5 ms·

Yep. But the picture shows it mounted on a trailer, so its position doesn't have to be static.

paganel 3y ago
In theory, yes, in practice, it's more complicated. Supposedly a similar thing happened with the recent attack on the Patriot system in Kiev, i.e. the Russians first sent some cheep Geran drones, the Ukrainians shot them down activating the radars around the Patriot system (or part of the Patriot system? not that clear), then the Russians sent some anti-radar missiles that took those Ukrainian radars out and in the third and last stage they sent some more advanced missiles that directly targeted and damaged the Patriot (which was by then without radar protection). Almost all images of radar systems that I saw from this war in Ukraine involved mobile units, both on the Ukrainians' and on the Russians' side.
- jandrewrogers 3y ago
  That's not how it works, the Patriot is a completely self-contained distributed system with a lot of redundancy. It has its own networked radars that can track both missile and aircraft threats. In the instance you are referring to, the Russians tried to flood the zone with a mixture of flight profiles simultaneously (ballistic, cruise, and drone) to overwhelm and complicate the defense. An air defense missile optimized for ballistic missiles won't be great for cruise missiles and vice versa. Patriot batteries contain different missiles optimized for aircraft/cruise missiles (PAC-2) and ballistic missiles (PAC-3). While there are human operators, the Patriot has a fully autonomous mode that is turned on for large-scale attacks like most integrated defense systems produced by the US. When that mode is enabled humans are no longer in the loop; the networked computers engage all of the targets simultaneously, selecting the optimal weapon assignment and timing for each target. That was clearly used here. If the Patriot didn't have radar it wouldn't work and it clearly worked. No Patriot system was damaged by Russian attacks, there is no evidence that anything got through. The only reported damage was an auxiliary system component getting hit by a large piece of falling debris, which was promptly repaired.
  - denton-scratch 3y ago
    > which was promptly repaired ...using Duck tape, apparently.
  - paganel 3y ago
    > No Patriot system was damaged by Russian attacks As per the US media [1]: > The damage to a Patriot air defense system following a Russian missile attack near Kyiv on Tuesday morning is minimal, three US officials tell CNN, with one official describing it as “minor” damage. The say the damage was "minimal", but it's there. (and the "minimal" part only showed up later, after the CNN reporter who had first reported it all got accused of being a Russian shill because of it) [1] https://edition.cnn.com/2023/05/16/politics/patriot-missile-damage-ukraine/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2023/05/16/politics/patriot-missile-...

In theory, yes, in practice, it's more complicated. Supposedly a similar thing happened with the recent attack on the Patriot system in Kiev, i.e. the Russians first sent some cheep Geran drones, the Ukrainians shot them down activating the radars around the Patriot system (or part of the Patriot system? not that clear), then the Russians sent some anti-radar missiles that took those Ukrainian radars out and in the third and last stage they sent some more advanced missiles that directly targeted and damaged the Patriot (which was by then without radar protection). Almost all images of radar systems that I saw from this war in Ukraine involved mobile units, both on the Ukrainians' and on the Russians' side.

jandrewrogers 3y ago
That's not how it works, the Patriot is a completely self-contained distributed system with a lot of redundancy. It has its own networked radars that can track both missile and aircraft threats. In the instance you are referring to, the Russians tried to flood the zone with a mixture of flight profiles simultaneously (ballistic, cruise, and drone) to overwhelm and complicate the defense. An air defense missile optimized for ballistic missiles won't be great for cruise missiles and vice versa. Patriot batteries contain different missiles optimized for aircraft/cruise missiles (PAC-2) and ballistic missiles (PAC-3). While there are human operators, the Patriot has a fully autonomous mode that is turned on for large-scale attacks like most integrated defense systems produced by the US. When that mode is enabled humans are no longer in the loop; the networked computers engage all of the targets simultaneously, selecting the optimal weapon assignment and timing for each target. That was clearly used here. If the Patriot didn't have radar it wouldn't work and it clearly worked. No Patriot system was damaged by Russian attacks, there is no evidence that anything got through. The only reported damage was an auxiliary system component getting hit by a large piece of falling debris, which was promptly repaired.
- denton-scratch 3y ago
  > which was promptly repaired ...using Duck tape, apparently.
- paganel 3y ago
  > No Patriot system was damaged by Russian attacks As per the US media [1]: > The damage to a Patriot air defense system following a Russian missile attack near Kyiv on Tuesday morning is minimal, three US officials tell CNN, with one official describing it as “minor” damage. The say the damage was "minimal", but it's there. (and the "minimal" part only showed up later, after the CNN reporter who had first reported it all got accused of being a Russian shill because of it) [1] https://edition.cnn.com/2023/05/16/politics/patriot-missile-damage-ukraine/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2023/05/16/politics/patriot-missile-...