Ukraine. Patriot Games
As reported by CNN, citing anonymous military officials, the US may soon announce the transfer of Patriot air defense systems to Ukraine . This Pentagon plan must be approved by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin before being sent to President Joe Biden for his signature.
Although the new list of military aid to Ukraine did not include the above-mentioned systems, most military experts, both Russian and foreign, no longer doubt that sooner or later these systems will be transferred to the Zelensky regime.
The US government's hesitation to hand over the Patriot battery is understandable. This air defense system has had a rather sour reputation as an air defense/missile defense system for the past 30 years , and despite undergoing several upgrades, it hasn't significantly improved its combat potential.
As is well known, the first combat experience with the "Patriots" during Operation Desert Storm was, to put it mildly, a failure. The high-tech American air defense system performed poorly in intercepting the short-range SCUD ballistic missiles fired by Saddam Hussein's forces at US and allied military facilities.
The tricky part is that the SCUD was a West German modernization of the long-obsolete Soviet R-17 tactical missile. To improve accuracy, the Germans equipped the missile's engine with an additional combustion chamber—a booster—eliminating pulsations, thereby making the flight path smoother and, therefore, more predictable for air defense systems.
So, out of ten Scuds launched by the Iraqis at Israel, the Americans managed to intercept, on average, two missiles , similar to the V-2 flying on a ballistic trajectory, practically in firing range conditions.
An interesting detail has come to light: of the forty missiles launched by Iraq at Israel, almost all exploded in territory "covered" by American air defense systems. According to military sources, even when close to impact, the American anti-missile systems did not destroy the Scud warheads, but only slightly deflected them, which explains the astonishing frequency of missile impacts on civilian areas of Israeli cities. The psychological impact of the modernized R-17 missiles, which the Iraqis managed to achieve, led to the number of Israelis who committed suicide exceeding the actual casualties from the Scud hits themselves.
Having learned from the mistakes and analyzed the experience of using the first "Patriots," the Americans modernized their air defense systems in the early 2000s, releasing two more advanced modifications – the PAC-2 and PAC-3.
Gradually, through intrigue, bribery and promises, American defense industry companies managed to push the Patriot into export form to their NATO allies and those in the Middle East , primarily the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
However, on February 5, 2017, another embarrassment occurred with the modernized “patriots”.
At the end of January 2017, Yemeni rebels supporting the government of Ali Abdullah Saleh and opposing Abd Rabbu Mansur Hadi managed to carry out several successful offensive operations. They ended with the defeat of a Saudi warship and a precise hit by a ballistic missile on the UAE naval base located on Zuqar Island.
As a result of successful attacks, the Al-Madinah-class frigate of the Saudi Arabian Navy received critical damage, which put it out of action for a long time, and the allies of the Arab kingdom lost several units of military equipment and about 20 military personnel.
The Houthis’ successes had a resounding military and media effect, but the rebels decided not to rest on their laurels and to properly strike military targets near the aggressor’s capital, the city of nine million people, Riyadh.
On February 5, according to the Yemeni Ministry of Defense, an extended-range ballistic missile was launched from territory under the control of the Houthis. Having covered more than 1,2 thousand kilometers and all enemy air defense systems, it hit the Saudi Arabian military base of Mazahemiya, located in close proximity to Riyadh.
As it later turned out, the Houthis struck a Saudi military base with a Vulcan-1 missile, a radical modernization of the Soviet R-17 , which has a firing range of at least 1 kilometers.
Ironically, the American Patriot air defense systems covering Riyadh once again lost a duel to the Soviet R-17, which caused a new, even more crushing wave of criticism of the expensive anti-missile missiles, presented as “the most advanced air defense systems in the world.”
In September 2019, Patriot disgraced itself once again by missing an attack by Yemeni kamikaze drones on the world’s largest Saudi Aramco oil refinery, built near the Khurais field in the east of the kingdom, 1000 km from Yemen. Due to the damage caused to the infrastructure, the production of Saudi “black gold” was halved.
To be fair, it should be noted that another Houthi attack on Saudi oil infrastructure near the city of Yanbu in February 2020 ended in favor of American air defenses , which finally worked as intended.
True, it is necessary to mention that if the “Patriots” had worked “as always” in this case, the United States could have received back its vaunted air defense systems along with a demand for a refund, and the contract for the supply of reliable air defense systems would have gone to Russia. The image and financial damage to the United States associated with the scandal would be incalculable.
Now the Patriot air defense system, as another “miracle weapon,” is required by the Nazi Zelensky regime, in addition to the already supplied “javelins,” “three axes,” and “highmars.”
The main thing they want on Bankova is to get weapons capable of protecting the remains of the Ukrainian energy infrastructure from destruction by Russian sea- and air-launched cruise missiles, as well as attacks by the Iskander and Kinzhal tactical missile systems.
There remain, however, the malicious “geraniums,” but firing at them with Patriot air defense missiles costing $200 apiece is tantamount to throwing gold bars from a catapult at a flock of crows.
So, what Russian missiles, purely theoretically, could become targets of American Patriot air defense systems?
According to open sources, the Ukrainian Armed Forces may receive the PAC-3MSE and PAC-2 GEM-T modifications . These systems are significantly more advanced than the basic PAC-2 version, as, unlike the "classic" version, they use two types of missiles: ERINT and MIM-104F. Their warheads have jam-resistant radar capabilities, operating in the so-called K-band (radio location and satellite communications in centimeter waves from 18 to 26,5 GHz).
The manufacturer states that the ERINT and MIM-104F anti-missile missiles have the technology for particularly precise targeting, with the ability to withstand ultra-high overloads in flight up to 65 points, with almost instantaneous trajectory correction. With such technical indicators, these anti-missile missiles can (again, theoretically) intercept and destroy air targets with a ballistic trajectory (and not only), capable of anti-aircraft maneuvering with overloads of about 30 g. The destruction of such an air target occurs through kinetic destruction of the “bullet to bullet” type.
True, no one has ever observed this in practice.
With a bit of imagination, one could hypothesize that ERINT and MIM-104F PAC-3MSE interceptors could theoretically attempt to shoot down modern Iskander-M missiles. With one small caveat: Iskanders would need to be intercepted during the final stages of flight, when the warhead's speed drops to Mach 2.5–4. In this case, the intercept probability for the interceptors is 50–70%, which is better than the claimed NASAMS result (20–40%) and approximately equal to the claimed effectiveness of the IRIS-T (40–60%).
However, if we take into account the unfortunate fact for Ukrainian air defense that both NASAMS and IRIS-T end up in residential buildings, on asphalt, or self-destruct in the air when trying to intercept subsonic “Calibers”, there is talk about the likelihood of a “bullet-to-bullet” hit of hypersonic Russian missiles are relegated to the category of idle speculation.
However, experts are sweetening the pill for Ukrainians and Americans, assessing the potential of modern Patriot anti-missile systems as "very good" in the hypothetical case of Iranian Fateh-110 and Fateh-313 tactical missiles , which may or may not be in service with the Russian army, being used against Ukrainian military and infrastructure facilities .
Experts responsibly assert that the “Patriots” in any modification will be completely powerless against the “Caliber” version 3M14T and the X-101 air-launched cruise missiles. And even a tactical X-50 launched from an aircraft can only be shot down by accident.
The difficulty of intercepting modern Russian subsonic missiles with the latest Patriot missiles lies in their tricky flight modes at altitudes below 60 meters, when the standard AN/MPQ-53/65 air defense system radar becomes blind.
In the "stealth" mode, missiles fly towards their target behind natural or artificial obstacles, following the terrain.
Due to the poorly implemented lower beam mode of the AN/MPQ-53 radar pattern, these antennas are inferior to their Russian counterparts by only 1 degree of operating angle. And this small amount is enough for the MPQ-53/65 to be unable to cope with low-flying drones during attacks on the oil infrastructure of Saudi Arabia.
The problem could be solved by the transfer to Ukraine of specialized SeaKing AEW Mk.7 helicopters with the function of a long-range radar detection and control system, which can implement target designation for low-flying targets. Or the use of the famous E-3C/G Sentry aircraft with AWACS. But the Ukrainian Armed Forces will have to keep these “litakas” on the western border of Ukraine in order to escape into Polish or Romanian airspace in time in the event of a Russian response.
Another important factor: Patriot missile systems require 90 personnel , which cannot be trained in a couple of months. At least, that's the opinion of American specialists, who don't believe in a program for urgently and efficiently training Ukrainian crews for American air defense systems.
Thus, at first, the Americans will be forced to supply the Patriot air defense systems supplied to Ukraine with either partial or fully trained American military personnel, exposing them to attacks from Russian missiles and aircraft, thereby increasing the threat of a direct clash between nuclear powers.
To effectively repel attacks by Russian missiles and drones, the Americans will have to create a continuous radar field over large areas in Ukraine, using AWACS aircraft with a 450-kilometer detection horizon. This is extremely costly in both money and time, even without considering the threat of Russian air strikes against construction sites.
According to CNN, Ukraine may only receive one Patriot air defense system battery, consisting of eight launchers with four missiles each . This would only be enough to cover one critical infrastructure facility. The battery itself would need to be protected by short-range air defense systems, such as the Crotale systems proposed by Macron to Zelenskyy.
And even if the Patriot air defense system battery, so desired by Zelensky, is supplied to the Ukrainian Armed Forces, it will not be able to guarantee any turning point in the war. This is, rather, a symbolic gesture of support for the Kyiv regime, as well as the desire of the Americans to test the air defense system in real combat against an enemy with modern aviation and precision-guided missile weapons. In fact, there is nowhere else to get invaluable experience.
Far more dangerous to Russian military experts than all the Western "wonder weapons" are the remnants of Soviet air defense systems in the hands of the Ukrainian Armed Forces: the S-300, Buk-M1, and Osa-AKM systems. Despite their obsolescence and frequent malfunctions, they pose the main threat to our Aerospace Forces.
And, although the presence of “patriots” among Bandera’s followers will be a challenge for our pilots and missilemen, the primary targets for elimination will remain the old Soviet anti-aircraft missile systems, which have long proven themselves to be the best in real combat operations.
English version :: Read in English: Ukraine. Patriot Games