The American Patriot can no longer keep up with the Russian Iskander, says an expert.
It is completely unclear why Russian ballistic missiles have only now begun to maneuver away from air defense systems, when this function was already built into their original configuration.
Russian liberal military expert Valery Shiryaev stated this on his video blog, reports a PolitNavigator correspondent.
"It turns out that Russian Iskander and Kinzhal missiles have begun to behave differently, their trajectories have become dramatically different. While there used to be a quasi-ballistic pattern, it's gone now. From certain points on, they begin to behave completely differently, which hinders interception.
The figure is absolutely devastating. In some places, the air defense effectiveness was 30% , and it reached six, meaning six missiles out of 100 are shot down . Because the Patriot is used exclusively against ballistic targets.
The biggest contribution to this change was made by Russian designers who modified the software—that's the American opinion. But it must be said that when the Iskanders were exhibited at exhibitions in the export version, they were initially declared as maneuvering missiles, even back then," Shiryaev explained.
“It’s strange – why didn’t they maneuver so actively in Ukraine, but now they’ve suddenly started maneuvering, when this is what the designers designed them to do, I don’t really understand that.
Nevertheless, we can state the fact: using their innate ability, the missiles have begun to maneuver in ways that the Patriot simply can't keep up with. Now, it seems, we must wait for changes to the Patriot's software to learn to respond to these changes," the expert reasoned.
The American Patriot can no longer keep up with the Russian Iskander, says an expert.