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"U.S. has excellent defenses against all classes of ballistic missiles" This is the first time I've actually read somebody making that claim. Every other take

• Manuel_D 3y ago
  This is probably better interpreted as "the US has the best defenses against ballistic missiles". The Patriot missile is proven to defeat Scud missiles in real combat, and THAAD is the most thoroughly tested system against long range ballistic missiles. Is that going to stop 5,000 ICBMs with penetration aids launched against the US? Almost certainly not, and I don't think the author meant it that way.
  • jupp0r 3y ago
    I see. We do have good systems, but too few to be of practical relevance in most threat situations. The North Korea case shows that the step from having one missile to having 100 is extremely short compared to going from having no missiles to having one missile.
    • JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      > We do have good systems, but too few to be of practical relevance in most threat situations We somewhat intentionally lack defences against MAD salvos. Our defenses will likely remain adequate for defending against the likes of Pyongyang.
      • perihelions 3y ago
        I don't think that's a consensus view? Jeffrey Lewis says the opposite, - "The point is that North Korea is clearly aimed at overwhelming the US missile defense system in Alaska... At that cost, I am pretty sure North Korea can add warheads faster than we can add interceptors." https://twitter.com/ArmsControlWonk/status/1315005031075123202 https://twitter.com/ArmsControlWonk/status/13150050310751232...
        • actionfromafar 3y ago
          Can someone explain - even if they got one through, wouldn't North Korea basically be a wasteland 30 minutes later?
          • JumpCrisscross 3y ago
            > even if they got one through, wouldn't North Korea basically be a wasteland 30 minutes later The idea is if to have a credible threat to keep us from acting first, as well as giving many countries a vested interest in the stability of the regime: if the Kims go, North Korea goes, and so does somebody else.
          • jojobas 3y ago
            Congratz, you grasped the facet of MAD that is unacceptable losses - for the US a single warhead getting through is too high a price to destroy pretty much anyone.
          • onion2k 3y ago
            The danger is that an unstable leader would do it anyway to martyr themselves and their country.
          • deleted 3y ago
            [deleted]
  • WalterBright 3y ago
    I read that Patriot missiles cost $5m each. Should make a contract with SpaceX to crank 'em out for $20,000 each.
    • dboreham 3y ago
      Cost of individual military items is often clouded by the need to amortize development cost over a relatively small production run. Making an additional missile beyond the contracted quantity does not cost $5m.
      • deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      • WalterBright 3y ago
        > a relatively small production run Over 10,000 have been built. The R&D cost should have been amortized away by now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIM-104_Patriot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIM-104_Patriot
        • nradov 3y ago
          R&D has never stopped. Raytheon has a large team of engineers working on enhancements even today.
        • greedo 3y ago
          The difference between an original Patriot MIM-104 and today's PAC-3 MSE is huge.
  • dirtyid 3y ago
    Yes - best against moderately complex threats in limited numbers. For reference Recent SM6 test (FTM33) shot down 1 of 2 short range ballistic missiles with 4 interceptors in what's described as "most complex" test so far, but "most complex" hasn't hinted at dealing with anything like counter measures. Reality is, even US missile defense also haven't been seriously stress tested.
  • Animatronio 3y ago
    The Patriot has a very high failure rate and isn't all it's cracked up to be. https://veteransbreakfastclub.org/scuds-vs-patriots-desert-storm-1991/ https://veteransbreakfastclub.org/scuds-vs-patriots-desert-s... https://www.gao.gov/products/t-nsiad-92-27 https://www.gao.gov/products/t-nsiad-92-27
    • jasonwatkinspdx 3y ago
      That was 3 decades ago, and before PAC-3.
    • bahmboo 3y ago
      Those are 30 year old documents. Much like everything else the patriot technology has advanced a lot since then.
      • Animatronio 3y ago
        Alright, here's a more recent one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Riyadh_missile_strike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Riyadh_missile_strike "However, according to Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at CNS, the Saudis failed to intercept the missiles following a malfunction of the MIM-104 Patriot system.[3] One video appeared to show a Patriot missile launch on Sunday night go rapidly wrong, with the missile changing course midair, crashing into a neighborhood in Riyadh and exploding. Another appeared to detonate shortly after being launched in the Saudi capital. " Pretty much the same failure mode as 30 years ago I would say, so maybe those ancient documents are still relevant today.
        • JumpCrisscross 3y ago
          We’re watching a hot war where old PATRIOT batteries are downing Russia’s newest missiles. Given that context, this looks more like user error by the Saudis than any shortcomings of the system.
        • jasonwatkinspdx 3y ago
          Also a poor example. The Saudi's are infamous for extremely poor training and readiness in there military forces. This is how they lost Abrams tanks in Yemen in a way that would never happen to US forces.
  • michaelmrose 3y ago
    Nobody has 5000 ICBMs Russia has around 300 supposing that they actually work.
  • ummonk 3y ago
    "The Patriot missile is proven to defeat Scud missiles in real combat" - no it isn't. It quite notoriously mostly failed to intercept Scud missiles in real combat. It has been heavily upgraded since and modern Patriot batteries would likely succeed at intercepting Scud missiles, but this hasn't been proven in real combat.
    • Prickle 3y ago
      This was IIRC an issue back in 1990s due to how the system calculated time. So operation of a system continuously for more than 20 hours would cause the system to become ineffective until it was rebooted. http://www.cs.unc.edu/~smp/COMP205/LECTURES/ERROR/lec23/node4.html http://www.cs.unc.edu/~smp/COMP205/LECTURES/ERROR/lec23/node... Thanks in major part to Israel, modern patriot systems have been rigorously tested via fire. To equate the current systems to the ones from 30 years ago is very disingenuous. Patriot missile batteries in Ukraine have so far successfully intercepted all Khinzal Hyper-sonic Missiles launched by Russia. (At least, the ones that entered their Area of Operation)
      • ummonk 3y ago
        The comment I replied to specifically said "The Patriot missile is proven to defeat Scud missiles in real combat". That is a false claim, as I asserted, and none of what you mention says anything about defeating Scud missiles in real combat.
        • Manuel_D 3y ago
          Yes, they have. The widely publicized failure due to clock skew does not invalidate all the successful interceptions: https://www.ngwrc.org/files/IRAQ'S%20USE%20OF%20SCUDS%20vet%20write-up.pdf https://www.ngwrc.org/files/IRAQ'S%20USE%20OF%20SCUDS%20vet%...
• wazoox 3y ago
  And that was recently demonstrated in Ukraine, where a Patriot battery fired 32 missiles against incoming targets[1], but got hit nonetheless. It looks to me like missile defence works well in very unbalanced situations, such as Hezbollah's home-made rockets against Israeli Iron Dome, but is easily saturated when against a roughly equal adversary. [1] IIRC Ukrainians and US say there were 29 incoming missiles; Russians say there were 6 or may be 9 (unsure). Both numbers are probably made up, and truth is probably in the middle, 12 to 18 or so.
  • JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > where a Patriot battery fired 32 missiles against incoming targets, but got hit nonetheless It also shot down Russian hypersonic missiles [1]. I don't know which variant [2] we sent Kyiv, but this is almost certainly an old PATRIOT battery taking out "cutting edge" Russian hypersonics. [1] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/air-defence-systems-repelling-attacks-ukraine-early-tuesday-officials-2023-05-16/ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/air-defence-systems-rep... [2] https://www.armyrecognition.com/united_states_american_missile_system_vehicle_uk/patriot_mim-104_surface-to-air_defense_missile_data_sheet_specifications_information_description.html https://www.armyrecognition.com/united_states_american_missi...
    • twic 3y ago
      Kinzhal is an air-launched ballistic missile. It's roughly an Iskander dropped from a plane rather than fired from a truck: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kh-47M2_Kinzhal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kh-47M2_Kinzhal It is hypersonic, but it follows a very predictable high-altitude trajectory, so it's the easiest kind of hypersonic missile to intercept. I read a good thread about the various kinds of hypersonics a while ago, but can't find it now. Broadly, there are three classes: hypersonic cruise missiles (like Tomahawk but much faster), hypersonic glide vehicles (basically ballistic missile warheads with wings), and classical ballistic missiles. It's the former two which are new and scary. This touches on it, but is rather one-sided: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2023/05/23/ukraine-and-the-kinzhal-dont-believe-the-hypersonic-hype/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2023/05/23/u...
• somat 3y ago
  I think the claim is true, I also think that a lot of missiles would get through. A baseball analogy, an excellent, best in the world baseball batter will hit 4 out of every ten balls thrown at him. that is still an awful lot of balls that get through. For real world numbers note how well Israel does against all the ballistic missiles thrown at them, also note that these are slow short range ballistic missiles.
  • JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > [the ballistic missiles thrown at...Israel] are slow short range ballistic missiles They're artillery rockets [1][2]. Not maneuverable to my knowledge, but continuously (and noisily) accelerating. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qassam_rocket https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qassam_rocket [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_artillery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_artillery
    • CydeWeys 3y ago
      The motors on these burn out pretty quickly, after which point they become atmospheric ballistic (not truly ballistic because they have fins and there's atmosphere). This is true of all basic rocket artillery generally.
  • fsckboy 3y ago
    (quibble with the analogy, > baseball batter will hit 4 out of every ten balls thrown at him if you're talking about batting .400, that's 4 per 10 "at-bats", where each at-bat will on average consist of a multiple of balls thrown. )
• PicassoCTs 3y ago
  Also remember what a disaster alot of us-systems were that went untested by real battlefield situations for decades. https://www.vice.com/en/article/8xkgw4/patriot-missile-saudi-arabia-yemen https://www.vice.com/en/article/8xkgw4/patriot-missile-saudi... Its clearly a mostly unuseable trade chip of buying projected security for buying weapon exports. Which is okay, but for actual protection, look towards countries who actually use the equipment they have regularly in a warzone against a opponent similar to the expected opponent. Israel, turkey, other middle eastern countries, lots of african and some south american countries come to mind. Everything else is.. a mixed bag
• jjk166 3y ago
  Those criticisms are not about the technical capability of missile defenses, but the scale at which they are deployed. If you can shoot down anything, but you only have 40 shots, obviously you can be defeated by anyone who can make 41 of even the crudest missiles. Likewise the best tank in the world is much less effective after it runs out of ammo. But if the issue is merely scale, all you need to do is make more interceptors, which is a finite and predictable expense, as opposed to developing a new technology which could be a massive money pit that ultimately fails. The US maintains a rather small inventory of interceptors because for the past few decades only small strikes by rogue nations or accidental launches by major powers have been considered likely threats, and a large number of interceptors jeopardizes mutually assured destruction, which has been a much more cost effective counter against large scale nuclear exchanges. But there's nothing saying the US needs to stick to the current number if the global geopolitical situation changes.
  • walrus01 3y ago
    Although they are clearly not coming right out and saying it, the quantity of individual launch-cell-installed ballistic missile interceptors deployed in Alaska right now is clearly meant to deal with a threat from North Korea, not from Russia or China. The technology might exist but we would need something like a modern DEW line of many, many more of the same interceptors installed at bases spread throughout northern Canada to deal with a larger threat. It is assumed right now that the threat from Russia and China is met by the concept of mutually assured destruction, as neither Russia or China have a vast quantity of missile interceptors that could be truly relied upon to destroy hundreds of incoming US missiles. And the fact that US missiles can come from almost anywhere via submarine launch platforms.
  • throw_nbvc1234 3y ago
    > Curdest of missiles https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/ruaf-glide-bombs-ukraine-mass-use https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/ruaf-glide-bombs-u... For example, using gliding bombs rather then missiles or dropping dumb bombs from overhead.
    • jjk166 3y ago
• WastingMyTime89 3y ago
  The guy was the program manager of THAAD. He is not going to write that his work is worthless. That would have stopped his career a long time ago. Not that it means that what he says is necessarily untrue but you have to take it with a huge grain of salt. While definitely a subject expert, Tony Brunoula is approximately as far from a neutral party as one can be on this question.
  • kenjackson 3y ago
    There’s not many neutral parties when it comes to this topic. I’ll take domain expert on this.
• evilos 3y ago
  Richard L Garwin, the author of the first hydrogen bomb design, says that midcourse and terminal missile defense is easily overwhelmed by deployable decoys: https://www.garwin.us/mirror/030605nmdp1.pdf https://www.garwin.us/mirror/030605nmdp1.pdf
• stjohnswarts 3y ago
  Unless we have some super duper military technology no one knows about then we can't possibly stop 1000 russian warheads coming down on our heads. but neither can the Russians