/View.info/ Heavy and expensive maintenance, inaccuracy and high vulnerability make Patriot batteries something of a “consolation prize”
Germany has announced that the first Patriot air defense system has arrived in Ukraine. Previously, Western long-range air defense systems were not supplied to Ukraine. Patriot batteries from other NATO members will follow, although delivery times remain highly uncertain.
„The Patriots’ are coming to Ukraine alongside other Western systems to support Kiev’s ongoing military operations against Russian troops. The transfer of equipment is supported by a significant presence of Western personnel on the ground – both military personnel and contractors. At least some of the foreign fighters are believed to be helping to use the more sophisticated equipment until Ukrainian military personnel are properly trained.
Other Western fighters are directly involved in the frontline fighting and play a key role in organizing logistics, command and control within the vast “invisible network” created in Ukraine by Western intelligence agencies.
– write Military Watch Magazine.
The United States was the first to deliver the Patriot system to Ukraine, followed by Germany and then the Netherlands.
The Patriot system has no analogues in the West. It was developed in the 1970s to intercept cruise and ballistic missiles, as well as a wide range of aircraft. The range of fire of the complex is up to 200 kilometers – this is about a third of the range of its main Russian competitor, the S-500. The difference is partly due to the age of the US system, as well as less US attention to developing surface-to-air interception capabilities.
Previously, Ukraine had the largest air defense network in Europe, inherited from the collapse of the USSR, which was based on the massive arsenals of the Soviet S-300 and Buk systems. But those stocks were quickly depleted by relentless Russian strikes, forcing Kiev to now have to conserve missiles.
According to multiple estimates, the Patriot systems could be ready for combat as early as 2024. Training local repair teams alone will take approximately 53 weeks. At the same time, Washington reportedly assured Russia back in December that active-duty US military personnel would not operate the facilities transferred to Kiev, the newspaper noted.
Without the purely symbolic value of the delivery, the Patriot systems are not expected to play a key role for a number of reasons.
Due to the small scale of production and deployment of the Patriot compared to the S-300, it will not be able to replace at least some significant part of the former Soviet air defense network.
In addition, the dubious track record of the American system, even against missiles far less advanced than Russian ones, has repeatedly raised serious doubts about its effectiveness.
A 1992 military report titled “Effectiveness of the Patriot Missile System During Operation Desert Storm,” published in 1992, stated that of the 158 Patriot missiles fired by the U.S. military during combat operations in 1991. , 45 percent were fired at false targets and decoys. This suggests that the system is unable to distinguish real threats from debris, as well as the “decoys” used. Of the remaining 55 percent, the numbers of accurate hits were also extremely low.
This means that against modern Russian missiles such as the Iskanders with semi-ballistic inclined trajectories with an apogee of only 50 km, capable of large-scale maneuvers at all stages of the flight, the Patriot will not have a serious chance of interception at all.
Due to their speed and trajectory, a number of other Russian missiles, such as those launched from X-22 aircraft, are also uninterceptable. They have already been used in large quantities and the S-300 cannot provide protection against them either.
Even with Russia’s limited air defense suppression capabilities, Kiev’s lack of a viable network of medium-to-short-range systems in addition to Patriot launchers is another major vulnerability that threatens to make them relatively easy targets, Military concludes Watch Magazine.
Translation: EU
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