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The Patriot missile in the first gulf war was mostly a failure when it came to its stated purpose of intercepting and rendering harmless incoming missiles. It w

The Patriot missile in the first gulf war was mostly a failure when it came to its stated purpose of intercepting and rendering harmless incoming missiles. It was however a huge propaganda success. Each time it deflected a SCUD, people felt safer, even though often the explosive payload survived and still caused damage on the ground. Given the almost non-existent guidance system on the SCUD, their goal was simply to hit enemy territory and hope to get lucky. The Patriot didn't change that. But it did keep Israel from entering the war and kept the American public believing that the SCUDs were being derogated. Instead of being horrified at the helplessness against SCUDs, people were cheering for the Patriot missile.

ianmf 5y ago
IIRC from my military time, the first generations of the patriot missiles (PAC-1, PAC-2) were designed to explode when in vicinity of the target. The PAC-3 missile was the first to introduce kinetic damage before the payload would explode.
- jandrewrogers 5y ago
  This is correct. The Patriot was an anti-aircraft missile that was retrofitted to kinda sorta be adequate for ballistic missile intercept. It was a proverbial dancing bear -- it was impressive that it worked at all, never mind that it wasn't very good.
qbasic_forever 5y ago
I remember the US gained air superiority and control of the skies pretty quickly in the first gulf war and that was pretty much game over for the SCUD or other threats. They were forced to keep them hidden and moving or else a squad of Apache helicopters would make short work of the batteries.
- goatsi 5y ago
  That was the propaganda published at the time. Postwar analysis showed that the air campaign was totally ineffective at hunting down scud launchers. >Second, there is no technical evidence that a single TEL was actually destroyed during the war, despite the claims of some 100 “kills” by aircrews and special forces. [...] The exact impact of coalition operations against mobile systems is more problematic. Iraqi launch operations never stopped and only diminished somewhat over time, although during the last week of the war launch operations increased in tempo. At best, it can be said that counter-Scud efforts only maintained “pressure” on Iraqi missile operations and that Scud CAP operations apparently were successful at harassing but never halting Iraqi launch operations. https://media.defense.gov/2019/Apr/11/2002115481/-1/-1/0/15CROSSBOW.PDF https://media.defense.gov/2019/Apr/11/2002115481/-1/-1/0/15C...
1123581321 5y ago
Hah, I remember being shown a, well, propaganda TV event for schoolchildren, where cute kids would lisp questions like, "what if we run out of Patriot missiles, but Saddam still has his SCUDs?" and the hosts would assure that we had tons of them left.
- baybal2 5y ago
  UAE has recently shot at least $150M of interceptors in a single night. THAAD, and PAC III. Raytheon people are all over the place there, to the point I bumped into them on every drone industry event I been (3 in total)
  - pjc50 5y ago
    This does raise the question of attrition - if the missiles are much cheaper than the interceptors, it becomes an effective attack even if none of the missiles hits a target.
    - codechad 5y ago
aa-jv 5y ago
People are still cheering for the Patriot missile in unwarranted circumstances. Everyone calling for war with Russia seems to ignore the fact that the Patriot batteries that are 'simply defending a NATO members territory' are switched to attack weapons with a simple software change, meaning that the difference between safety and catastrophe is, as always with the Patriot technology, just a matter of software ..
- edrxty 5y ago
  They don't have warheads designed for surface strike. Do you mind elaborating on what you mean by this?
  - gambiting 5y ago
    As a complete noob when it comes to weaponry - why would it need a warehead specifically designed for a surface strike? A missile going 1000km/h+ doesn't even need to explode at the target to cause some incredible damage when it hits, does it?
    - adriancr 5y ago
      A tomahawk can carry 450kg of conventional explosives or up to 150kt nuclear warhead. Compare that to a patriot which has a different purpose and was optimized to carry almost nothing. One can wipe out a large area, the other is like a large arrow... might not even penetrate a tanks armor?
  - the_biot 5y ago
    aa-jv posts pro-Russian propaganda. Don't feed the trolls.
    - aa-jv 5y ago
      Not true at all. Anti-war != Pro-Russia.
      - 5y ago

ianmf 5y ago

IIRC from my military time, the first generations of the patriot missiles (PAC-1, PAC-2) were designed to explode when in vicinity of the target. The PAC-3 missile was the first to introduce kinetic damage before the payload would explode.

jandrewrogers 5y ago
This is correct. The Patriot was an anti-aircraft missile that was retrofitted to kinda sorta be adequate for ballistic missile intercept. It was a proverbial dancing bear -- it was impressive that it worked at all, never mind that it wasn't very good.

qbasic_forever 5y ago

I remember the US gained air superiority and control of the skies pretty quickly in the first gulf war and that was pretty much game over for the SCUD or other threats. They were forced to keep them hidden and moving or else a squad of Apache helicopters would make short work of the batteries.

goatsi 5y ago
That was the propaganda published at the time. Postwar analysis showed that the air campaign was totally ineffective at hunting down scud launchers. >Second, there is no technical evidence that a single TEL was actually destroyed during the war, despite the claims of some 100 “kills” by aircrews and special forces. [...] The exact impact of coalition operations against mobile systems is more problematic. Iraqi launch operations never stopped and only diminished somewhat over time, although during the last week of the war launch operations increased in tempo. At best, it can be said that counter-Scud efforts only maintained “pressure” on Iraqi missile operations and that Scud CAP operations apparently were successful at harassing but never halting Iraqi launch operations. https://media.defense.gov/2019/Apr/11/2002115481/-1/-1/0/15CROSSBOW.PDF https://media.defense.gov/2019/Apr/11/2002115481/-1/-1/0/15C...

1123581321 5y ago

Hah, I remember being shown a, well, propaganda TV event for schoolchildren, where cute kids would lisp questions like, "what if we run out of Patriot missiles, but Saddam still has his SCUDs?" and the hosts would assure that we had tons of them left.

baybal2 5y ago
UAE has recently shot at least $150M of interceptors in a single night. THAAD, and PAC III. Raytheon people are all over the place there, to the point I bumped into them on every drone industry event I been (3 in total)
- pjc50 5y ago
  This does raise the question of attrition - if the missiles are much cheaper than the interceptors, it becomes an effective attack even if none of the missiles hits a target.
  - codechad 5y ago

aa-jv 5y ago

People are still cheering for the Patriot missile in unwarranted circumstances. Everyone calling for war with Russia seems to ignore the fact that the Patriot batteries that are 'simply defending a NATO members territory' are switched to attack weapons with a simple software change, meaning that the difference between safety and catastrophe is, as always with the Patriot technology, just a matter of software ..

edrxty 5y ago
They don't have warheads designed for surface strike. Do you mind elaborating on what you mean by this?
- gambiting 5y ago
  As a complete noob when it comes to weaponry - why would it need a warehead specifically designed for a surface strike? A missile going 1000km/h+ doesn't even need to explode at the target to cause some incredible damage when it hits, does it?
  - adriancr 5y ago
    A tomahawk can carry 450kg of conventional explosives or up to 150kt nuclear warhead. Compare that to a patriot which has a different purpose and was optimized to carry almost nothing. One can wipe out a large area, the other is like a large arrow... might not even penetrate a tanks armor?
- the_biot 5y ago
  aa-jv posts pro-Russian propaganda. Don't feed the trolls.
  - aa-jv 5y ago
    Not true at all. Anti-war != Pro-Russia.
    - 5y ago