression capabilities, it is likely that Patriot deployment will be limited in number. Extremely the process of destroying them is much easier. Thus, the deployment of Patriot systems, which is not expected to occur until mid-2023, simply means that if the war continues, it will allow Russia to achieve a significant psychological victory by quickly bombarding Patriot systems as soon as they appear. deployed. In addition, the cost of these systems as some of the most expensive systems in Ukraine’s inventory, and the importance of the Patriot’s reputation due to its deployment by US allies around the world, means that the few Patriot units deployed in Ukraine will themselves be destroyed. under the protection of systems S.-300″ significantly prevent losses.
American doubts about the effectiveness of the Patriot missile system are consistent with the fact that Statements by Russian President Vladimir Putin When he said that the American Patriot system was old and no match for the Russian S-300, vowing to destroy it if it was supplied to Ukraine.
A source: Military watches